Final Destination returned to the big screen with Final Destination Bloodlines, the first movie to arrive after a 14-year hiatus. The film directed the franchise back on track with its additions to the lore, suspense, and, of course, a handful of new, horrific, grisly deaths.
Final Destination has thrilled fans for a quarter century by continuously inventing new, terrifying ways to die. The deaths are usually absurd and almost cartoonish but still based vaguely enough in reality to make viewers second-guess driving on the highway behind a truck bearing logs or getting a tan. Viewers can use our guide to find the 10 best deaths in the Final Destination franchise, ranked by creativity and brutality.
Final Destination 2 - Log Truck Death
Easily the most recognizable death in the franchise, Final Destination 2’s log scene was so infamous that it stuck with viewers for decades. In the film’s opening sequence, Kimberly Corman (A. J. Cook) has a premonition of a highway pile-up. She foresees the straps on a logging truck snapping, sending them tumbling down the highway, including one that barrels straight through the front window of a police man’s car, decapitating the driver, and bursting through the rear end of the vehicle. Final Destination 2’s death sequence was brilliant, as it capitalized on car accidents, which many people have experienced or feared. It also created the most terrifying highway nightmare that surfaces in one’s memories whenever they see a logging truck.
Final Destination 5 - Eye Surgery Death
After narrowly avoiding a bridge collapse, Olivia Castle (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) goes to get laser eye surgery in Final Destination 5. However, Death quickly turns a routine surgery into something else. When the doctor steps away for a moment, the machine malfunctions, raising the laser beam’s power so it horrifically mutilates Olivia’s eye. In shock and missing an eye, she accidentally falls through a window. It’s the kind of rare death scene that can physically make one recoil at the thought of a laser going through one’s eye. Additionally, it garnered so much attention that sites like LASIK.com had to put up disclaimers debunking the possibility of Final Destination 5’s death.
Final Destination 5 - Gymnastics Death
Final Destination 5 also features a freak gymnastics accident. After evading a bridge collapse, Candice (Ellen Wroe) goes to gymnastics practice. It’s particularly suspenseful because she avoids several accidents, such as a nail on a high beam and an electric wire in a puddle. However, as she practices on the uneven bars, a distraction causes her to lose her grip, fly off, and land in a horrifically contorted position in which she dies instantly. Candice’s death is one of the most harrowing, considering how unexpected and graphic it is. Seeing the gore and hearing the impact of the fall makes this death one of the hardest to stomach.
Final Destination Bloodlines - MRI Death
Final Destination Bloodlines sees Erik (Richard Harmon) and Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) attempt to cheat death with a scheme at a hospital. However, things go wrong when an MRI powers on unexpectedly and its extremely powerful electromagnet instantly and violently pulls all metal in the room toward it. Erik’s piercings are pulled from his face, and he’s sandwiched between the machine and a wheelchair, with the chair impaling him through the stomach. The scariest thing about this death is that similar deaths have happened in real life due to unsafe MRI usage. Additionally, the scene is choreographed perfectly with a sneaky reference to Final Destination 5 that will leave viewers both horrified and awed.
Final Destination 3 - Tanning Bed Death
In Final Destination 3, friends Ashley (Chelan Simmons) and Ashlyn (Crystal Lowe) hit the tanning salon days after narrowly evading an amusement park accident. However, when a drink spills, it causes the beds to malfunction. As the temperature steadily rises, the girls find themselves unable to escape, their skin boiling, until they’re engulfed in flames. It’s one of the less realistic deaths, but frightening nonetheless. The shot of the girls desperately reaching their burning hands and fingers outside the bed as flames engulf them is one of the most haunting and ghastly of the franchise.
The Final Destination - Pool Drain Death
The Final Destination was one of the most poorly received movies in the franchise, but it did feature a few deaths that have stuck with viewers. After cheating Death in a race track accident, Hunt (Nick Zano) visits a country club with a swimming pool. Upon jumping into the pool to retrieve his lucky coin, a malfunctioning drain sucks him in, pinning him at the bottom of the pool. As the pressure increases, it disembowels and instantly kills him, with his organs surfacing from the poolside pump. Once again, it’s a Final Destination death that hits too close to reality and stands out for its shockingly brutal nature.
Final Destination 2 - Glass Plane Death
One of Final Destination 2’s worst deaths happens to a child, fifteen-year-old Tim Carpenter (James Kirk). First, Tim survives a nightmarish ordeal at the dentist, where he nearly chokes on a plastic fish during a freak incident. After leaving the dentist with his mom, Tim runs into a flock of pigeons, causing them to fly up and distract a construction worker, who drops a heavy glass pane. The pane lands directly on Tim, obliterating him. Final Destination 2’s glass pane scene was one of the most unexpected. Adding to the horror is that such a grisly death happened to a child in front of his mother, also making it one of the saddest deaths in the franchise.
The Final Destination - Escalator Death
The Final Destination culminates in a brutal mall sequence where an explosion causes unprecedented carnage. As Lori (Shantel VanSanten) and Nick (Bobby Campo) try to flee down an escalator, the explosions cause part of it to crumble, exposing gears. Lori falls and is slowly, agonizingly sucked into the gears despite Nick’s attempts to save her. First, her feet and legs are crushed before Nick loses his grip, and her entire body goes through, leaving no trace of her save for blood and a piece of flesh. It’s the kind of brutal, graphic death that, to this day, makes some viewers extra cautious every time they see or utilize an escalator.
Final Destination - House Fire Death
Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke) has a drawn-out death in Final Destination. At night, Valerie, who avoided a plane crash, makes tea for herself. She seems to sense Death’s presence, appearing unnerved and swapping her tea for liquor. She walks through the house with her mug, leaving a trail of alcohol from the crack in it. The alcohol causes her computer screen to explode, with a shard of glass slicing her throat. A kitchen knife then pierces her abdomen when she knocks over a knife block, before another explosion causes a chair to fall on the knife, driving it deeper and killing her. While the death felt a bit like overkill, it was precisely the kind of campy, almost cartoonish deaths that drew viewers to the franchise.
Final Destination 2 - Elevator Death
Final Destination 2 sees death-cheater Nora (Lynda Boyd) enter an elevator with a creepy man holding a crate full of plastic hands with hooks. She’s even more unnerved when Officer Burke (Michael Landes) calls her on the phone to warn her that an omen suggested a man with hooks would kill her. Panicking, she tries to flee the elevator, but her hair is entangled on a hook, causing the elevator doors to close on her neck. When the elevator starts rising, she’s decapitated after several agonizing minutes of bystanders trying to free her. The gruesome agonizing death is one of the best in the franchise and across the movie industry in general, where elevator deaths are oddly common.
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