Simply put, Death has no chill.
It’s a hard lesson to learn, but thanks to the Final Destination franchise, it’s one that we’ll all eventually learn the hard way; and there’s no better way to enjoy embracing the brief flicker of time we spend on this planet than watching than one of the devestating scenes of carnage that usually opens these movies. With the resurrection of Final Destination occurring imminently with the release of Final Destination: Bloodlines, there’s probably no better time than now to delve into the five different disasters that kick everything off and rank them in order of traumatising awesomeness.
So whether you’re due to shuffle off this mortal coil by getting roasted alive in coach when your passenger flight explodes, or getting pancaked by a flying log in the middle of a gargantuan, multi-vehicle apocalypse, you best spend the time you have left wisely and read these rankings…
5) On The Wrong Track – The Final Destination (2009)
It’s a testament to the quality of the franchise that even the weakest opening disaster by far still has an absolute ton of crazy deaths happening at a frankly deranged rate. Returning to the series after giving us the iconic car crash from part 2, David R. Ellis returns to dish out some more vehicular mayhem in the form of the disaster that hits the McKinley Speedway in the form of a multi-car pile up that ultimately causes the entire stadium to fold like a concrete house of cards. While his friends watch cars go round a track, Nick O’Bannon gets that familiar twinge that some bad shit is about to go down, but when a carelessly placed screwdriver causes the weather forecast to suddenly changes to a heavy shower of flaming cars, things go from 0 to 60 in no time at all.
When people aren’t getting buried by rubble or obliterated by a flying chassis, they’re getting their ribcages pulped by engines hurled like cannonballs or getting their heads spiked on jagged benches. Simply put, when Nick finally crashes out after being impaled on debris, we’ve learned that this is probably one sport that’s best viewed at home.
4) Rollercoaster Of Emotions – Final Destination 3 (2006)
Rollercoasters are fucking weird things, right? I mean no matter where you use one, you never feel entirely safe, especially if they’re one of those old ones run by swiftly looking carny folk and one of the accomplished things that the Final Destination movies manages to achieve is to realise the best, worst case scenario for every non-day to day task you can imagine. Now, even though there’s an argument to be made that the rollercoaster scene from movie 3 isn’t as frantically batshit as the speedway sequence from 4 (most of the victims fall screaming to their deaths offscreen), it’s far easier to relate to a shitty fairground ride going tits up than watching racing cars go blammo.
So in expected form, they usual Rube Goldberg shenanigans ensue leading to everyone’s restraints popping open at the absolute worst time as bodies are thrown clear to clang violently off the frame work and getting sheared in two by overhanging metal. We’re left with the sight of Mary Elizabeth Winstead dangling upside-down on the top of a loop-de-loop which probably does fairground operators the world over no favours whatsoever at the fatal apex of this final thrill ride.
3) Twisted Take Off – Final Destination (2000)
The one that started it all. However, while the plane crash that kicked off twenty six years of a phobia-bating franchise that’s strived to ruin day to day living the same way same way Jaws ruined swimming and Psycho fucked up showering may be a little passe now, it still has the power to make your stomach flip like an overzealous luchador.
With Alex Browning and his entire class on their way to France, it seems like it’s going to be an idyllic trip, despite the absolute metric ton of foreshadowing our hero has to wade through before he actually manages to board. However, even after he’s seated, that tense feeling refuses to let him go and not long after the plane has left the relative safety of the tarmac, shit starts to go south alarmingly quickly as the aircraft bucks and shakes like the bed from The Exorcist. Soon things get super bad and all the parent permission slips in the world aren’t going to project the school when students start getting sucked out of a hole that rips open in the side of the fuselage like pennies getting taken up into the suctioned a vacuum cleaner.
Last to go is the hapless Alex himself as waves of burning jet fuel give him a chemical peel facial he’ll definitely be feeling in the morning – or at least he would if the resulting explosion didn’t spread him and his classmates across a wide area of New York. There have been complex plane crash sequences before and since, but the ludicrous amount of foreshadowing and the viciousness of the sequence means as air disasters go, this is fiendishly one of the most fun.
2) Bridge To Nowhere – Final Destination 5 (2011)
By the time the fifth movie rolled around, the franchise had those show stopping disaster segments down pat and it showed. Despite finishing in a respectable second place, the collapsing bridge sequence still stand as possibly the most satisfying act of mass carnage the franchise has pulled off thus far as the scale is truly befitting Death’s grand plan.
A coach filled with company employees on their way to a corporate retreat find that they might be late returning to the office on Monday when the bridge they’re on starts crumbling like it’s made out of off brand Lego. In the mad dash that follows, Sam Lawton sees his various colleagues meet horrific/awesome fates as they are impaled on boat masts, smashed by falling cars and in one, extra nasty instance, coated in boiling tar. During the carnage, the film manages to pull off the impressive trick of having us be on the edge of our seats for this large scale sequence (arguably the biggest of the franchise) even though it’s a done deal that everyone in it is going to die deaths that are all utterly fucking metal – until the premonition ends of course.
And where else are you going to go to see Champ from Anchorman take a facefull of hot tar like Death’s most glorious money shot?
1) Riled Up And Piled Up – Final Destination 2 (2003)
This is it. The big one. The boss. The mac daddy of mass deaths. There’s been plenty on instances where a moment from a Final Destination movie has wormed into our consciousness to stab us with a pang of fear in our say to day lives, but while we’ve harvested a healthy wariness over such things as tanning beds, rollercoasters and stepping backwards into the road without looking, nothing – and I mean nothing – has penetrated our consciousness more than driving behind a truck filled with logs.
Yep, taking the crown is the highway pile up from Final Destination 2 that sees director David R. Ellis spin a magnificent orgy of screeching metal and screaming motorists as they’re burnt, bashed and obliterated in the ensuing chaos when a logging truck suddenly sheds its lethal load. One hapless guy is reduced to human yoghurt when a flying log spears through his car, another has his sternum rudely flattened by his own motorbike and while other cars flip and explode like giant, flammable tiddlywinks, Kimberly Corman ends up pinned in her car with her vapid friends as a flaming truck barrels out from the inferno to punt her into the next world with the force of God taking a penalty kick.
It’s ruthless, it’s brutal and by any standard you want to throw at it, it’s absolutely bloody spectacular and that’s why, out of all the disasters Death has conjured up thus far, this slice of vicious carmageddon makes an absolute killing.
Final Destination: Bloodlines is released 14th of May
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