Film review: “Final Destination”: When death plays the main role

The classic blockbuster – whether a romantic comedy or a disaster film – aims to generate empathy. Filmgoers should sympathize when people love and suffer on screen. This is achieved by presenting actors who are just a touch more interesting than the faces you see on the street every day.

Even Tom Hanks, who is often said to be the embodiment of the average guy, has that certain something that makes him stand out. His charisma may be less obvious than that of Leonardo DiCaprio, but he still manages to win over the audience.

Yes, even the typical art house film works according to this pattern. Although independent directors allow themselves to show people who are “weirder” and lead less conventional lives than the staff in a Hollywood film, the point here too is that the fate of the protagonists should touch and move us.

That’s exactly what a horror film can’t afford. Empathy would mean that we would not be able to tolerate the generally bestial murders. A Julia Roberts being cut up by a psychopath with a chainsaw – unthinkable! It would destroy our world view. A horror film is based on the premise that we don’t really care about the fate of the actors.

But this can only be achieved by populating the screen with people whose characters range from “meaningless” to “repulsive”. They have to be unknown actors. Actors of the second, or even better, third row. Faces that we don’t associate with films that triggered feelings of catharsis in us like the Titanic brand. They have to be beings whose death doesn’t affect us emotionally.

It’s not just in this respect that the makers of the “Final Destination” film series are doing everything right. Between 2000 and 2011 they had their actors run into knives (or other sharp-edged utensils) five times. The sixth part is scheduled to appear in 2025.

The structure of the stories is as simple as – watch out for the pun! – dead certain. One of the protagonists, who is currently on an airfield, a highway, a roller coaster or a bridge construction site, has a vision: the plane crashes, there is a pile-up on the highway, the roller coaster derails, or the bridge collapses. Although the clairvoyant cannot avert the catastrophe, he does manage to persuade some people to turn back and save themselves.

But the survivors don’t enjoy cheating death for long. Because he cannot be cheated. He obviously enjoys tearing those doomed out of life through “freak accidents.” You rarely see people die so grotesquely in films. The dialogues may be run-of-the-mill, but the types of deaths express an unbridled imagination. You can feel how much fun the filmmakers had coming up with original ways into the afterlife. Perfidious chain reactions are staged that can surprise even a genre-experienced audience (I’ll just say: gymnastics scene in “Final Destination 5”).

The actors are just a means to an end. In order to prevent sympathy and compassion from arising in the first place, the usual idealizations are avoided. This makes the horror film the only genre that can, indeed must, afford to show people as they really are.

Even when it comes to optics. Most of the faces have already been forgotten before they are in the coffin. Although one of the actors in part five (Miles Fisher) is reminiscent of Tom Cruise, it’s a similarity often seen in siblings of famous actors. One look is enough and you understand why one became a star and the other didn’t.

But the horror film doesn’t want any stars. The more ordinary and average someone appears, the more convincingly they can take on the role of the victim. Here, no one is smarter, more profound and more solid in character than is absolutely necessary. The protagonists are narrow-minded, superficial and affect-driven. The vest-pocket macho finds his counterpart in the chick. A little simplicity can’t do any harm anyway; it provides amusing moments before the carnage. Conversely, even if individual protagonists display cleverness or logical thinking, this does not save them from the Grim Reaper.

And not before the end of your career either. If you only attract attention because your body is artfully dissected, you don’t have to hope for a change to the character department. In the end, the horror film also turns out to be horror for its actors.

»Final Destination«, USA 2000–2011 (five feature films), on Netflix

If you only attract attention because your body is artfully dissected, you don’t have to hope for a change to the character department. In the end, the horror film also turns out to be horror for its actors.

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