Can you believe it’s been 25 years since the first Final Destination movie arrived on our screens?
Premiering in cinemas on 17th March, 2000, the inaugural outing spanned a franchise running five films and countless more creative deaths, which will continue later this year with the long-awaited reboot Bloodlines, the perfect way to celebrate the milestone anniversary.
The movies themselves may have increasingly leaned towards horror-comedy as they went along, but the recipe for their success remained consistent as they exploited our own anxieties about the ways we unknowingly risk death every single day, no matter how unfounded they may be. Each set piece is designed to keep us guessing what will go fatally wrong, in the process ensuring they would eternally linger in the back of our minds every time we boarded a flight, went on a rollercoaster, or drove across a suspension bridge.
To celebrate 25 years of the Final Destination franchise, we’re counting down our picks for the top 10 best deaths in the series, with extra points going to those with the most creativity – as well as the ones which have most impacted how we approach the everyday activities they depict onscreen.
It goes without saying, for those with a nervous disposition and an aversion to gore, don’t read any further, and especially don’t click play on any of the accompanying clips...
10. Laser Eye Surgery (Final Destination 5)
By the point of the fifth Final Destination movie in 2011, the formula had been so well honed over the preceding decade-and-change that it’d be easy to assume it’d have no more surprises left in store. And admittedly, the brutal demise of Olivia (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) plays out like you’d expect; her corrective eye surgery goes horribly wrong, with lasers flaying one of her eyeballs whilst she’s strapped to the seat, before a fake out reveal that she actually dies falling out of a window, impaling her other eye in the process.
However, as the franchise’s deaths had grown more comical in nature by the point, this one remains one of the most memorable due to the drastic departure in tone from the dark comedy around it. For those of us who have regular checkups at the opticians, it represents one of our worst fears come to life in the bloodiest way possible.
9. Kitchen Nightmares (Final Destination)
More than any other death in the original 2000 film, this OTT bloodbath forged the blueprint for what the franchise would become, blatantly ignoring the “hat on a hat” rule of comedy to throw as many grisly, hilarious obstacles in the way of teacher Mrs. Lewton (Kristen Cloke). However, whereas later deaths were defined by the number of misdirects throughout, this set piece was engineered to throw every possible risk you’d find in your kitchen at the screen.
There are multiple fires, cuts from a smashed vodka glass and impalings by a full set of knives, all building up to an explosive grand finale. It’s hilarious, and the creative team would continue to fine-tune this formula throughout the series with even more gruesome deaths confined to a familiar domestic setting – few are quite as memorable as this though.
8. Weightlifting (Final Destination 3)
Logic frequently goes out the window when it comes devising death scenes, and yet despite telling ourselves certain sequences could never happen, they remain front and centre in our brains when thinking about the most mundane everyday activities. For example, this particularly gnarly death in Final Destination 3 is the main reason I don’t go to the gym – or at the very least, is the excuse I use to put off joining one.
Of course, the weight machine is not the cause of death here, with the weights only crushing poor Lewis (Texas Battle) - egotistically screaming “f**k death” with each lift in the way only a character seconds away from dying would – after two swords dangling above the weight machine are cut down in a Rube Goldbergian chain of events. I’m pretty sure PureGym have a no swords on ceilings policy, but I’m still not going to risk going after seeing this.
7. Massage Impaling (Final Destination 5)
The most satisfying deaths are when the most grotesque, unlikable characters are set up as prey for the Grim Reaper, and Isaac (P.J. Byrne) might be the series’ most detestable creation. Being a sex pest is enough to make the audience root for his untimely demise, but the fact his death is set up after raiding one of his deceased co-workers' desk drawers and finding a coupon for a free massage makes it even sweeter.
Thankfully, the writers are acutely aware of the hatred we’ve grown for Isaac in such a short time and ensure that everything that can go wrong in a massage parlour does. His bed breaks and acupuncture needles are pushed into his skin, the room sets on fire, and he gets bludgeoned by a buddha statue; it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
6. Hardware Store (Final Destination 3)
I believe it was Anton Chekhov who said establishing that a character has a job at a hardware store in the first act means they’ll be killed with multiple nails in the skull by the third. Or something like that.
