Few horror franchises have become a part of pop culture like Final Destination. Finding a truck full of logs on an expressway, riding a roller coaster, and even passing through a suspended bridge are synonyms with nightmare-inducing scenes that prove death, as well as life, will always find a way. Throughout five extremely violent and occasionally funny movies, fans were able to witness many creative ways to be killed, and now original director, James Wong, has revealed his favorite kill in the franchise that convinced everyone that tanning beds could actually be deathbeds as well.
Wong spoke to Bloody Disgusting about the legacy of the Final Destination franchise, the inevitability of death, and how a bonkers concept became a successful film: “When Final Destination came out, the critical reaction wasn’t over the moon or anything, but it just kept on. Generally, a movie goes out of the top 10 within the first three weeks, and ours just stayed up there for a long time.”
RelatedTime to have some fun, and dive into Final Destination, the horror franchise from the 2000s, and rank all the films by their gore content.
His gig writing for the TV show The X-Files resulted in a spec script that ultimately became 2000’s Final Destination and his feature directorial debut. 25 years later, he’s still eager to correct whatever didn’t work back then: “Warner Bros. was generous enough to give us some money and time to digitally redo the color of the movie.” Surprisingly, he looks back and says Final Destination 3 was the most fun he’s had shooting a movie and the one that has his favorite kill.
“That was probably the most fun I had in shooting a movie, and I felt fully confident that we knew what we were doing. We felt like the kills were right and the characters were right. The most effective death for me — well, besides the bus hit, which was just a shocking, fun surprise — is the tanning bed sequence.
“I actually really felt for the girls. It’s one thing to die with your clothes on; it’s another to be completely vulnerable like that. On set, obviously, the tanning beds were not hot, but their reactions made me squirm. I knew then that it was gonna work.”
The ‘Final Destination’ Franchise Returns in 2025 With ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’
2011 saw the release of Final Destination 5, and since then, we haven’t had the pleasure of going through a premonitory Rube Goldberg-like opening scene. However, after spending years in development hell, Final Destination: Bloodlines will renew everyone’s fears on May 16, 2025. Wong was kind enough to comment on the franchise’s exciting return:
“I thought the fifth was the end, the capper, because it kind of reverted back to the first one, but I’m super happy that they’re doing it. I have no idea what the sixth one’s about. I’m excited to learn as well as, hopefully, the audience. Craig [Perry, franchise producer] says people love the trailer and people love the movie in test screenings, so I’m excited for it.”
To be honest with you, I never expected that movie would go beyond the first one, so I’m just tickled. I’m happy to say that it’s survived all this time. 25 years is pretty incredible, and I’m proud of it.
Source: Bloody Disgusting
Final Destination is a series of horror films based on an unproduced spec script written by Jeffrey Reddick he originally submitted to the X-Files television series. Distributed by New Line Cinema, all five films are centered on the themes of fatalism, predestination, and precognition, in relation to death (i.e. how to foresee, avoid or control it). In a less abstract sense, each film features a group of people dying in a series of elaborate and often gory scenarios that frequently resemble Rube Goldberg machines in their complexity. The series is noteworthy amongst others in the horror genre in that the “villain” of the movies is not the stereotypical slashers, monsters, creatures, beasts, ghosts, or demons. It is the entity Death itself (very occasionally ‘seen’ as a fleeting shadow), which manipulates the environment in deadly ways with the intent of “recapturing” those who somehow manage (usually through warning premonitions) to escape their fates the first time. The franchise has also spawned a related book series (published by Black Flame) and comic series (published by Zenescope Entertainment Inc).
