The Final Destination series is known for its creative and gruesome deaths, with some of its most ridiculous still remembered as the best. The film series began in 2000 with the original Final Destination, wherein a teenager’s premonition saves several members of his high school class from an air disaster, only for death to come for the survivors in a series unexpected and violent accidents. Originally, Final Destination was written as an X-Files spec script before its author, Jeffrey Reddick, expanded the concept into a full movie.
The concept of death coming to the survivors through apparent accidents only materialized in a rewrite from filmmaking team Glen Morgan and James Wong, but it quickly became a core part of the franchise’s identity. While most teen-oriented horror films feature a malignant slasher killer, the notion of an omnipotent force of death motivating the accidents makes the kills all the more harrowing, even at their most absurd. As the franchise goes on, it embraces more and more absurd comedy in its gruesome death traps that have become a staple of the series.
10 Barbed Wire Bisection (Final Destination 2)
Rory Peters’ death in Final Destination 2 displays the franchise’s knack for understanding the intrusive fear wrapped up in common objects, as well as a characteristic disrespect for the laws of physics. As an exploding van propels a length of barbed wire fencing through the air, poor Rory Peters is run clean through while still standing. The uneven cut, which also takes off one arm at the elbow, is unsettling in its specificity. Other details, like Rory’s still-moving expression of surprise and the wet, textured sound design, make the absurd death stick in the viewer’s memory.
9 Barbecue Explosion (Final Destination 2)
The Final Destination franchise thrives off its wry balance of existential horror and pitch-black humor. One moment that successfully leverages its horror into laughs is the barbecue explosion that caps off Final Destination 2. As young Brian Gibbons goes to tend to the barbecue, his family reveals that Brian was also one of the survivors of the movie’s opening disaster, making him another target of death’s design. The ensuing explosion which annihilates Brian and sends his dismembered arm flying onto the picnic table before his screeching mother is paced like a punchline, buttoning up the movie with a sick laugh.
8 Escalator Mechanism (The Final Destination)
The Final Destination breaks new ground for the series by featuring two mass-death premonitions rather than one. The second, a catastrophe set off by a shopping mall explosion, sees Nick’s girlfriend Lori sucked up into the exposed mechanism of an escalator. It’s quite contrived as Final Destination deaths go, since Lori had plenty of time to get away from it, and the mechanism reaching her foot somehow causes her to begin spitting up blood. Nevertheless, Lori being slowly crushed like a tube of toothpaste is just the kind of grisly image the series does well.
7 Tanning Beds (Final Destination 3)
One of the most infamous deaths in the Final Destination series comes in the third installment with the egregious tanning beds scene. As Ashley and Ashlyn manage to trap themselves in malfunctioning tanning beds, the rapidly increasing heat proceeds to microwave the two alive. The absurd concept and gruesome execution finds the perfect balance between horror and comedy. The scene also gives way to one of the best match cuts in cinema history, as the two flaming tanning beds cut to Ashley and Ashlyn’s twin coffins.
6 Engine Block (Final Destination 3)
As the Final Destination franchise progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult for the filmmakers to stay ahead of the audience’s expectations. One smart act of subversion comes in Final Destination 3, when the two main characters narrowly avoid death by escaping their car moments before it gets demolished by an out-of-control truck. However, death still gets its satisfaction, as the engine block of their car goes flying into the vehicle in front of them, which happened to be occupied by another death-cheating survivor, Frankie. Once again, the series makes the death disturbingly textured by having the engine’s fan blend the back of Frankie’s head into soup.
5 Ladder Though The Eye (Final Destination 2)
In Final Destination 2, the series ratchets up the suspense on doomed Evan by exposing him to a near-comic gauntlet of potential death traps, from fire, to a malfunctioning garbage disposal, to a sparking microwave. The punchline comes when Evan meets his end thanks to a forgotten pile of discarded spaghetti. As he slips and falls directly under the fire escape ladder, it gives way and punctures his skull. While a ladder malfunction is one of the more likely Final Destination deaths, the absurd gauntlet of death traps that precedes it makes the sequence farcical.
4 The Pool Filter (The Final Destination)
Final Destination proves itself one of the most consistent horror franchises thanks to its enduring capacity to conjure gruesome deaths out of the most banal situations. In The Final Destination, the swimming pool goes to show the series still has its edge, four movies in. As Hunt Wynorski takes a dip in the pool, a malfunctioning filter seizes him and sucks his innards out (presumably through his anus). Again, it’s a death that plays fast and loose with the laws of engineering and of physics in general, but the film’s exploitation of a fear of pool filters is affecting nonetheless.
3 Glass Pane (Final Destination 2)
One of the franchise’s best fakeouts gives way to one of its most memorable deaths in Final Destination 2. After a tense trip to the dentist, packed with ominous implements and a near miss with an airway-blocking plastic fish, Tim seems to be out of danger, but he isn’t exempt from the rules of Final Destination. His penchant for chasing pigeons causes the birds to send a pane of glass crashing on top of him. The franchise has shown characters being crushed before, but the utter pancaking that occurs with Tim’s giant pane of glass is novel and macabre.
2 Gymnastics Practice (Final Destination 5)
Final Destination 5 stepped away from the franchise’s increasingly comedic tone with a more serious fifth outing, defined by its tension powerhouse gymnastic scene. Since the films have trained their audience to understand the catastrophic chain reaction that can be set off by a single mishap, a falling air conditioner screw landing on a gymnastics beam fills the scene with creeping dread. When it finally pays off, the ensuing calamity launches gymnast Candice to her death from a parallel bar. However, the series still delivers the absurdity with the over-the-top gruesomeness of her death, as Candice’s spine explodes from her back on impact, folding her body like an ironing board.
1 The Entire House (Final Destination)
Despite the horror movie’s unfairly low Rotten Tomatoes score, the original Final Destination is still the best in the franchise. The film delivers a series of unique and shocking deaths that each boast their own gruesome charms. Arguably the best death in the film is its most excessive, as a series of home mishaps at Mrs Lewton’s house all come to a head, inflicting an overkill death on the teacher. Shards of glass from an exploding computer slash her throat, a kitchen knife is pushed into her chest, and, to cap things off, her house explodes. It’s a display of absurd excess that the Final Destination franchise never tops.