The trip to B&Q from our nightmares is brought to visceral life in this sequence, as sceptical goth girl Erin (Alexz Johnson) discovers that the curse is real in the most unbelievable way, as an out-of-control forklift starts knocking down shelves, with every object missing her. However, after an unrelenting number of fake outs, one item hits a nail gun, and she realises there was probably some truth to the escaping death theory as her life flashes before her eyes.
5. Dentist Insanity (Final Destination 2)
The only thing that makes us grateful for the impossibility of finding an NHS dentist is the chance a checkup could quickly descend into this. Many horror movies have exploited our fears around dental surgery before, but the sequel smartly sidesteps expectations for the ways things can go badly wrong from the first second, as a small army of pigeons fly through the window.
In fact, surgery itself doesn’t put Tim (James Kirk) at risk; a mix-up of laughing gas and oxygen causes the first obstacle, and choking on a rubber fish (just go with it) is the second. But he’s saved from both, not dying until he leaves the practice as a distracted construction worker is attacked by pigeons, causing him to drop a humongous glass pane on him – perhaps a sign the filmmakers were doing a public service by telling us we have nothing to be scared of at the dentist’s themselves.
4. Apartment on Fire (Final Destination 2)
After the death of Mrs. Lewton proved such a highlight in the first film, it was clear that the filmmakers needed to up the ante in exposing how our homes are such death traps. Step in poor Evan (David Paetkau), the first of the Route 23 survivors to die in the sequel, and all thanks to a bowl of noodles.
Initially following a familiar formula to that earlier death, with various kitchen utensils setting alight, the sequence leans far heavier on the slapstick comedy of the premise, with Evan’s death taking place after a pratfall on some loose spaghetti. It’s the most you’ll ever laugh at a guy getting a ladder through his eye socket.
3. Gymnastics (Final Destination 5)
The most shocking thing to happen in the gymnastics world until the pole-vaulter who got disqualified from the Olympics after his penis hit the bar, this practice session from hell was one of the key sequences where the fifth movie took full advantage of its 3D gimmick. A faulty air conditioning unit above the balance beam – another reason for us not to join PureGym – is the inciting incident here, although the way it leads to the death of Candice (Ellen Wroe) is delightfully unpredictable.
In all its limb-cracking goriness, it’s one of the most unforgettable set pieces in the entire franchise. As the first victim to die in Final Destination 5 – and, technically, the first to die within the entire Final Destination canon, as we belatedly discover this is a prequel – this sequence quickly revealed that the series hadn’t lost its power to shock over the years.
2. Tanning Beds (Final Destination 3)
Nothing dates Final Destination 3 as a product of the mid-2000s quite like having two characters who are clear parodies of the Paris Hilton/Nicole Richie-style ditzy party girl. However, the depiction of Ashley and Ashlyn’s (Chelan Simmons and Crystal Lowe) shared fate has managed to transcend its era thanks to one of the most ingenious setups in the whole franchise, which would have put tanning salons worldwide out of business if Geordie Shore didn’t come along to save the day a few years later.
Thanks to a melting slushie the pair snuck into the tanning room, the operational equipment begins to malfunction, leading to the pair getting locked inside their beds before being burnt to a crisp. It's one of the franchise’s very best set pieces due to its perpetual motion and fake-out reveals; it ends exactly where you expect it to, but the journey to get there is surreal enough to keep you second-guessing every step of the way.
1. The Freeway pileup (Final Destination 2)
We’ve tried to stick exclusively to the real-world deaths in this list, avoiding the premonitions no matter how brilliantly executed. However, there is one exception, and it’s arguably the most infamous Final Destination set piece of them all; the out-of-control log truck that derails and kills all the passengers on the highway behind it.
Not only is it one of the bloodiest, most over-the-top moments in a franchise defined by bloody, over-the-top moments, it’s also the one that I suspect the most of us have thought about on a regular basis. Regardless of whether it’s carrying logs, who hasn’t driven behind a giant lorry on the motorway and felt anxious that the worst possible thing was about to happen?
Final Destination: Bloodlines is released in UK cinemas on Friday, 16th May.
