The Final Destination

"You come hoping to see a crash?"
"No, I would like to see them complete– Of course it's to see a crash."

There comes a point in every horror franchise where it becomes a parody of itself. It stops being scary and leans into the utterly ridiculous. And sometimes these entries are okay or even fun. Jason X is a patently absurd movie and premise, but it’s also the Friday the 13th movie I rewatch the most.

Most of the time, though, the movies really aren’t very good. Even if they have occasional scenes that speak towards the potential of a much better movie, the overall experience is annoying at best and boring at worst.

The Final Destination falls into that second category. Honestly, just the title should be warning enough of that. Calling something the last movie in a franchise without it actually being the last movie is not a good look.

David R. Ellis is back to direct again after James Wong dropped out so that he could go make Dragonball Evolution instead. There are definitely some similarities to Final Destination 2, mainly in how the movie handles its lead character, Nick. Much like Kimberly did, Nick sees repeated, disjointed, largely useless visions throughout the movie to try and help him save his very annoying friends.

Why is Nick so special as to have multiple opportunities and visions? I don’t know. I actually know absolutely nothing at all about Nick besides the fact that he’s dating a girl named Lori and that he likes it when she wears sneakers. The only thing that I know about Lori is that she’s a student, thanks to a single line of dialogue where she thanks Nick for convincing her to take a study break.

Nick and Lori are friends with two of the most unpleasant people that I can think of, Janet and Hunt. Janet and Hunt used to date each other, and they kind of deserve each other. Janet actually has two personality traits: whining about how the supernatural freaks her out, and huffing in that very specific “2009 mean girl judging even when giving a compliment” kind of way.

This is double the number of personality traits that Hunt gets. When he finds out that someone has died in a horrific accident his only response is: “Damn. The world just lost a really hot MILF.” Hunt is also played by Nick Zano (Nate on Legends of Tomorrow) and the whole thing is just really weird to reconcile in my head.

Believe it or not, these four are very fleshed out compared to almost everyone else. Rounding out our survivors, we have The Really Racist Redneck, The Hot MILF that Made Her Sons Wear Tampons in Their Ears as Noise Protection, The Sad Mechanic Guy with Three Minutes of Screentime, The Nice Cowboy Guy with Two Minutes of Screentime, and George.

George is the best character in the movie, and is definitely in my Top Five Favorite Characters for the franchise. Everything that I have written so far does not apply to George in the slightest.

George actually has depth. He has multiple, concrete details about his backstory that we learn about. He has an interior life. He has struggles unrelated to the fact that Death is hunting all of these idiots for sport that we get to see on screen. He feels like he belongs in a completely different movie, occasionally to the point where it’s outright distracting and comical, like when he’s giving his big speech to The Sad Mechanic Guy with Three Minutes of Screentime about how to deal with survivor's guilt.

I love George. He is the highlight of the movie. (Especially since we get absolutely zero Tony Todd.)

“But wait!”, I hear you say, “If David R. Ellis is back, then surely the kills are good! Surely they’re practical and awesome and you’ll gush about those!”

Yeah... About that...

Most of the kills were in fact filmed practically. There’s some really cool behind the scenes stuff, and the kills do look pretty good in that. Unfortunately, The Final Destination came out in 2009, which was at the very height of the 3D craze.

Now, to be fair, I have only ever seen this movie in 2D. Maybe it looked really good in 3D! I doubt it! But it could have! Either way, every kill looks super fake and cheesy in 2D. Distractingly so. Nothing looks practical, aside from two moments that I will actually call out and praise.

The first is The Really Racist Redneck’s death. I do love a good fire stunt, and this was a good fire stunt. “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” over the radio also got a laugh out of me, as well as a glimmer of hope that the opening premonition had just been a fluke.

Alas, that hope swiftly died.

But we do still have another death which is appropriate nightmare fuel: Hunt’s. Drowning is terrifying to me on a good day, but the idea of being completely awake and aware of what’s happening just makes it all so much worse. What really got me, though, was the fact that it was an incredibly busy pool. Hunt wasn’t the only one in the water. There were probably at least twenty people swimming and having fun, and Hunt couldn’t tell any of them that he was in trouble.

The disembowelment was whatever. It added the necessary gore, but I almost would have preferred the kill without it.

Even with the kills that I did enjoy, though, there was a noticeable lack of Rube Goldberg machine build up. There was no real tension, no teasing to make us wonder how everything was going to play out. The hair salon came the closest to it, but then the kill was something completely different.

I’m sure that The Final Destination has its defenders. It’s not completely unsalvageable. For a silly popcorn horror movie, you can definitely do a lot worse. But you can also do so much better.

Random Thoughts

I did really enjoy the opening credits. The "Fatality Vision" was well done, and I liked how we circled back to it at the very end.

Another small detail that I found clever were the glimpses of the "it's coming" graffiti in every vision that Nick had.

Not sure how I feel about the implication that Death was the one behind the visions in the first place. It just doesn't make a ton of sense.

~~~~
An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.

• Movie Reviews home