Horror Aughts: ‘Final Destination’ and The Bloody Good Time of Cheating Death

Revisiting the classic franchise starter in which accidents happened for a very gory reason

‘Horror Aughts’ is a column in which I revisit scary movies from the 2000s that were big commercial hits at the time but have been largely forgotten ever since.

James Wong’s Final Destination was always a go-to-movie among Millennials in the aughts. A perfect intersection to connect with other horror buffs you just met because everybody saw it and knew it. It was one of those films — not the scariest, goriest, or most disturbing of anything but wildly popular — you had to see at least once to cross it off your list. To be able to say: “Of course I’ve seen it.” That was no feat but a simple proclamation that you knew your stuff and were up to date with contemporary/trendy horrors. For a brief moment (emphasis on brief), FD was somewhat like the Scream of the ‘00s. Though we all knew it was mid-tier at best, a sort of gateway drug to the real fucked-up stuff that came after it, we always appreciated the fun and game-y aspect it brought to the Movie Nights you hosted for friends when your parents weren’t around.

No doubt, 24 years later, Final Destination is still an outrageously dumb splatter but one that hasn't lost its dark sense of humor. You can’t not laugh at its artificial drama, sweating bullets to find something solid to grab onto during the first 30 minutes. The plot’s in-your-face omens couldn't get more obvious otherwise they'd gauge your eyes out. That said, the build-up to the ominous plane crash and its aftermath is still a fitting and surprisingly effective intro for a horror of its kind.

Everything happens in motion: the characters say or do something immature and stupid so we can immediately clock what stereotype they’re representing (the macho, the hot girl, the idiot, the weirdo, the slightly sensitive hero, etc.), while the upcoming catastrophe inches a little closer with every scene. The dialogue and the acting may be atrocious at times, but you can’t accuse FD of not having a reliable structure and sticking to it all the way. And once you get through the mandatory setup that establishes the rules of Death’s Design (and lays down the foundation of the franchise for many sequels to follow), that’s when the dumb fun truly kicks off.

I could give you a detailed plot description here, but I feel like it'd be redundant at this point. Everyone knows the gist: Death is after a handful of characters, mostly teenagers, to kill them with freak and outlandish "accidents" once they miraculously avoid getting whacked the first time they were meant to die. As Tony Todd’s iconic Death Xpert™ tells us in his show-stealing cameo, “In death, there are no accidents. We’re all just a mouse that a cat has by the tail.” So our hero, Alex (Devon Sawa aka Stan from Eminem's famous song and music video), and some of his classmates he “saved” spend the rest of the movie trying to outsmart Death with marginal success — and we are the beneficiaries of every failed attempt.

What I certainly give Final Destination credit for as one of its greatest strengths is how naturally it evokes a suspension of disbelief in the viewer. We instantly go along with the bonkers and highly implausible kills because they aren’t just part of the game but the reason this feature turns into a helluva thrill ride. Constantly guessing where the Grim Reaper’s proverbial scythe will blast down from has such an intense entertainment factor that I’m hardly shocked they made five of these films with the same premise — and the first one isn't even the best entry. Wong fills the finest moments of his flick with the kind of self-aware suspense that you know is contrived and insincere but can’t wait to see how it builds to a grisly and blood-soaked climax.

In essence, Final Destination preys on our curiosity and inability to turn away from the most horrific and harrowing accidents that sometimes happen in front of our eyes IRL. But here, the violence and excessive gore are all part of the design, and the script runs with them as far as possible. It does so with some deliciously vile, and at times low-key creative, instances where heads and arteries pop off like overgrown pimples ready to burst. Kitchen knives, buses, and bathtubs become unlikely killing machines. Yet one of the most nail-biting scenes in FD happens to be the most predictable one: the car parked on the railroad tracks. You’ve seen it a hundred times elsewhere, but Wong somehow ramps up the tension so ridiculously high and past its boiling point that the eventual beheading becomes a stone-cold killer (literally).

If there's one thing to complain about from today's perspective, it's that FD doesn’t offer enough wacky death scenes to watch unfold — which the following installments definitely tried fixing by upping their kill counts. Instead, there’s a lot of filler and some dim drama with characters that have no depth to portray genuinely complex feelings other than being terrified and paranoid about their potentially lethal surroundings.

Despite its glaring flaws, however, Final Destination remains solid, if admittedly schlocky, entertainment as an early aughts horror that blew up the box office (making over $112 million on a $23 million budget) over two decades ago. That couldn't happen today for various reasons, but there's no debate about whether the movie earned its place among the most popular and talked about horrors during the 2000s. (And what do you know, its sixth sequel is already in the works to premiere in 2025.) As for me, I can't deny I had a great time revisiting this piece of history and, if you were into it back then, too, I'd imagine you’d have a similar experience. So, have at it!

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You can find the first entry of the Horror Aughts column here. As always, thanks for reading and supporting The Screen.