“Final Destination” was one of 2000’s guilty pleasures, a teen horror film with genuine substance, style and suspense. While delivering the requisite gross gore, it earned its $180 million worldwide gross with an intriguing premise cleverly explored:

What if someone’s premonition ends up cheating Death of some of its precious victims? Can a rift in Death’s design ensure life, or merely prolong it by meaningless increments? In the original, a teen-ager’s vision of a plane exploding on takeoff prompted a last-minute exit by him and his friends.

The good news is they survived; the other passengers didn’t. The bad news is the survivors quickly started dying off one by one in freak accidents, as if Death, Interrupted, had double-checked its list and started stalking the absentees.

It’s one year later in “Final Destination 2,” and a new cycle begins when Kimberley (A.J. Cook) has a premonition of a horrifying chain-reaction freeway crash just as she’s about to leave the entrance ramp.

She manages to save the varied lot in her vision — they’re all backed up behind her stalled SUV — but Death proves as recalcitrant in “2” as it was the first time around, taking a down payment of Kimberley’s fellow passengers and a whole lot of travelers on the Highway to Hell (AC/DC plays on her car radio, of course).

Part of the fun here is anticipating the Rube Goldberg-style machinations by which Death catches up with its targets (the first, involving someone who has just won the lottery, is particularly convoluted, right down to the impaled blue eyes). There’s also the bad signs and portents that abound — the prelude to the opening crash is loaded with them, hilariously so. It doesn’t help that everyone knows what happened a year before, or that there are unexpected ties between the first group of victims and the second batch of survivors.

Kimberley eventually seeks help from Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), the sole survivor from the original film now seeking asylum in a padded cell, and counsel from Mr. Bludworth (a cameo by Tony “Candyman” Todd). Everyone bands together in an effort to cheat Death, which nonetheless comes up with ingenious, intricately staged methods of execution.

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Some are a bit mundane, tending to provoke titters and discomforted laughs, but judging from the screams, gags and moans at a recent screening, the gruesome ones achieve their intended effect (all credit to production designer Michael Bolton). Can’t wait for the next sequel. . . .