The 10 Best "Final Destination" Death Scenes
The bar for incredibly ridiculous fatalities has been set high for the franchise's latest installment, Final Destination 5. See just how high.
Image via Complex Original
Give the creators of the carnage-loaded 2000 hit Final Destination some credit: They dreamed up the ultimate horror movie villain. Unlike slashers such as Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, who could ideally be blown up or sliced into pieces (the key word being “ideally”), the antagonist in the irrepressible Final Destination series literally can’t be stopped, and that’s because it’s Death. Cleverly, though, the filmmakers never give the Grim Reaper any sort of physical form; it’s simply an unseen, destructive force that always manages to kill its prey. And what does that mean? Endless sequel potential.
As the Final Destination tradition goes, Death—such a character in these movies that it deserves to be a pronoun—systematically offs survivors of a full-scale disaster, lucky bastards dissuaded away from the homicidal master plan by a suddenly clairvoyant lead character. The soon-to-be cadavers in past entries have avoided, in chronological order, an airplane explosion, a highway automobile pileup, a defective rollercoaster, and a multi-car accident on a racetrack that turns the bleachers into a collection of severed limbs.
The latest sequel, Final Destination 5, follows a similar pattern, only this time the protagonists sidestep a collapsing suspension bridge. And then it’s a succession of crowd-pleasing slaughter that includes laser eye surgery and acupuncture. Will Final Destination 5’s money-shots best those of its predecessors? We’ll find out this weekend—don’t act like you’re not as shamefully excited as we are to see it. Until then, though, let’s see what the fifth one’s up against by counting down the 10 Best Final Destination Death Scenes.
Fire Escape In "Final Destination 2"
10. The Fire Escape Folly
Movie: Final Destination 2 (2003)
The first Final Destination, for all intents and purposes, takes itself quite seriously, working through its elaborate death sequences with a sinister, nearly humorless tone. Once it came time for a sequel, though, those involved with Final Destination 2 embraced the concept’s ridiculousness full-steam-ahead; the result, widely considered to be the franchise’s best entry, is a self-aware romp that opens with a staggering highway pile-up and heads straight into darkly comedic deaths.
After the perquisite “imaginary massacre,” the first legitimate corpse is Evan (David Paetkau), a faux badass who owns a Harley and pierces his nipples; yeah, it’s a joy watching him perish. And it all begins with spilled olive oil and a faulty sink’s drain. Nearly burnt alive, Evan makes use of his apartment building’s fire escape, which, of course, malfunctions, sending him to the ground in a flash…right behind the Asian noodles he tossed out the window earlier, which he slips over, giving the fire ladder a direct route to his right eye. We’re sure you can figure out the rest.
Flying Rock In "The Final Destination"
9. The Flying Rock
Movie: The Final Destination (2009)
The death of negligent mother Samantha in the fourth installment, 2009’s The Final Destination, is one of the series’ most tragic. Why’s that? Because Krista Allen, who plays the doomed mother of two soccer-playing youths, is incredibly hot, arguably the franchise’s sexiest participant. But we digress.
Allen’s final chapter begins with her kids trying to hit a sign with rocks while she gets her hair done inside a salon. The boys miss, leaving one pebble on the ground for the director’s camera to ogle—take a guess on whether we’ll see it again or not. By The Final Destination, the filmmakers tossed all plausibility to the side, and Allen’s big scene is sufficiently absurd evidence. It’s an exercise in goofy false starts, though the payoff is quite gnarly in its simplicity.
First, a shoddy chair almost causes the MILF’s barber to cut through her face with scissors; then, the ceiling fan topples down inches in front of her. Taking a massive sigh of relief, Samantha finishes her beautification, pays at the register, and stands in the open doorway and yells at her kids. Which leaves plenty of room for that rock to have an encore—right through Sam’s eyeball. In a series that relishes in over-the-top kills, a basic rock-through-the-pupil maneuver feels refreshingly austere.
