If you're like us, you know that every movie deserves an equal shot at being adored. Not every movie is a masterpiece of cinematography like The Witch (2016). Some are more like Pieces (1982), beloved for all time for its landmark goofy badness. Some movies are so imaginative in showing teens being slaughtered that they get four remake-quels which total nearly eight hours and boast a combined body count of 390.



With that in mind we took a sick day and threw on, one after the other, the entire Final Destination franchise. The general idea with these movies is that somehow, teenagers manage to evade their predetermined, and unbelievably violent deaths. This enrages the grim reaper and inspires him to sadistic, elaborate, Rube-Goldberg-meets-Braindead-type shenanigans. In a way, it feels like a response to the supernatural slashers of the '90s like Candyman (1992). Their ethereal and unstoppable killing machines were basically death incarnate so... Why not just have the bad guy be capital-d Death?



Final Destination (2000) Do you remember this movie? It was pretty cool, right? I mean, it's weird, the actors are obviously twice as old as their characters and it's just a blatant deathsploitation special- effects showcase – but it pulls it off. It's intense and entertaining. That's exactly what made Suspiria (1977) so great, after all. This one you can do sober but you'd be better off with a beer or three. It's fun to talk about—it's a movie made to be talked during and shouted at—and the killing is wildly imaginative. This one's a classic.



Final Destination 2 (2003) Fun fact: David Ellis, the guy who directed Snakes on a Plane (2006) made this one. You may realize six minutes or so into this one that yes, it is basically the same movie as the first. Go ahead and have another drink now, because this one's fucking insane. Kind of the tongue- in-cheek Evil Dead 2 to Final Destination's more serious original. But it's hard to tell if it's really less serious, because plot and dialogue were mostly left on the shelf in Ellis' nonstop death rampage. Really makes you think about how easy it would be to just... die. Like, anytime, anywhere. What if the ceiling just caves in? What if someone drives through your bedroom window?



Final Destination 3 (2006) Okay, here we go. It's the same premise: psychic kid eludes death, but only briefly. Their abilities aid them but they cannot truly escape death. None of us can. This one's set in a world a little more grim, a little more brutal than the first two. This grim reaper isn't screwing around. He's a stone-cold sadistic serial killer. He is always there. At any moment you could just trip and get impaled, or take a shower and get electrocuted, or close your eyes for a split second and get your head ripped off. Nowhere is safe from this guy. Switch from beer to hard liquor in the third act. Maybe, uh, maybe put it in a paper cup. Can't get beheaded by a paper cup.



The Final Destination (2009) This is the worst movie of the franchise for sure. It's the most viscerally upsetting of the series by a mile, and it's just too bad to make up for it. Poorly-acted parents are killed viciously in front of their visibly-mid-30s “children.” Main characters are ripped apart savagely, slowly, in front of the camera. You expect brutality from Final Destination movies, but this one is just a little too liberal with the trauma for how bad the writing and acting are. The Final Destination may take a couple extra drinks to get through, because besides all that, it's the same as the others. In some ways the killing is more imaginative and pushes more boundaries than the other four. It will definitely ruin escalators for you but boy howdy it's hard to get over just how bad it is.



Final Destination 5 (2011) It's interesting when the—ahem—final movie in the series is the best. It's the same story again: prophetic visions of grisly death, spooky omens, shit gets real, death gets pissed, everybody gets massacred. But it's good-looking and well-edited. The plot, such as it is for a Final Destination movie, is solid and coherent. One or two characters develop, briefly. It really brings home the message of the series: No one is safe from death. Not even you.



At this point, we couldn't even go to the bathroom without locking all the doors and windows and unplugging everything electric in the house. Forget about going outside or crossing the street. Death has a list and you're on it, man. This is your life now. Watching movies on your laptop in the dark, in the center of an empty room. Eating cold Cup O Noodles and nothing else. Make sure you rate whatever you watch! It's difficult* to be killed rating movies here at HorrorRated. You're probably safe with us.



*but not impossible.