If you wake up one morning in the mood for unusual kill scenes in movies, head to your local theater May 16 for Final Destination Bloodlines, the sixth installment of the long-running horror franchise and the first one in 14 years. Bloodlines is co-written by one of the great new horror screenwriters, Guy Busick, who’s co-written the fantastic horror satire Ready or Not and the two most recent installments of the Scream franchise. The new film ties all previous installments together, as one main character from each film is revealed to be the descendent of a skyscraper fire survivor from the 1960s.
This 25-year-old series revolves around Death exacting revenge on groups of teens who have cheated it, picking them off one by one (or multiples at a time) in creative, sadistic Rube Goldberg-like fashion. In past installments, the late, great horror icon Tony Todd has made cameos nearly every time as funeral director and Death expert William Bludworth (who may or may not be the personification of Death himself). He’s in Bloodlines, too, with an expanded role that delves into the character’s past.
Look, nobody said the Final Destination series is so-called “elevated horror.” At its best, Final Destination is highly entertaining, satirical, creative, and very funny. At its worst, well, you get to see teens accidentally flying through chain link fences and ending up little squares of flesh, occasionally in 3D so the pieces fly at the screen.
Here now are the top 10 most interesting kill scenes across the first five movies. Note that deaths as part of a premonition (a frequent plot device among the series’ many psychic characters) totally count, because otherwise we couldn’t include some of our favorites.
[Note: Video clips were age-gated on YouTube. Click each photo to watch the corresponding scene.]
10. The Butt Drain – The Final Destination (2009)
In probably one of the silliest death scenes in the entire series, and worth a No. 10 spot on its own for that reason, Hunt Wynorski (Nick Zano) swims to the bottom of a pool at a country club, going after the lucky coin that he believes is helping him survive against Death. The coin does not help. Hunt gets his swim shorts stuck in the drain at the bottom and can’t move. At the same time, the water pressure drastically increases and sucks the lucky coin — and his internal organs — down into the drain… through his butt.
9. Gymnastics Spinebuster – Final Destination 5 (2011)
One great fear that many gymnasts have is landing wrong at the end of a routine and suffering a catastrophic accident. That’s what happens here to Candice Hooper (Ellen Wroe), who is practicing her gymnastics routine not long after surviving a massive bridge collapse. Death isn’t happy that she avoided falling off the bridge, so another gymnast steps on a screw and falls, sending chalk into a fan, which blows into Candice’s face, throwing off her landing and bending her body in half.
8. Nail Gun to the Head – Final Destination 3 (2006)
Everyone knows not to play with heavy equipment. With Death’s revenge in this film in full swing, the teens are not so hapless, as the best death scenes in this series are preceded by some clever escapes, fakeouts, and near misses. Here’s how this one goes: A forklift in a garage starts running on its own (thanks, Death) which crushes several containers of blue washer fluid. The forklift runs into a pegboard, which runs into some ladders, which causes several sharp pickets to fall. Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) pushes Ian McKinley (Kris Lemche) out of the way, so Death picks the next target on the list: Erin Ulmer (Alexz Johnson), who slips on the washer fluid and activates a nail gun, which absolutely destroys her face with a dozen nails.
7. The Tanning Bed – Final Destination 3 (2006)
Anyone with claustrophobia can relate to the possibility of being trapped inside an enclosed machine with no way out — you know, something like a tanning bed. This one is a rare simultaneous death, as best friends with similar names Ashley Freund (Chelan Simmons) and Ashlyn Halperin (Crystal Lowe) decide to take in a session in adjoining tanning beds, not yet realizing that Death is after them, or they might not have fallen for such an obvious trap. A spark and fire raises the tanning bed temperature to an uncomfortable degree, and when the best friends try to push their way out, a vibrating phone leads to a coat rack falling on a shelf, which lodges itself between the beds and traps them. Ashley and Ashlyn first roast alive from the tanning bulbs, then burn to death when the beds ignite. Try not to think about the smell.
