Twenty five years ago, a new horror franchise was born with 2000’s Final Destination, a supernatural horror film that made Death an unstoppable slasher villain that employed Rube Goldberg machine-like tactics to reclaim the lives of those who evaded his grasp.
Final Destination, directed by James Wong and written by Wong, Jeffrey Reddick, and Glen Morgan, featured a clever setup that presented no shortage of creativity when it comes to delivering over-the-top kills and breathless, nail-biting suspense thanks to the elaborate series of events that would result in a gnarly and sometimes comically complex death sequences.
The series, now six entries deep thanks to this week’s release of Final Destination Bloodlines, offers some of horror’s most unforgettable kills, so much so that we’ve ranked the entire franchise (so far) by Death’s Designs.
In anticipation of the sixth installment, we’re retracing Death’s steps to examine the established lore, formula, and, of course, the standout kills from the series, starting with the film that set Death in motion back in the year 2000.
The Inciting Event
Final Destination established one vital component of the franchise’s successful formula straightaway: the inciting premonition of a lethal cataclysmic event that would disrupt Death’s plan and incite his vengeance.
The original movie introduces a high school class embarking on a school trip to Paris. Before boarding, Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) can’t shake the mounting feeling that something is wrong, which only escalates as he and his classmates finally board the plane. There, Alex experiences a vivid premonition of a mechanical failure leading to a catastrophic in-air explosion shortly after takeoff that claims the lives of everyone on board. He snaps to from his vision, but becomes hysterical when reality begins mirroring his vision.
That panic gets him and a handful of classmates and a teacher ejected from the flight, sparing them from the plane explosion that arrives minutes after deplaning but setting in motion an even grislier fate as Death returns to claim them one by one.
It’s a jarring and effective inciting event; the disaster gets grim in its explicit detailing of each death from passengers getting sucked out of the plane midair to being burned alive. Not only does this paint a stark picture of the kill order, a critical part of Death’s equation, but it helps prepare audiences for the Rube Goldbergian demises that’ll reclaim the disaster’s evaders.
The subsequent entries in this film series adhered to the blueprint that Final Destination established. Each would feature a plausible catastrophe, dialed up to gory excess, that would designate a protagonist who’s doomed to read Death’s clues in the bid to escape its clutches once again. The inciting premonition lays out the intended order for its human characters to decipher and attempt to shatter, and key music that helped signal impending Death machinations.
Final Destination‘s inciting plane crash may get overshadowed by some of the more elaborate opening sequences in subsequent sequels, but its impact remains just as effective today.
The Standout Kills
1) The First Cut is the Deepest
The first to fall among the plane crash escapees is Alex’s best friend Tod Waggner (Chad Donella), which sets the standard for the Rube Goldberg machine style of demises. In this case, it means that tension gets coiled to an almost excruciating degree as we watch Tod shaving in his bathroom, unaware of the dangerous chain reaction being set in motion around him.
The camera closes in on all the details, leaving viewers guessing at the myriad of emerging ways Tod could die. It even offers a fakeout; Tod nearly gets executed by a radio.
Instead, Tod slips into the tub and gets choked by the laundry line; a ruthless demise made even crueler by painful details like blood vessels bursting in Tod’s eyes as he asphyxiates.
2) The Lewton Bus
If the characters’ names aren’t already an indicator, the original film pays tribute to horror pioneers. While teacher Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke) is directly named after legendary producer Val Lewton, Final Destination pays an amusing tribute to Lewton’s original jump scare in his 1942 film, Cat People, referred to as the Lewton Bus.
The Lewton Bus is a technique that relieves the built-up tension with an innocuous jump scare. In Cat People, it was the abrupt and noisy arrival of a bus just as danger was about to strike. In Final Destination, the bus becomes literal as Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer) steps out into the street, where a bus unexpectedly crashes into her mid-sentence.
3) Kitchen Nightmare
Terry’s abrupt death is downright gentle compared to the film’s Lewton character. Death shows no mercy for the petrified teacher who blames Alex for the mounting body count.
Final Destination showcases the myriad of household items that can become tools of death as Valerie tries to unwind at home, with the camera soaking in all the details. The stovetop pilot light isn’t cooperating, which is a pesky problem for Valerie as she tries to make tea. It sets in motion the film’s most drawn-out death, a chain of suspenseful events that sees boiling water flung, spilled alcohol prompting an electric fire, and a resulting explosion that flings glass into her neck.
It’s enough to seal her fate, but Death isn’t done yet. Val also manages to yank on a towel that brings kitchen knives down with it…right into her torso.
Death’s Expert
“By walking off the plane, you cheated Death. You have to figure out when it’s coming back at you.”
Final Destination also marked the start of its sole recurring character outside of Death itself: William Bludworth (Tony Todd). The mysterious mortician gets introduced in the original film when Alex and Clear Rivers (Ali Larter) sneak inside the morgue to see Tod’s body. Bludworth’s brief but memorable scene provides key exposition about Death’s Designs and following the order. He warns of the consequences of interfering with Death.
Tony Todd’s appearance in this scene quickly made Bludworth a fan favorite and ensured that we’d see Bludworth again. He’s back one last time in Final Destination Bloodlines.