Bus In "Final Destination"
8. The Unexpected Bus
Movie: Final Destination (2000)
Though 2000’s game-starter Final Destination is the darkest of the lot, it’s not without its wink-wink moments. The flick’s one real “Oh shit!” moments comes at the end of a highly annoying monologue from Terry (Amanda Detmer), the cute arm candy claimed by brooding tough guy Carter (Kerr Smith). It’s one of those speeches every audience members wants to give whenever a movie’s characters bitch and moan to no end, only Terry’s pleading is more obnoxious than the whining she’s retaliating against.
As she slowly inches into the busy road, still yapping away, it’s obvious that she’s not standing in automobiles’ line of movement for any reason other than to grant the filmmakers the chance to send her off in grand fashion. And that they most certainly do—she’s plowed by a bus that’s doing no less than 150 miles per hour. It’s telegraphed, sure, but it also achieves maximum impact thanks to its somewhat realistic look and the gaping expressions of everyone else in sight.
Weight Room In "Final Destination 3"
7. Weight Room Show-Off
Movie: Final Destination 3 (2006)
Lewis’ death in Final Destination 3 is one of the franchise’s best examples of clever misdirection. Set in a weight room packed with grunting brutes, violently active machinery, and a wobbly boombox, the arrogant jock (played by the awesomely named Texas Battle) meets his maker in the least expected way possible.
Well, that’s if you’re focused on those loosely mounted swords resting above Lewis’ head as he bangs out shoulder rows and defiantly curses off the Grim Reaper. Just as Lewis verbally flips death the proverbial bird with his “I just win!” proclamations, his weight machine of choice crushes his skull like a gnat inside two clapped hands. In all, Lewis’ final scene embodies all that’s great about the best Final Destination curtain calls: it’s both insanely gory and tongue-in-cheek funny.
Exploding House In "Final Destination"
6. The (Convoluted) Exploding House
Movie: Final Destination (2000)
Except for attractive teacher Mrs. Lewton’s extravagant sendoff, all of the unprovoked homicides in 2000’s Final Destination are relatively quick and basic. For the authority figure’s last hurrah, screenwriters Glen Morgan, James Wong, and Jeffrey Reddick hatched a multi-step death that prefaced the increasingly overwrought sequences of later sequels.
Clearly, Mrs. Lewton isn’t a science teacher; her end begins with the aloof woman’s decision to pour cold vodka into a hot mug, causing the mug to crack. The vodka steadily drips out, leaving pellets on the floor and sending droplets into a computer’s monitor, the explosion of which sends a glass shard into Lewton’s throat. She stumbles into the kitchen, where the streaming vodka puddle ignites the stove; on the ground after a vodka bottle hurls her way, Lewton grabs for a towel but instead knocks a knife holder over. And, yes, she’s still alive at this point.
But not for long. Once the stove goes boom, a chair crashes onto the knife lodged in her chest. The lesson here: Coffee mugs are for coffee, not alcohol.
Swimming Pool In "The Final Destination"
5. The Swimming Pool Drain
Movie: The Final Destination (2009)
As a whole, 2009’s The Final Destination is a piece of shit. Not a completely unentertaining piece of shit, mind you, but a turd that’s far too ludicrous for its own good. At one point, a bathtub lands on a hospital patient, which somehow looks more real than the guy who’s send rocketing into a fence with such force that his separates into terrible-looking CGI triangles.
Save for the aforementioned rock-to-the-eye bit, the film’s only worthwhile death happens to male bimbo Hunt (Nick Zano), and, fortunately, it’s a real doozy. At the town swimming pool, Hunt drops his “lucky” coin into the water; in true dumbass fashion, he dives in to find it, but instead gets sucked, ass first, directly onto the pool’s drain. The pressure escalates, Hunt clenches in agony, and the drain sucks up the poor dude’s insides like dust into a vacuum.
Good luck sitting down comfortably, or avoiding any derriere pain, after watching this one.
