The concept of unavoidable death is one of the most frightening concepts to have ever permeated horror cinema. Whereas slasher films like Halloween, Friday the 13th and It usually have their antagonists be visible threats where the protagonists can usually avoid, Final Destination, based on a rejected idea for an episode of The X-Files , shows that Death doesn’t need a face to dispatch its victims.
While New Line Cinema’s franchise is the only horror series that can’t profit out of Halloween costumes due to this fact, their six films about this premise still are fondly relevant today, and here is a ranked list of the worst to the best of Death’s Games.
6. The Final Destination (2009)
Directed by: David R. Ellis
Written by: Eric Bress
Starring: Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Mykelti Williamson, Nick Zano, Haley Webb and Krista Allen
Music by: Brian Tyler
Rated: 15
On a day out to a speedway, college student Nick O’Bannon (Bobby Campo) saves his friends and a group of other people from getting crushed in a freak racing accident. However, Death has other ideas for the survivors and Nick and his girlfriend, Lori Milligan (Shantel VanSanten), must find a way to break the latest chain of inevitable death…
Despite getting David R. Ellis back from Final Destination 2 to direct the fourth entry in New Line Cinema’s most cynical horror franchise, The Final Destination is such an unwatchable and annoying dud that ironically, almost killed the franchise despite being the most financially successful of the series.
Although there are problems that the stand alone sequels have that are not improved on, what makes this film the worst is that nearly every character is too unlikable to care about and the 3D effects are so poorly rendered, that it doesn’t even work as a B-Movie splatterfest guilty pleasure.
Overall, with a formula that was running stale even by late 2000s standards, PS1-level effects in the gore, and even the deaths running out of creativity, The Final Destination is proof that this franchise desperately needed new talent to, ironically, survive into the next two decades.
Rating: 1/5
5. Final Destination 3 (2006)
Directed by: James Wong
Written by: Glen Morgan and James Wong
Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman, Kris Lemche, Alexz Johnson, Sam Easton, Jesse Moss and Tony Todd
Music by: Shirley Walker
Rated: 15
After getting a haunting vision, a young woman named Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) manages to save a group of young people from getting caught up in a roller coaster derailment, but loses her boyfriend, Jason (Jesse Moss) in the process. When the survivors start dying in similar circumstances to the Flight 180 victims, Wendy and Kevin Fischer (Ryan Merriman), a young man who also lost his partner in the accident, must team up to stop Death’s (Tony Todd) latest rampage…
James Wong comes back to Final Destination to deliver new demented setpieces for death in the first stand alone sequel for this franchise, where the tone gets more cynical than ever. While Tony Todd only voices Death instead of Bludworth, his small cameo sets the tone perfectly.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ryan Merriman come the closest to recapturing the energy that Devon Sawa and Ali Larter brought to the first film and for her final score for the franchise before her death later on that year, Shirley Walker ends things on a high note with creepy fairground music, fitting the tone for this film’s inciting incident.
Overall, while it is disappointing that the franchise would start getting less pleasant to watch from this point on due to the cynical and less darkly comedic nature of the conclusions (same issue I have with the Smile films), Final Destination 3 kicks off the standalone films on a creative note with great performances and gory fun deaths.
Rating: 3/5
4. Final Destination 2 (2003)
Directed by: David R. Ellis
Written by: J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress
Starring: A.J. Cook, Ali Larter, Michael Landes, David Paetkau, James Kirk, Lynda Boyd, Keegan Connor Tracy, T.C. Carson, Justina Machado and Tony Todd
Music by: Shirley Walker
Rated: 15
One year after the Flight 180 disaster, another near brush with Death, this time foreseen by teenage girl Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook), results in her and another group of survivors of a massive traffic accident, being targeted by Death, this time, in reverse order. Along with a police officer named Thomas Burke (Michael Landes) and with the only survivor of Flight 180, Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), Kimberly must find a way to stop these new deaths…
Despite being the closest thing that this sadistic franchise got to a happy ending, Final Destination 2 still manages to up the creativity in the way that Death dispatches its victims, while also further expanding the worldbuilding regarding the way that Death operates and its relationship with humanity.
Aside from the late Tony Todd showing up for his exposition scene, the only other returning character is a much more interesting take on Clear Rivers, which Ali Larter portrays to such great effect, at least until her unsatisfactory arc conclusion. A.J. Cook and Michael Landes do manage to be likeable new leads, and even though the amount of characters are less interesting than the first film, they haven’t reached the level of hatred that some of the characters in the later sequels would be.
Overall, while not being as fresh as the original film’s premise of the true meaning of Death, Final Destination 2 does manage to be entertaining enough for a second trip into the game of life.
