WARNING: This blog post has some (but not a lot) spoilers on the new movie 'The Final Destination' a.k.a. 'Final Destination 4'. So if you plan to watch the movie and don't really wanna know what's going to happen at some parts, then skip this post til you're done with the movie. Also, if you really hate watching or reading about gory stuff, then you should skip this post altogether. Selina Cheng, that means you. :)
I actually can't believe they managed to come out with a fourth installment of the Final Destination movies, but they did, and I just watched it last week (it was a rather impromptu decision with a friend. I was hoping to watch 'Orphan' instead, which is apparently a good psychological thriller, but GSC Summit apparently does not know the movie exists). For those living under a coconut shell, here's a super brief run down on the premise of all the Final Destination movies:
1) Lead character is at a certain location or event with bunch of other people, including friends (eg. in FD 1, they were in a plane about to take off. In FD 2, it was on a highway, FD 3, a roller coaster, and FD4, they were watching a car race).
2) Lead character has a premonition of a horrible accident where everyone dies is a very gross way.
3) Lead character wakes up from premonition, freaks out, kicks up a fuss and gets out of said location a.s.a.p., with a bunch of other people following him or her for some reason or another.
4) Horrible accident occurs as per lead character's premonition. Whole lot of people die except the people who left because the lead character kicked up a fuss. These people are now termed the survivors. But not for long.
5) After a while, the survivors die one by one is really gross and horrific manners, in the same order that they would have died in the accident.
6) Lead character, usually being the last one destined to die, figures out that the survivors initially 'cheated' death, but death (which is referred to as some sort of entity, so to differentiate between 'death' as an incident and 'death' the entity, I shall henceforth refer to the latter as Mr. Death. Of course, they never actually call it Mr. Death in the movie, but it sounds kinda cute) apparently has a designed plan and is catching up with the survivors to make sure it happens.
7) Lead characters and couple of other survivors start their quest to figure out who is the next person to die and try and stop the death in the hopes that this will foil Mr. Death's dastardly plan and save the remaining survivors (including themselves) in the process.
8) In the end, they usually all end up dead anyway, with some exceptions.
Doesn't that all just sound so peachy? And yet with all its gruesomeness, there are sickos like myself who just enjoy watching this stuff, just to see what totally disgusting way a person can die the producers will think of next (and yet we still get away with appearing perfectly normal! >:)). In this respect, FD 4 is ok as it has some pretty creative deaths and some pretty lame ones. And thus leads to the purpose of this post, which is my opinion on what makes a cool death and an uncool death in the FD series. Of course, in real life, death is never cool... but this is not real life. This is the world of Final Destination.
An uncool death is....
1) A rehashed death: Having a person die the exact same way as in a previous movie is BORING. For example, in FD 4 one guy got run over by an ambulance (like the thing just came outta nowhere as he was crossing the road, then 'SPLAT' went the dude). Pretty much the same thing happened in FD 1, where a girl was also very suddenly mowed down by a truck. It's for shock factor, I presume, but rehashing the same kind of death kinda kills the shock factor. Pun intended. Fortunately, I think that was the only rehashed death in the entire series.
2) A death due to idiotic carelessness: The actual death may still be interesting, but if the reason the death occurred is due to somebody's pure carelessness, for some reason I get rather annoyed. And this happened a LOT in FD4. For example, a nurse left the water running in the bath tub of a incapacitated hospital patient's room and left the room, causing the tub to overflow (what kinda dumb nurse is that?). A mechanic in a car repair shop put a can of drink on a vibrating machine (I don't think any normal mechanic would be dumb enough to do that). And the guy who simply threw his shirt on top of a device next to the pool, activating the pool drain pipe (the device should have been properly enclosed in the first place if it was used to activate something potentially dangerous!). I mean if a death happened because it was part of death's plan and Mr. Death caused certain events to happen to lead to a death, then it's a pretty justified death. But if a death was due to someone's dumb carelessness, then it feels very unjustified. Like you want me to believe Mr. Death caused someone to become extra dumb or something? D'oh!
3) A 'so-quick-they-don't-know-what-hit-him/her' death: Referring to deaths that happened so suddenly and so fast, with no clue that something was about to happen. Like, one second the fella is chatting and alive, and the next, the same fella is mowed down, impaled, etc and they're more instantly dead than instant noodles. Examples are like suddenly moved down by a truck or ambulance, which I mentioned under Uncool Death #1. Again, these deaths are purely for shock factor, but due to the lack of build up of clues to how the person will die, and also since the person doesn't really suffer anything coz' he or she dies instantly, the death isn't as interesting. It's kinda like "Ack! Oh! He got mowed down!.... That's it??". Blah.
