There are few movie franchises that have hijacked my brain the way Final Destination has. I’ve seen all of them. Multiple times. Unapologetically. And I still think of them—more often than I’d like to admit. Like when I’m on a roller coaster. Or driving behind a truck stacked with metal pipes. Or God forbid, lying in a tanning bed. Suddenly, my brain is like, “Hey, remember when this was a death trap in Final Destination 3?” And I nod silently to myself, accept my fate, and start humming “Rocky Mountain High.”
There’s something oddly comforting about a horror franchise that doesn’t pretend you’ll make it out alive. Final Destination doesn’t bother with masked killers or haunted houses. The villain is literally death. Just… death. Unseen, inevitable, and often surprisingly creative. And unlike most slashers, there’s no real escape plan, no silver bullet, no final girl to cheer for. There’s just a vague hope that maybe—maybe—you can outmaneuver fate by reading omens and rearranging your Tuesday plans. Spoiler: you can’t.
The brilliance of the franchise lies in its simplicity. The formula is baked in: someone has a premonition of a horrifying, elaborate accident, panics, saves a handful of people, and then spends the rest of the movie watching those survivors die one by one in increasingly bonkers Rube Goldberg-style setups. That’s it. Every movie is essentially a chain reaction of bad luck, worse timing, and physics laughing in your face.
But what Final Destination understands better than most horror films is tension. The kind that makes you squirm. The kind that turns mundane objects into harbingers of doom. Suddenly, a leaky faucet, a nail gun, or a box of spaghetti noodles becomes a death sentence. And you, the viewer, are in on it. You see the clues stacking up like a sadistic jigsaw puzzle. You know something’s coming. The only question is how—and how long you’ll be forced to wait before it hits.
The first film (2000) was actually pretty subdued by comparison. A plane crash. A few scattered deaths. Some angsty monologuing. But it set the tone: death has a plan, and if you screw it up, it comes back with interest. By the time we get to Final Destination 2, all bets are off. The opening highway pileup? Iconic. Trauma-inducing. Responsible for thousands of drivers changing lanes every time they see a log truck. That scene alone earned the franchise a place in the cultural anxiety hall of fame.
Then came Final Destination 3, with its roller coaster carnage and a death-by-tanning-bed sequence that had me rethinking every spa Groupon I’ve ever considered. I don’t even tan. I’m Puerto Rican. I radiate pigment. But even still, if I get too warm while reclining in a small room, I instinctively check for malfunctioning wires and retractable arms of doom.
The franchise hit a bit of a dip with The Final Destination (number four, which ironically was not the final one), but it rebounded with Final Destination 5, which had a twist so good it made me want to forgive the previous film’s flat characters and awkward 3D. (Spoiler alert: FD5 is actually a prequel. The survivors die in the plane crash from the first movie. Chef’s kiss.)
Now, is the acting across these films… good? Not always. Do some characters make decisions so dumb you root for death to hurry up? Absolutely. But that’s part of the charm. You don’t watch Final Destination for Oscar-caliber performances. You watch it to yell “OH HELL NO” when a guy’s eyeball pops out during LASIK or a gymnast’s spine does something it’s legally not allowed to do.
And yet, beneath the absurdity, the franchise taps into something universal. The sheer randomness of it all. The idea that no matter how carefully you plan, fate might just trip you up anyway. It’s dark, sure, but also kind of freeing? Like, if a stray screw could take you out during a dental appointment, maybe it’s okay to eat the damn donut and stop obsessing over your cholesterol. Death’s gonna get you anyway. Might as well enjoy yourself until it does.
That’s the twisted optimism of these films. They’re nihilistic, but with a wink. They take the fear of death—a fear we all carry whether we admit it or not—and blow it up into something so absurdly choreographed that it becomes almost operatic. Death isn’t just a presence. It’s a showrunner. And it wants a five-star review.
What’s wild is how Final Destination has embedded itself in our cultural lexicon. You mention it in passing, and people immediately recall that one scene that ruined a part of everyday life for them. Nail salons. Weight benches. Escalators. Suddenly everything has the potential to be a trap. And yet, we keep watching. Why? Because it’s cathartic. Because we like to flirt with fear from a safe distance. Because deep down, we want to believe we can spot the signs and cheat the system.
I love these movies not in spite of their ridiculousness but because of it. They remind me that fear, when stylized and exaggerated, can be strangely fun. They let me feel the dread and the relief in the span of a few glorious, gory minutes. And maybe that’s the real draw—not the deaths themselves, but the breath you take after they happen. The laugh. The “thank God that’s not me.” The subconscious decision to not get on that roller coaster next time, just in case.
So yes, I still flinch behind semis. I still side-eye tanning beds. I still remember every elaborate death sequence more vividly than I do actual plot points. And I’ll probably keep watching these movies as long as they keep making them (and even if they don’t, I’ll rewatch them with glee).
Because in a world that often feels random and out of control, there’s something deeply relatable about a franchise that throws its hands up and says, “You’re not in charge—but hey, at least the soundtrack slaps.”