Shrapnel In "Final Destination"
4. Stifler's Split Head
Movie: Final Destination (2000)
Is it silly to refer to Seann William Scott’s resume as his very own “film canon”? The term “canon,” at least in terms of Hollywood, seems more apt for the likes of Daniel Day Lewis and Meryl Streep; Scott, on the other hand, has either play Stifler or loose variations of Stifler. That is, except for Final Destination’s jumpoff movie, in which Scott plays an immature elementary school kid in a high school teen’s body.
Throughout the film, Scott panics, manically complains, and suffers through a role better suited for Dustin “Screech” Diamond. So it’s a good thing that the actor, whom we otherwise like, at least gets to die in a magnificent way. His fatality comes after a rather well-staged sequence on a train track, during which four of the main characters battle through jammed seatbelts to evade a speeding locomotive, and, in their eyes, alter Death’s plan.
However, an unseen piece of shrapnel feels the track’s evil vibrations and makes a beeline for Scott’s mouth, slicing everything above the upper lip clean off. Stifler would probably say, “That’s some good head!”
Slicing Engine In "Final Destination 3"
3. The Slicing Engine
Movie: Final Destination 3 (2006)
For his brief screen time, Frankie Cheeks (Sam Easton) is Final Destination 3’s resident horndog, so it’s only right that he flat-lines on the grounds of a place that sells, that’s right, corndogs. Waiting for his fast food order, Frankie’s totally oblivious to the runaway truck that’s careening down the road behind him—he’s apparently never glanced into his rearview mirror before.
The freak-out hell truck (word to Wesley Willis) smashes into the back of Frankie’s whip; the collisions hurls the truck’s engine, its blades still ferociously spinning, right into the back of Mr. Cheeks’ car. The result: Frankie’s head gets mangled with the efficiency of a chainsaw slicing through a watermelon.
Tanning Beds In "Final Destination 3"
2. Feel The Burn: Tanning Bed Malfunction
Movie: Final Destination 3 (2006)
In Final Destination movies , it’s not the token black characters who die first, or early on—more often than not, it’s the cast’s hottest women. Case in point: Final Destination 3, which dispatches of its two bodily stacked bimbos, Ashley and Ashlyn (Chelan Simmons and Crystal Lowe) before the half-hour mark; though, Mary Elizabeth Winstead makes it through to the final scene, so that’s a nice consolation.
As for Ashley and Ashyln, their need to fake-bake turns them into overcooked grizzle. Lying in tanning beds, while topless (score), Ms. Dumb and Dumber end up getting trapped inside the scalding cocoons through a Rube Goldberg-esque series of only-in-Final-Destination-movies happenings. Once the beds’ temperature exceeds 350 degrees, the light bulbs pop, skin bubbles, and the poor hotties are covered in flame showers. Who would’ve thought skin cancer would ever be a preferred option?
Pigeons In "Final Destination 2"
1. From Pigeons To Crushing Plate Glass
Movie: Final Destination 2 (2003)
There’s hardly a better setting for a complicated Final Destination death scene than a dentist’s office. Inherently scary, a tooth doctor’s chambers is an inescapable house of horrors for people who hates drills, bubblegum-flavored fluoride, mini chisels. And in Final Destination 2, teenaged Tim (James Kirk) inadvertently thwarts Death’s unsuccessful attempts to use the dentist’s lair as a place of final breaths. Unfortunately, he’s too immature to avoid the Grim One’s last-ditch effort.
As Tim and his mom exit the building, two of the other “survivors” yell at them, trying to warn the mother/son pair that Tim’s next on the fatal menu. But idiotic Tim is too preoccupied with a small army of pigeons to heed their calls, leading to an enormous plate of glass slipping from a construction worker’s control and flattening Timmy an ant under a Timberland boot.
You might ask, “Wouldn’t his head just crash through the glass?” Probably, but who cares—shamelessly gory movie deaths don’t get much more satisfying than that.