A masked intruder wielding a knife. A possessed car out for vengeance. The predations of a sinister ... mirror. Horror movies are adept at tapping into fears both realistic and irrational. The great thing about the Final Destination franchise, though, is that it splits the difference between being completely ridiculous and terrifyingly feasible. In every film, a group of people is saved from a catastrophic death—a plane crash, a derailed roller coaster, etc.—when one of them has a premonition that something bad will happen. From there, the survivors are picked off in elaborate accidents that are influenced by an unseen force: Death coming back to claim what it’s owed.
On the one hand, yes, it’s absurd to think that something as innocuous as lying in a tanning bed could spell your doom. On the other hand, people die in bizarre circumstances all the time—the dude who invented the Segway literally drove one off a cliff. This is what makes Final Destination unlike any other horror franchise: The terror comes from everyday life suddenly resembling Rube Goldberg machines. The latest entry, Final Destination Bloodlines, looks set to carry on that tradition.
Suffice it to say, you won’t catch me at a tattoo parlor anytime soon. In fact, the thing about Final Destination movies is that they’ll make you paranoid about being killed by anything—maybe a run in the park coincides with someone’s bike pedal detaching, spinning through the air, and flying straight through your skull. That a franchise can inspire such morbid thinking, however, is commendable in and of itself. That’s why, with Final Destination Bloodlines coming to theaters this weekend, I’ve pored over the whole series for a simple exercise: Which deaths are the most nightmare-inducing?
Before we get started, let me clarify a few things: There have been over 40 deaths across the Final Destination films, but in the interest of expediency, I’ve narrowed the list down to the top 20. The deaths aren’t being ranked by how creative or gory they are, just by how awful they would be to experience in real life. In other words, a quick death—even one that results in your head exploding like a watermelon—would be preferable to something that’s less flashy but more drawn out. I also won’t discriminate between the deaths that actually happen and the deaths that occur in premonitions; some of those are gnarly as hell. Lastly, most (if not all) of these deaths are so disgusting that turning all of them into GIFs feels like overkill, but I’ll throw in links to each for all you sickos out there.
20
Death by Gym Equipment (Final Destination 3)
This is a hard one to envision because I’ve never been the weight-lifting type. But in the event that I became indoctrinated into the Cult of Creatine, getting one’s head pancaked between a set of weights seems like a pretty painless way to die, all things considered. But you do have to remember that the character who suffers this fate in Final Destination 3, Lewis, is a varsity athlete who’s extremely yoked—his sets are heavy enough to crush his skull. In the same scenario, I wouldn’t be able to lift as much, and my head might not immediately get squished, which could lead to more prolonged suffering. But unless the MythBusters come out of retirement to determine how heavy your gym equipment would need to be to kill you on impact, this remains a more suitable outcome compared to Death’s other designs in the franchise.
Besides, I would never in a million years use gym equipment conveniently located below a pair of scimitars:
19
Death by Log Truck (Final Destination 2)
For my money, this is the most iconic sequence in the franchise. Final Destination 2 opens with a premonition about a truly horrific highway accident. As a logging truck is driving down a freeway, the chain holding all the logs in place comes loose. There’s an impressive body count in the ensuing chaos, but nothing’s as memorable as the death of Thomas, the state trooper who watches helplessly as a log flies through his windshield, obliterating his upper body. It’s a quick death, at least, but an open-casket funeral is off the table.
To this day, if I ever find myself behind one of these trucks, I’m switching lanes immediately.
18
Death by Airbag Release (Final Destination 2)
Death loves a fake-out, and Final Destination 2 delivers a doozy when Kat gets into a car accident at a farm. Her head is nearly pierced by a PVC pipe, but she survives, albeit pinned in the driver’s seat by a log across her legs. Still, crisis averted, right? Well, when a firefighter uses the Jaws of Life to pry Kat free, he inadvertently activates the front airbag, which plunges her head right into the pipe. An instant death, yes, but one that’s preceded by the kind of scenario—stressful, claustrophobic, sadistically creative—that would feel right at home on an episode of 9-1-1. And as much as I loved blogging about the accidents on 9-1-1, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live through one of them.
