I am seeing Final Destination 5 tonight and unlike two years ago with The Final Destination I wasn’t at Comic Con this year to have pretty much every single death scene spoiled for me in advance. However, that’s hardly the reason that film stunk. One of the biggest reasons I disliked The Final Destination was the decision to use so much CGI for the 3D effect rather than focus on fun and inventive kills. In fact, one scene where they almost had a great death in a car wash ends with the girl being saved… What up with that?
Well, Final Destination 5 is in 3D as well, and I can’t help but wonder if director Steven Quale will make the same mistakes David Ellis made on the last installment. In fact, The Final Destination was truly the first film in the franchise I took virtually no pleasure out of, which became quite obvious when I decided to put together a top ten list of my favorite death scenes from the first four films in the franchise. What I started to notice more than anything was how the fourth film pretty much copied several of my favorite deaths from the franchise. Three of them are actually included on this list and one comes in at #1.
Before you get started with my list, if you’d like a quick refresher, here is a one minute and 20 second look at all the deaths from the first four films.
Okay… you ready? Let’s get to it…
10.
Train + Piece of Metal = Face Slice
FINAL DESTINATION
When it comes to coincidences in the Final Destination franchise they either work because they are funny or really gruesome, or a disturbing mixture of both. When they don’t work it’s when you actually see “death” at work such as the water seemingly comes after Tod in the shower choking scene in the beginning of Final Destination.
However, when a rogue piece of metal is kicked up by a passing train and it slices open Billy’s (Seann William Scott) head it is quite excellent.
9.
Barbed Wire Fence Slice
FINAL DESTINATION 2
A gruesome scene in which Rory is sliced into several pieces after a barbed wire fence breaks free is one of the more implausible deaths in the franchise. Then again, most of the deaths are rather implausible, but the gore factor and overall silliness of it makes it quite memorable.
Of course, a different version of the same scenario was adapted into boring CG for The Final Destination. Here, you decide which one does it better.
| Final Destination 2 | The Final Destination |
8.
Weight Room Face Smash
FINAL DESTINATION 3
This is where the comedy comes in with one of the funnier, but still gruesome, death scenes in the franchise as Lewis (Texas Battle) is lifting weights and a pair of swords behind him look as if they will be the source of his ultimate demise, but he doesn’t get off that simple. Instead the swords are just the beginning as they cut into the cable on the machine he’s working on causing the weights to come down squarely on his head as he’s yelling, “F–k death! I just win!”
7.
Nail Gun
FINAL DESTINATION 3
The more excessive the deaths are in this franchise the more entertaining they can be. Just how many nails through the head from a nail gun would it take to kill a person. In 2006 an Oregon man took 12 nails to the head and survived… Erin (Alexz Johnson) wasn’t so lucky.
6.
Plate Glass Splatter
FINAL DESTINATION 2
I will be the first to admit this is a pretty stupid death when you consider the cause, but I’ll be damned if I just don’t love the end result. Watching it frame by frame it doesn’t look very impressive as it is painfully obvious it is a dummy getting smushed by the falling glass, but in real-time I just love this one.
