The ‘Final Destination’ Series Has Always Been About Cheating Death— So Why Hasn’t Anyone Done it?
Slasher movies have always had a bit of a continuity problem. Basic story arcs demand resolution, and the only one audiences will really accept is one that sees the Big Bad finally meet their end. But then there’s this tricky thing called money (in the form of box office receipts) and the urge to rinse and repeat the slaughter. So, even after decades of inquiry, I still don’t understand how Jason Voorhees returned at the beginning of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. Jeffrey Reddick’s Final Destination series is a slasher at heart, and with the latest entry, Final Destination Bloodlines, Death has a hockey mask of his own. You can’t cheat death, but six films in, maybe it’s time you could?
Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein’s Final Destination Bloodlines is great. No doubt about it. Arriving 14 years after the last entry, the requel (yes, it’s a requel) is gnarly, funny, poignant, and fresh enough to suggest there’s plenty of life left in this killer franchise. Pretty ironic, sure, but the rotting corpse of 2003 still stinks, and it’s liable to derail the franchise before it even gets back off the ground. Someone has to live, and for as subversive as Bloodlines is, death still yields a bit too much control over the franchise’s bible and attempts to earnestly try something new.
Let me explain. When the late David R. Ellis’ Final Destination 2 was released in 2003, protagonist Kimberly (A.J. Cook) tracks down Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), the sole survivor of the first film. That movie’s protagonist, Alex (Devon Sawa), is killed off-screen when a brick cracks his noggin. Cue the disasters and attempts to cheat death again. Rivers is killed in a hospital explosion, though Kimberly, having died and later resuscitated, is presumed alive.
James Wong’s Final Destination 3 really commits to the ethos of death’s inevitability. Kimberly is confirmed dead in a bonus feature, and that film’s trio of survivors are trapped in an errant subway train as the credits roll. Franchise producer Craig Perry recently confirmed that, yes, those characters did die. Rinse and repeat. Both subsequent sequels end in the exact same way. Death is ostensibly cheated, the survivors breathe a sigh of relief, and then they’re quickly and humorously dispatched. Steven Quale’s Final Destination 5 deserves some credit for taking it back to the original, but the logic was clear. No one can cheat death.
Final Destination Bloodlines fills in several gaps when it comes to franchise lore, though its most interesting aside is the revelation, courtesy of the late Tony Todd’s William Bludworth, that Final Destination 2’s Kimberly is still alive, bonus features be damned. It’s a good call, and the suggestion augments the latest entry’s tension. After all, it’s now canonically confirmed that you can survive across sequels. Spoilers to follow.
Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) and her brother, Charlie (Teo Briones), allegedly cheat death via the Kimberly method. Stefani dies and is later revived. Science nerds will know it’s a fake-out because there’s no chance Stefani actually died, and soon enough, Easter Eggs collide as the siblings are splattered via giant logs courtesy of a train derailment. It’s funny. It’s cheeky. But it’s also dull.
For a franchise committed to the Rube Goldberg intricacies of cheating death, the series has rarely followed through. Cheap gotchas are used in lieu of an earnest commitment to shaking things up. Small as it might seem, there would have been mileage in either Stefani or her brother surviving. Think of the potential, the future implications. The tension, dammit. If death can be cheated, there’s an entirely new layer of suspense draped over every potential death scene.
And death’s inevitability might be the point… only, it isn’t. That’s just a baseline for gruesome kills and laugh-out-loud impalements. The series has always had something earnest to say about the juxtaposition between life and death, even when that message is sloppy or cloying. Tony Todd’s improvised monologue is perhaps the best those thematic undercurrents have ever been conveyed. Yes, I bought a ticket so I could see someone sucked into an MRI machine, but I’d also like it to mean something. That can’t happen if the series remains in 1980s slasher territory, killing off everything and having to scramble when it makes a ton of money, and it’s time to do it again.
Kimberly surviving is an augur, and I’d stake money on her appearing in the inevitable Final Destination 7. In horror, the only thing more certain than death is sequels, and in a few years’ time, I’m certain that prediction will be proven right. Almost like I can see into the future, tap into some kind of premonition. If I really could, I’d suggest trying something a little new next time. Oz Perkins’ The Monkey did, and it’s really just a grimmer, funnier Final Destination movie. It also moved me in a way the Final Destination series hasn’t in more than 20 years.
We need to take movies as they are, yes, and not get too deep into the nitty-gritty of supposing what a series should do to remain relevant. Still, as a fan since the beginning, I’m tiring of the CG blood splayed over the closing credits. Death has been playing the same game since 2000. I’ve seen it six times now. If he really wants me to be scared, buckle up and lock in for years of more entries, he’s going to need to make me care. I had a great time with Final Destination Bloodlines. I just wish that meant something.
Categorized:Editorials