17
Death by Gymnastics Routine (Final Destination 5)
Last month, I was introduced to the 2006 gymnastics dramedy Stick It, in which Jeff Bridges coaches a gifted, rebellious tomboy to compete at the gymnastics world championships. My biggest takeaway was that Stick It must’ve been a queer awakening for a certain generation of viewers; my second was that gymnastics is stressful as hell. Flinging through the air at high speeds! Contorting your body in uncomfortable positions! Adhering to puritan rules about bra strap exposure! So when Candice goes to gymnastics practice in Final Destination 5, you can’t help but think about the many ways things could go wrong outside of the sport itself—there’s a malfunctioning AC on the ceiling above her and water trickling onto exposed wires on the floor, and the high bar she’s using is shoddily put together. Instead, all it takes is Candice losing her concentration to become a human pretzel. There are more painful ways to die in a Final Destination movie, but when it comes to gnarly imagery, we’re giving this a perfect 10.
16
Death by BBQ (Final Destination 2)
The Final Destination franchise is willing to not only kill a child but also make the poor kid’s death a punch line. At the end of Final Destination 2, teenager Brian is having a barbecue with his family, as well as survivors Kimberly and Thomas. When there’s an offhand mention of Brian’s near-death experience earlier in the movie—the type of incident that puts you on Death’s hit list—it’s too late to save him. The propane tank from the grill explodes, sending Brian’s severed arm onto his mother’s plate:
The irony of grilling meat before being turned into a shish kebab isn’t lost on me, and as far as Final Destination deaths go, this one’s over in a flash. Your family, however, is gonna need a lifetime of therapy—and, perhaps, a conversion to vegetarianism.
15
Death by Ladder (Final Destination 2)
Another situation where death is almost instantaneous, but it’s everything leading up to Evan getting his face impaled by a ladder in Final Destination 2 that would make your final moments unbelievably stressful. My guy comes back to his apartment and [deep breath] heats up leftovers in a microwave oven, unaware that a refrigerator magnet fell into the box; gets his hand stuck in the garbage disposal trying to fetch a ring; and sets his kitchen on fire while frying mozzarella sticks. He’s basically living out that Community meme:
I don’t know what’s scarier: Death working so hard to kill you that your apartment goes up in flames or, if you survived the ordeal, trying to explain everything to your super.
14
Death by Cinema (The Final Destination)
This hits a little too close to home. The theater is my temple, the place where I spend the most time outside of my actual apartment. To even consider moviegoing a deadly activity is a daunting proposition, but that’s exactly what happens during one of the premonitions in The Final Destination. While I appreciate the morbid humor of an in-theater explosion perfectly syncing up with an on-screen explosion—don’t give Michael Bay any ideas for 4DX screenings—I shudder at the realization that this is exactly how Death would orchestrate my demise.
I can already picture it: There’s a repertory screening for Michael Mann’s Heat, during which I sit front and center. Life couldn’t be any better, until a combination of shrapnel and flames destroys my body. On the bright side, when this happens to Janet in the premonition, she goes out pretty quickly. And if watching Heat is how I’ll die, I just want to make it through the bank robbery.
13
Death by Plane Crash (Final Destination)
Take your pick of any of the deaths in the premonition that kicks off Final Destination; they all end badly. (If you’re gonna go out, I say go out in style by getting yeeted through the sky.) For me, the plane crash sequence is slightly dinged by its familiarity in the realm of pop culture (Alive, Fearless, Lost, etc.). At the same time, preying on a universal fear is what makes Final Destination such a great tone-setter for the series—we can all agree that dying on a flight would be fucking terrifying. It’s something that always crosses my mind during a rough patch of turbulence, and those feelings have only soared (sorry) now that Boeing’s gone to shit.
At least Nathan Fielder is on the case.
12
Death by Roller Coaster (Final Destination 3)
Roller coasters do a great job of tricking our minds into believing we’re in real peril: a perfect excursion for someone who’s too freaked out by, say, skydiving but still wants an adrenaline rush. Like shark attacks, however, anytime there’s a roller-coaster mishap, it makes the news—no matter how rare they actually are. The inciting incident of Final Destination 3 imagines a roller coaster—the aptly named Devil’s Flight—derailing and killing everyone aboard in spectacular fashion. The riders’ sudden realization that the Devil’s Flight has gone from controlled chaos to an out-of-control death trap really is the stuff of nightmares. Knowing you’re about to die and there’s nothing you can do to stop it? Kingda Ka’s got nothing on that.
