Final Destination The movies are like slasher flicks where the slasher is god. Of course, no one ever says God. It’s always Death with a capital D – as in, Death knows you didn’t get on the plane that exploded, so he’ll lock you in a tanning booth or crush you with a glass plate. But it’s really a semantic distinction, isn’t it? God, death, the grim reaper: by any name, he has a plan for you. Cheat that plan and it’s your ass. Or rather, he’ll pull the intestines out of your ass with a swimming pool pump.
When this God kills, He does not use lightning. He uses whatever is lying around: a nail gun, a car engine, a fire escape. And like a murderer assuring that there will be no questions later, he makes it look like an accident. Sometimes, he gets too elaborate, setting off a domino effect of bad luck, hitting you with one thing instead of another. This is a God with a sense of humor. It’s really a complicated matter.
The premise is always the same: some young stud or babe has a premonition of some destruction, so they save themselves and a few others from a freaking freak accident — a plane crash, a multi-car pileup, a wrecked roller coaster. Coaster, etc. – only to be targeted by a supernatural force who picks off the survivors one by one through a series of Rube Goldbergian accidents. Glen Morgan and James Wong came up with this idea from a x files spec script, Mulder and Scully were replaced by a group of teenagers played by the likes of Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, and a post-American Pie Old William Scott.
In defiance of the title, there are now five Final Destinations (with a sixth on the way), each following a formula as rigid as the various metal poles and pipes that skewer the revolving door of victims. They’re all basically the same movie, which would be more gruesome if that movie weren’t so pompous — part ingenious suspense contraption built on our collective fear of the great beyond, part outrageously mean slapstick comedy. .
The big attraction are the set pieces, those eerie, life-sized games of mouse trap that are the object of the franchise. They end with some sharp and terrifying punch lines, but the real deeper joy is in the setup – all the growth and misdirection, as the filmmaker makes crosscuts around a room, focusing on the tiny mechanical failures that many fold and become complex, creating a chain reaction. Of impending genocide.
Take, for example, an early, devilishly long sequence in the fifth film. A college gymnast practices her routine on the balance beam. A screw falls from the ceiling and lands with the pointed end upwards. Will she step on it? Or maybe instead there is an exposed wire breaking on the floor below, like a small puddle of water being held shut precariously? A loose bolt groans on a nearby training bar, slowly slipping from its socket. A fan lingers ominously, waiting to play its part in the coming catastrophe. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the outcome. You might be feeling nervous just thinking about it.
In his very professional manner, Final Destination It is a director’s franchise. The premise demands a certain formal discipline – a commitment to legally present the brutal it-follows-logic of death sequences. The best of them are master classes in collaborative editing, leading the viewer by the hand through the mechanisms of a monstrous machine. Certainly, this is not an actor’s franchise. There is rarely a single memorable performance in the entire series, though it does occasionally bring out some genuine talent, like one-time scream queen Mary Elizabeth Winstead or the Candyman himself, Tony Todd, who is a gracious master of spectacular ceremonies through his work as. The role of an executioner who is more than a little surprised by all the “accidental” deaths.
By definition, eligible are expendable. Final Destination Barely pretends to be interested in them as people; These movies are usually as carefree as the universe that throws everyone away from their mortal coil. It may be the only ongoing franchise that regularly eliminates its entire cast – usually twice, in fact, if you count the initial vision of disaster. This might be frustrating if it weren’t so frequently, horrifyingly hilarious. There’s gallows humor, and then a jock laughing loudly in the face of death, before getting his skull broken by a weight-lifting machine. This is also a series that kids have no problem with barbecuing or grilling. This disgusting joke is on us all, and at the expense of mortality: one minute you’re here, the next minute you’ll be dead on the road.
Under the dirty laughter, Final Destination One confronts existential, even universal fears. It’s like a worst-case scenario simulator, entertaining all our rational and irrational concerns about a world that can never truly be free from danger. Have you ever stepped close to a road exit and barely restrained yourself from smacking yourself in front of a passing bus? Final Destination It extrapolates that brushing up with death on the everyday creates great multiplex thrills – most obviously in the case of the original’s best jump scare, which has been consistently botched in the years since.
Watching these movies reminds you how much potential danger lurks everywhere: on the street, in the mall, in your kitchen. What crazy done for rain and jaws Did it for the ocean, Final Destination So does entry into trucks and elevators and escalators and Home Depot and massage parlors and carnivals and drive-throughs and of course laser eye surgery. In a strange way, the franchise both anticipated and defied America’s fear of suddenly confronting its own vulnerabilities after 9/11; The original, which hit theaters in March 2000, begins with a plane exploding in midair, a tragic accident of unexpected national resonance.
Most horror movies, deep in their twisted hearts, are about the fear of death. These make it completely literal: what you see is a bunch of poor people futilely raging against the extinction of the light, and paying a terrible price for their vain, very human notion that they Can stop whatever is happening. We. But do not mistake this for nihilism. There is a God in the world Final Destination, He doesn’t love you at all.
Final Destination The films are currently streaming on Max, and are also available to rent or purchase from major digital services. For more of AA Dowd’s writings, please visit his author page.
