Novels Novels Films Films | Comics Comic books | |
Final Destination is an American horror franchise composed of five films, comic books and novels. It is based on an unproduced spec script by Jeffrey Reddick, originally written for the X-Files television series, and was distributed by New Line Cinema. All five films center around a small group of people who escape impending death when one individual (the protagonist of each film) has a sudden premonition and warns them that they will all die in a terrible mass-casualty accident. After evading their foretold deaths, the survivors are killed one by one in bizarre accidents caused by an unseen force engineering complicated chains of cause and effect, resembling Rube Goldberg machines in their complexity.
Contents
The series is noteworthy among other films in the horror genre in that the antagonist is not a stereotypical slasher or other physical being, but Death itself, subtly manipulating circumstances in the environment with a design on claiming anyone who escapes their fated demise.
In addition to the films, a novel series (which includes the novelizations of the first three films) was published throughout 2005 and 2006 by Black Flame. A one-shot comic book titled Final Destination: Sacrifice was released alongside select DVDs of Final Destination 3 in 2006, and a comic series titled Final Destination: Spring Break was published by Zenescope Entertainment in 2007.
Overview
In the original Final Destination, high school student Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) boards Volee Airlines Flight 180 with his classmates for a field trip to Paris, France. Before take-off, Alex has a premonition that the plane will explode in mid-air, killing everyone on board. When the events from his vision begin to repeat themselves in reality, he panics, and a fight breaks out, which leads to several passengers being left behind including Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), Carter Horton (Kerr Smith), Billy Hitchcock (Seann William Scott), Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke), Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer), and Tod Waggner (Chad Donella), who witness the plane explode moments later. Afterwards, the survivors begin to die one by one through a series of bizarre accidents, and Alex attempts to find a way to "cheat" Death's plan before it's too late. Six months later, Alex, Clear, and Carter travel to Paris to celebrate their survival, believing they have finally cheated Death; however, after Carter is crushed by a giant neon sign, they realize that Death's plan is still in action.
Final Destination 2, picking up one year after the first film, features college student Kimberly Corman (A. J. Cook) heading to Daytona Beach for spring break with her friends Shaina, Dano, and Frankie (Sarah Carter, Alex Rae, and Shaun Sipos). En route, Kimberly has a premonition of a massive car pile-up on Route 23, killing everyone involved. She stalls her SUV on the entrance ramp preventing several people from entering the highway, including state trooper Thomas Burke (Michael Landes), Eugene Dix (T.C. Carson), Rory Peters (Jonathan Cherry), Kat Jennings (Keegan Connor Tracy), Nora and Tim Carpenter (Lynda Boyd and James Kirk), Evan Lewis (David Paetkau), and pregnant Isabella Hudson (Justina Machado). While Officer Burke questions Kimberly, the pile-up occurs as she predicted. In the days following the accident, the survivors begin to die one by one in a series of bizarre accidents. After learning about the explosion of Flight 180, Kimberly teams up with Clear Rivers, the only survivor of Flight 180 (from the first film), to try to save a new group of people from Death. This time the survivors are told that only "new life" can defeat Death, and they must stay alive long enough for Isabella to have her baby. It is later revealed that Isabella was never meant to die in the pile-up, and Kimberly drowns herself in a lake so that she can be resuscitated by emergency staff, thus granting her "new life"; saving her and Thomas.
Final Destination 3, set five years after the explosion of Flight 180 and four years after the pile-up on Route 23, has high school student Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) visiting an amusement park for grad night with her friends Kevin Fischer (Ryan Merriman), Jason Wise (Jesse Moss), and Carrie Dreyer (Gina Holden). As Wendy and her friends board the Devil's Flight roller coaster, Wendy has a premonition that the ride will crash, killing everyone on board. When Wendy panics a fight breaks out and several people leave or are forced off before the accident occurs, including Kevin, Wendy's younger sister Julie (Amanda Crew), Ian McKinley (Kris Lemche), Perry Malinowski (Maggie Ma), Erin Ulmer (Alexz Johnson), Lewis Romero (Texas Battle), Frankie Cheeks (