THE flimsy plot of this fantasy splatter melodrama proposes that a bridge collapses. One member of a group in a bus crossing it, who watches the disaster unfold before experiencing a time shift to just before it began, warns his colleagues to de-bus and run like hell. 

Seven of them do so, including some whom we have already seen meet grisly deaths.  At the funeral for the others, a giant gaunt black figure clad in black tells one of them that his death register is out-of-kilter and working at putting it right.

Which is what the rest of the film sets out to do.

What merits it has come from director Steven Quale’s creativity in killing off seven characters. When writers Eric Heisserer and Geoffrey Reddick are not confecting banalities of plot and dialogue, they are writing trite suggestions about making the next event more gory that its predecessor.

No character has more than two dimensions; several have fewer. The staging of the bridge disaster twice – once when nobody survives, once when the seven do – is impressive.

The film’s 3D print hurls gore and body bits. Well-worn clichés add little to its slight worth.

At Hoyts and Limelight.