11
Death by Nail Gun (Final Destination 3)
A hardware store is the last place you want to find yourself in in a Final Destination movie, which Erin learns the hard way. In Final Destination 3, Wendy tries to warn Erin’s boyfriend, Ian, that he’s next on Death’s list. While Ian ends up getting saved, narrowly avoiding being impaled by pickets, Death moves straight on to Erin, who finds herself on the receiving end of a rapidly firing nail gun. Erin has her hand nailed to her face, which is horrifying in and of itself, but what’s even worse is that she’s alive long enough to let out a painful whimper. Between Final Destination 3 and the Evil Dead remake, I’m not just scared of nail guns: I’m worried they’re gonna kill me way too slowly.
10
Death by Tow Truck (The Final Destination)
Here’s an outlier in the Final Destination franchise: a scene where the audience is cheering for Death to do its thing. One of the survivors of The Final Destination’s NASCAR crash is Carter, a racist tow truck driver who blames his wife’s death on the security guard, George, who refused to let him back inside the venue. In retaliation, Carter plans on burning a cross on George’s lawn, but Death has other ideas: With Carter’s truck rolling away, he runs after it before a loose cable snags his jeans, dragging him across the street as sparks from the cable set his ass on fire. It goes without saying: Getting burned alive while simultaneously having your body scraped up by pavement would be an excruciating way to die. Let’s hope this is the kind of fate that Death reserves for the racists of the world.
9
Death by Your Kitchen (Final Destination)
You know you’re marked for death when your own home turns against you. Spare a thought for Final Destination’s Ms. Newton, the high school teacher who misses the ill-fated flight at the beginning of the movie. When more bizarre deaths occur among the survivors, Ms. Newton decides to leave town, which is a pretty sensible impulse. Sadly, Death has other ideas when Ms. Newton [deep sigh] pours vodka into a cracked mug that leaks across the floor, she spills the drink on her computer, the monitor explodes and slashes her throat, the trail of vodka ignites all the way to the kitchen, she slips and falls, and she reaches for a towel that knocks over a kitchen knife, impaling her. Oh yeah, and then the house blows up:
That’s gonna be a “hell no” from me. It’s hard enough for millennials to own a home; I don’t need one pulling out every stop to end my life when I’m having a nightcap.
8
Death by Acupuncture (Final Destination 5)
My needle phobia is so intense that I’ve nearly passed out, on multiple occasions, from getting an annual flu vaccine. So you can imagine my anxiety levels when Isaac gets an acupuncture treatment in Final Destination 5 that’s tailor-made for Death to mess with. There’s the incense starting a fire in the room, the massage table collapsing before all the needles pierce Isaac’s body as he falls, the sterilizing alcohol accelerating the flames, and, finally, a Buddha statue splattering our dude’s head. Getting stabbed by all those needles wouldn’t just be unimaginably painful: It’s my worst fear come to life. Honestly, just rewatching Isaac pulling a needle out of his body is making me feel lightheaded.
7
Death by Clothesline (Final Destination)
This is Final Destination’s first post-premonition sequence orchestrated by Death, and an unforgettably disturbing one at that. One month after the plane crash that opens the film, Tod is trimming his nose hair in the bathroom when he slips on the floor and the clothesline hanging from the bathtub becomes wrapped around his neck. What’s so agonizing about Tod’s demise is how every little thing conspires against him, including the shampoo spilling all over the tub, preventing him from standing up. Despite its simplicity, it’s one of the franchise’s worst deaths, not just because of how awful it would be to slowly asphyxiate but because you know you’re this close to cutting yourself free:
It’s definitely just a coincidence that I recently invested in a bathtub mat.
6
Death by Elevator (Final Destination 2)
True story: I used to work on the 92nd floor of the new One World Trade Center, which required taking a trip on two separate elevators. One day, as I was heading down, the elevator came to a sudden halt some 70-odd stories high. A person on the intercom said they were looking into the issue. Since I was alone in the elevator, I started talking to myself in an effort to stay calm until the voice on the other side said, “Sir, will you require medical attention?” I muttered “no,” the issue was then resolved, and the elevator was back in order. Maybe, like me, you don’t think you have a fear of elevators, but all it takes is one bad ride to trigger it.
In any case, you gotta empathize with what happens to Final Destination 2’s Nora, who’s slowly decapitated after getting caught between elevator doors. It’s a death that’s hard to shake off, even if Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil did it first.