Now my opinion of a COOL death (with reference to some of my favourite death scenes in the entire FD series) is:
1) The death of an annoying character: Well, the actual death of the annoying character itself may not be particularly interesting... but coolness factor lies in the satisfaction of watching that annoying person finally get killed and then feeling no sympathy afterwards. Good example was this guy who played the school jock in FD 3. He refused to believe the warning that he was about to die, and kept going on and on about how strong and invincible he was. So why he was lifting weights at gym and the protagonists were again warning him of his impending death and he was still behaving like he had an overinflated balloon in his head, the weights released from the machine, came down and smashed together with his head in between. The method of death itself kinda falls under uncool death #3 (there were clues shown that it was about to happen, so not so bad lah), but I was rather happy to seem him go. Yeah, it's sadistic, I know, but it's only a movie, people! I would've been more sympathetic if an annoying person I know died in real life.... I think.
2) A slow but totally gross death: These are fun coz' while the character is suffering an obviously painful death, but isn't dead yet, the viewers can have all sorts of funny reactions. This is where people bring out the pillows or whatever they can to block their view coz' it's too gross to watch, but keeps peeping to see what's happening to the person... and for people like me who refuse to take our eyes off the screen, I'll wince, shift around in the seat, cover my mouth and make all sorts of funny grimacing noises something along the lines of "Oooh! Eeeee! Wah liow! Aiyaiyaiyaiyai! Whoaanellyyyy!!" and hope that the person sitting next to me can't hear me. One of my favourite examples of these scenes is in FD 2 when a woman is in a lift with another survivor and a old man carrying a box full of hooks attached to plastic arms. While in the lift, she gets a call from one of the protagonists (who just saw a clue of her death) that a man with hooks will kill her. Naturally, since a guy with hooks is standing right behind her, she freaks out but her braided ponytail gets stuck in one of the hooks. When the lift opens, she tries to run out, but as her hair is caught, she falls on the floor and the lift door closes around her neck. Then the lift moves up while she struggles to get her head out, but of course, it doesn't happen and when the floor of the lift reaches the top of doorway, her head gets ripped off. You can watch that slow but totally gross death scene here ! Another cool slow but totally gross scene is in FD 4, where the lead protagonist and his girlfriend is escaping from a cinema that exploded, when the escalator collapses to reveal the churning mechanics beneath. The guy tries to save his girl from falling into the mechanics, but her foot gets caught and the rest of her body is sucked in and flattened like a pancake. Oooh yeah, I was really squirming around in my seat and making weird noises that time. Bleh!
3) A series-of-unfortunate-events-death: My most favourite type of FD death ever! This is when several freaky things happen in succession to the character or the environment surrounding the character, to make you think he or she is going to die coz' of that something freaky... but the character still survives for a while until he or she dies anyway. One rather good example is the death of Ms. Lewton (a teacher) in FD 1 (I won't go into the details though, you can go Youtube it yerself!). However, that example is not as fun as my favourite FD death scene of all time, which is Evan's death scene in FD 2 (this is the guy who just won the lottery in the movie). In this scene, a newly rich (but soon to be poor, in another sense of the word!) Evan just got home from buying a load of cool stuff with his lottery money, including a nice new ring and watch. He then put something on the stove to cook and also throw one of those weird Chinese takeaway boxes into the microwave to heat up. He doesn't realise that one of his fridge magnets fell into the takeaway box. Good ol' Evan then tries on his new watch and ring, but then drops the ring down the sink. He so cleverly decides to reach into the sink hole (using the hand with the watch on it) to try and grab the ring, but his hand gets stuck. Meanwhile, the stove pan get too hot and catches fire. And if that's not enough, the microwave overheats due to the plastic magnet in the takeaway box, and the microwave bursts into flames. And Evan, still stuck in the sink, tries to put out the fire with his free hand using a cloth to swipe at the pan. The pan falls and sets his house on fire. Fortunately, he manages to free his hand from the sink and tries to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher. Of course, the fire extinguisher stops working, so he's forced to exit his house through the windows, which mysteriously shut themselves tight. But he wisely smashes through the glass and climbs out the fire escape ladder, but the ladder refuses to drop down to the ground. He shakes the ladder (while hanging on it) to try to make it move, and eventually it does, and he lands on the ground. But then he slips and falls on some old spaghetti he threw out his window earlier and land with his head right under the ladder. The ladder drops and lands inches away from Evan's face. He swears in a matter of thanking his lucky stars. One second later the ladder drops further and impales his right eye. And you can watch that fun death scene here. I just thought the whole thing was totally hilarious coz' he managed to escape his hand getting stuck in the sink and a burning inferno, but in the end the ladder got him.
Ah well, they say FD 4 is going to be the last movie in the FD series, which is good I guess. They milked the concept of the movie for all its worth and there are only so many totally gory ways you can make people die in a movie before viewers start getting bored, right? And I'm starting to think there are probably better things to blog about out there....
My definition of uncool and cool deaths (as seen in the Final Destination movie series)
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