Any time a horror movie is even the slightest bit successful, it will spawn a sequel. And then another, and another, and so on for all eternity.

But the original “Final Destination” was a welcome addition to the genre’s catalogue. It was, in itself, a new idea. A decent script, intriguing visual effects and an intelligent cast of WB stars and other up-and-comers made the film a fresh look at existential angst within an adolescent vernacular.

The movie was full of hints and subtleties and many times reached near-religious musings regarding death and life.

“Final Destination 2” is, predictably enough, a dumbed-down replica of the first film. It doesn’t explore anything that its predecessor didn’t cover thoroughly, except for more brutally graphic and sometimes cruel death sequences.

The first scene plays off like a horror-film version of “Saving Private Ryan”: Think being trapped in a burning building and watching people evaporate and peel under molten fire while filleted body parts and human viscera bombard your face.

It’s sickening, hard to watch and thoroughly enjoyable. Watching little kids get blown to bits and car crash victims writhe in pain as their burning skin falls in clumps around them has never been so amusing.

This time around, 20-something Kimberly Corman (played by A.J. Cook, the quiet Lisbon sister in Sofia Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides”) has a premonition of a massive highway pileup as she is beginning a road trip with her friends. She ends up stopping traffic just in time for her and the other would-be casualties to witness the disaster that was meant for them.

Then she is pulled from danger by the way-too-studly-to-be-a-real-policeman Officer Burke (Michael Landes), as an out-of-control 18-wheeler takes out her car and her friends. Soon enough, the survivors start dying off in a series of deadly coincidences.

The cast is nothing spectacular, but horror movie fans have come to expect worse after sitting through any number of “Friday the 13th” films. Unfortunately, the filmmakers picked Ali Larter, playing Clear Rivers, to return from part one and not the likeable Devon Sawa as Alex Browning, who in this film gets a brief obituary shot after a mysterious flying brick took his life.

After Alex’s death, Clear gives up fighting for her life and voluntarily confines herself within a padded room of some ambiguous asylum. It takes some small amount of convincing from Kimberly for Clear to realize that living like that isn’t living at all, and she becomes the new posse’s twisted tour guide. Of course, this is a bad choice when you’ve made an enemy of death.

“The Final Destination” has a genius move in the elimination of the middleman. There is no metaphorical agent of death; there is simply death itself bent on bringing the bling. This gives the film an unprecedented amount of surprise, because we don’t see the ax being raised inches behind the heroine’s head.

Timing becomes totally spontaneous, and like Hitchcock’s best films, this keeps the audience completely under the control of the director.

Unfortunately, the cast is constant cardboard, and they are easily shown up by some violent cinema magic — the worst parts of the movie occur when they puzzle over their impossible escape plans. Hopeful ideas get confusing as the characters try to save a pregnant woman and kill themselves off.

But the entire point of the movie is nihilistic, and there is no escape for these ill-fated characters, so even if they could act and the script didn’t have them talking in circles, they would eventually be shown up by the seven seconds of their death sequence. So no harm, no foul.

The best acting comes from Tony Todd, most widely known for his role as the Candyman. He hams it up hardcore as he gives the kids advice on the inescapability of death and pushes a body into an incinerator before their eyes. He reminds us how hysterical the obscene can be and strengthens the film within its genre.

So if you’re looking for Oscar-worthy performances, or if you have any uneasiness about witnessing “Faces of Death”-style carnage so realistically portrayed that you’ll be checking your popcorn for cast-off spinal tissue and severed fingers, then you should take a pass on this one.

But if you enjoy your films when they bathe in gallons of teenaged blood and intentionally shoot for over-the-top nonsense, don’t miss this one.