5
Death by Escalator (The Final Destination)
The evil cousins of elevators, escalators carry a similar reputation of being a reliable mode of transportation that feels like it could be very dangerous if things went wrong. Look no further than The Final Destination’s explosive mall sequence, during which Lori gets her body caught up in the escalator gears. It’s like watching Quint get devoured by the shark in Jaws:
While I question some of the physics of Lori being ground into a gooey pancake, this is the worst kind of Final Destination death: It looks ridiculously painful, and it taps into the irrational fear that escalators are an accident waiting to happen. I’ll be taking the stairs for the foreseeable future.
4
Death by LASIK (Final Destination 5)
If we want to get technical, Final Destination 5’s Olivia dies by falling out a window, but the reason this scene is ranked so high is everything leading up to it. Olivia sets up a LASIK appointment, where her head is strapped down and her eye is pried open. The doctor reassures her that the procedure is perfectly safe. Personally, I’m not sure it passes the … eye test:
When the doctor briefly leaves the room, a cup of water spills onto the power unit attached to the laser, which starts malfunctioning. What’s really scary would be the powerlessness of being in that situation: your head literally stuck in place as your eye gets barbecued. That real-life ophthalmologists had to remind people that Olivia’s predicament couldn’t actually happen speaks to how traumatizing the sequence is for anyone without perfect vision. What’s so bad about living with glasses, anyway?
3
Death by Visiting the Dentist (Final Destination 2)
Dying at a LASIK appointment is the type of thing people can avoid by never undergoing the procedure; going to the dentist, on the other hand, is something we all have to suffer through. In Final Destination 2, teenager Tim has a dentist appointment from hell. Pigeons keep flying into the office window, which is, uh, far from ideal when someone is drilling into your mouth. Then, after the dentist gives Tim some laughing gas, he briefly leaves the room because another pigeon crashed into the waiting room. Death messes with the mask’s oxygen levels, and the nitrous oxide leaves Tim so immobile that, when a plastic fish falls into his mouth, the poor kid nearly chokes to death:
Tim is saved in the nick of time by a dental hygienist, but outside the office, he chases after those pesky pigeons before one of them causes a construction worker to drop a giant pane of glass on his head. The wildest part of this sequence, somehow, isn’t Tim getting completely pancaked: It’s the hygienist refusing to say a damn thing about his near-death experience in the office. Death being out to get you is bad enough, but having to deal with an unethical dental practice on top of it? No wonder so many people have dentophobia.
2
Death by Tanning Bed (Final Destination 3)
Forget the Final Destination franchise: This is a pair of all-time horror movie deaths. In Final Destination 3, best friends Ashley and Ashlyn (not confusing at all) visit a tanning salon. You can see where this is headed: The girls get trapped inside the tanning beds and are burned alive. However painful you think this would be, I assure you that the film takes it to another level: Not only are the Ashes slowly roasting, but it gets so hot that the tanning goggles melt into their eyes. These deaths were seared into my mind when I devised this ranking, and for good reason: By any measure, this is a brutal way to go.
1
Death by Disembowelment From a Pool Drain (The Final Destination)
Sicko cinephiles would have nothing to complain about if Final Destination peaked with the dual tanning-bed deaths. But there’s one scenario that, in my view, trumps them all: getting your insides sucked out through your asshole at the bottom of a pool. This fate befalls The Final Destination’s Hunt, an insufferable country club bro who’d definitely be responsible for criminal hazing incidents at his fraternity. The pool’s draining system activates and, as Hunt’s diving to retrieve his lucky coin, it starts to suck him in. The pressure is so intense that, yes, his intestines ultimately spray out like a geyser. Incredible stuff; I hope the guy who wrote this movie is in therapy.
This death is really three fears rolled into one: aquaphobia (fear of drowning), cleithrophobia (fear of getting stuck), and the fear of your guts exploding out of your asshole like a glorified T-shirt cannon (scientists have yet to name this phobia). Worst of all, people have actually died this way, albeit far less gratuitously. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, Final Destination ruined pools for everyone. In fact, after rewatching all of these films, I’ll be pulling a Clear Rivers and spending the rest of my days in here:
After seeing what everyone’s gone through in the Final Destination franchise, I’d rather die of boredom.