6. The Signs Were Everywhere – Final Destination (2000)
The original Final Destination is also the most satirical, with Easter Eggs, character names, and dialogue all related to scary movies, death, and the fear thereof. This movie kicks off several traditions in the series, including a stinger just before the credits that takes place months later, featuring one or all of the survivors meeting a late and ironic death.
In this case, it’s six months after the events of the film, in Paris, and there are, amazingly, three teens who have survived: Alex Browning (Devon Sawa), Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), and Carter Horton (Kerr Smith). A discussion between them about the proper order of Death’s revenge starts to worry them. Clear sees a bus premonition in a reflection and warns Alex just in time, but the swerving bus causes a street sign to hit a giant neon sign. Carter saves Alex from the swinging sign. To their horror, they realize that Carter is next, and sure enough, the sign swings back the other way toward Carter as we jump cut to the credits.
5. Second Floor: Severed Heads – Final Destination 2 (2003)
A rare victim who’s not a teenager, mother Nora Carpenter (Lynda Boyd), who has just watched her son die by a pane of glass, learns at the last second that a man with hooks is going to kill her. This happens, but it’s a bit more convoluted than that: In an elevator, her ponytail gets caught on a box of prosthetics carried by a creepy man. In her attempt to escape, she leaves the elevator, which closes hard on her neck. As the rest of the surviving cast attempt to free her, the elevator moves, squeezing tighter and tighter until it severs her head, sending the body out and the head rolling into the man with the hooks and Eugene Dix (T.C. Carson).
4. Clothesline out of Nowhere – Final Destination (2000)
Death is sneaky in this, the very first revenge scene in the series after the initial rescue and Death cheat. Tod Waggner (Chad Donella) is hanging up some clothes to dry in his shower, when some deadly bath soap appears under his feet. He slips into the shower tub, the clothesline gets wrapped around his head, and Tod is unable to reach the scissors in time and strangles to death. The blue liquid soap then moves on its own, draining ltself before anyone can find the evidence. That’s a dirty trick.
3. Laser to the Eye – Final Destination 5 (2011)
The best kills of the series rely on real phobias: plane flights, roller coaster rides, log trucks, and laser eye surgery, just to name a few. In this secret prequel installment filmed in 3D, Olivia Castle (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) is having LASIK eye surgery — probably not a wise decision when Death is after you. Sure enough, the eye doctor leaves the room, and the laser malfunctions, burning her on the eye and hand. Surprisingly, this isn’t what kills her, but it does cause her to stumble about blind and ultimately tumble out of a window onto a parked car several stories below. As a final act of irony, her lasered eye pops free from her face as she lands, only to be run over by another car.
2. Launched Through a Fence – The Final Destination (2009)
This is undoubtedly the silliest kill in the entire franchise, but also the most fun, because this was during the 3D boom of the 2000s, so this fourth installment was filmed so that all of Death’s finishing moves were aimed toward and out of the screen. About halfway through this one, after a series of other in-your-face deaths, Andy Kewzer (Andrew Fiscella) is launched into the air by a wayward C02 canister and through the grid of a chain link-like metal fence, sending his cubed pieces into the audience’s face. Not too likely of a freak accident, but still worthy of this list.
1. Log to the Face – Final Destination 2 (2003)
Was there ever really any doubt? The massive car and truck pileup at the start of Final Destination 2 is arguably the most terrifying, most phobia-inducing scene of the entire series. During a premonition by psychic character Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook), a log weighing several tons bounces off a logging truck, through a windshield, and straight through the head of Michael Landes (Thomas Burke).
This one scene has entered the consciousness of countless highway drivers, causing them to change lanes any time a truck carrying logs, or metal poles, or anything stacked and cylindrical, in their truck beds. As we mentioned, though this scene doesn’t really happen in the context of the film, it’s still included here due to sheer effectiveness.
Disagree with our choices? What’s your favorite death in the Final Destination franchise? Let us know in the comments!
Final Destination Bloodlines opens in theaters on May 16, 2025.
Thumbnail image by Doane Gregory/©Warner Bros.
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