Rating: 3/5
3. Final Destination 5 (2011)
Directed by: Steven Quale
Written by: Eric Heisserer
Starring: Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Arlen Escarpeta, David Koechner and Tony Todd
Music by: Brian Tyler
Rated: 15
During a company retreat, a vision seen by office worker Sam Lawton (Nicholas D’Agosto), helps him and the rest of his coworkers survive a catastrophic bridge collapse. However, when the survivors soon start dying in mysterious circumstances, Sam and his ex-girlfriend, Molly Harper (Emma Bell), along with the rest of the workers, learn that Death is hunting them down and according to William Bludworth (Tony Todd), the only way to survive is to make a difficult choice…
Although the fourth film in New Line Cinema’s Final Destination series was intended to be the last one, the high box office success convinced them to make another one, in spite of The Final Destination also having the worst reviews of the franchise.
Going back to basics with the fifth film by bringing back the Vancouver filming locations, Tony Todd’s William Bludworth and the more atmospheric horror of the first film, Final Destination 5 is a welcome return to form, even with far more creative uses of 3D in the death sequences. Nicholas D’Agosto and Emma Bell, despite not being the most memorable leads, are a massive improvement over the snore fest of leads from the fourth film.
The shocking plot twist of where this story fits into the timeline, is what fans most remember about this entry, which makes Final Destination 5, out of all the stand-alone entries in this series, to have a reason for having yet another overly pessimistic ending, while also throwing in a funny death like in the first two films.
Overall, with one of the best bridge destruction scenes in film history along with Mission: Impossible III, new worldbuilding for this universe and great and gory deaths, Final Destination 5 was a great improvement for this series, even if fans had to wait another fourteen years to see Death return.
Rating: 3.5/5
2. Final Destination (2000)
Directed by: James Wong
Written by: Glen Morgan, James Wong and Jeffrey Reddick
Starring: Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith, Kristen Cloke, Chad Donella, Seann William Scott, Amanda Detmer and Tony Todd
Music by: Shirley Walker
Rated: 15
After having a terrifying dream, high school student Alex Browning (Devon Sawa), manages to get a group of his friends off a plane, including an outsider girl named Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), just before the aircraft suddenly explodes in the air. However, Alex, Clear, jock Carter Horton (Kerr Smith), his girlfriend Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer), class clown Billy Hitchcock (Seann William Scott), Alex’s best friend, Tod Waggner (Chad Donella) and their teacher, Ms. Lawton (Kristen Cloke), all find themselves at the mercy of Death, who has sworn revenge after being cheated…
Originally planned as an episode idea for the hit television series, The X-Files, Final Destination, which also took inspiration from a real nightmare that writer Jeffrey Reddick had about the true meaning of death, is a lot more atmospheric and mysterious than the gore heavy sequels, feeling like an episode of The Twilight Zone at times.
While the insane creativity of how Death dispatches its victims is started here, Director James Wong takes a much more restrained approach to the concepts of how Death operates, which results in some truly chilling moments, especially with the opening scene and in the moments before a killing happens.
Both Devon Sawa and Ali Larter make for the best characters of the franchise, along with the late Tony Todd making his one scene debut as the mysterious William Bludworth. While a lot of the other characters do embrace the stereotypical traits that the sequels would solely rely on, some like Seann William Scott’s comedic timing and Kristen Cloke’s traumatised teacher, do make them more interesting than usual.
Overall, Final Destination is a great and haunting experience about the terrifying concept of how the simple idea of being unable to control your own death, even if some of the first film’s least popular elements would become a lot more prominent as the franchise went on.
Rating: 3.5/5
1. Final Destination Bloodlines (2025)
Directed by: Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein
Written by: Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor
Starring: Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Richard Joyner, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, Gabrielle Rose and Tony Todd
Music by: Tim Wynn
Rated: 15
College student Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), after having mysterious visions of her grandmother, Iris Campbell (Gabrielle Rose and Brec Bassinger as a young woman) dying in her youth in a building collapse, finds out that these dreams are actually warnings. After discovering from Iris that her family has become Death’s latest targets after the former prevented the collapse in 1968, Stefani must find a way to survive…
After taking a fourteen year long hiatus, with a cancelled concept for a sixth film being a soft reboot that focused on EMTs, hospital staff and police and fire departments, given that they see death all the time in their careers, Final Destination has finally returned with Bloodlines.
While this sixth entry in New Line Cinema’s most pessimistic horror franchise is yet another standalone sequel to the now-twenty-five year old original that is a bit too cynical, Final Destination: Bloodlines has also gone back to the creativity that made the first two films so entertaining to watch. The death scenes that everybody loves about this gory series, are a lot more inventive and subversive than in previous films and the worldbuilding is brought full circle with a surprisingly emotional sendoff for fan favourite character, William Bludworth (Tony Todd), which results in the late Tony Todd giving one final performance as the cryptic mentor.
Overall, even with the formula starting to get a bit repetitive, Final Destination: Bloodlines opens up new possibilities for new kind of Death stories for this franchise , with new time periods, the consequences of preventing bigger mass death events and having much more likable characters such as Kaitlyn Santa Juana and Teo Briones‘s new protagonist sibling characters, ensuring that this series, unlike Death’s victims, will never stop surviving.
Rating: 4/5
Chaz’s Cinematic Odyssey 