Few horror franchises have been as effective asFinal Destination. It stands out for being unlike anything else genre fans have ever seen. It’s part slasher, with final girls, character tropes, and, of course, over-the-top gory kills, and part supernatural, with the villain being not a man in a mask with a knife, butthe invisible force of death itself. Since 2000,over five films, theFinal Destinationseries has been a favorite for many. It will continue withthe upcomingFinal Destination 6, but while another feature film will surely be exciting, aFinal DestinationTV franchise would be even better. Horror is seeing a trend of turning IPs into TV shows. IfFinal Destinationwere to do the same, it would make the stories, and the dreaded deaths, that much more gloriously horrific.
Final Destination
Death stalks Alex Browning and a group of high school students, who survived a doomed airliner.
Not Every Horror Franchise Is Suited to Television
Over the past 15 years, as audiences have grown bored of some older, repetitive horror franchises, Hollywood has found a way to keep them relevant by turning them into a TV series. That format, with longer episodes that allow us to dive deeper into the world, showing us parts of it we’ve never seen before, makes the old feel new and fresh again.Psychodid it withBates Motel.The Evil Deaddid it in groovy, gory fashion withAsh vs Evil Dead.Child’s Playis currently doing it with its third successful season ofChucky, which has allowed our favorite killer doll to have bloodier backstories and go in wild directions the films never did.
They aren’t the only horror icons moving to the small screen.A lawsuit may have meant there haven’t been anyFriday the 13thsequels since 2009, but Jason Voorhees is being brought back in aprequel series for Peacock calledCrystal Lake.Hellraiseris scheduled toreturn as a series for HBO, and even with Michael Myers now ground-up hamburger meat, there has been talk ofHalloweenreturning in the guise of an episodic show with theTV rights sold to Miramax.Some of these franchises really don’t need a TV series. What can possibly be done with Michael Myers every week in a TV series? The less we see and know of him, the scarier he is. How far can a TV show about Jason Voorhees as a kid go without making him too sympathetic? ForFinal Destination, though, a TV series would improve on what came before and fix the one big flaw that held the films back.
A Television Series Could Fix the Final Destination Franchise’s Only Flaw
TheFinal Destinationfilm franchise has often been more shocking than scary. That’s not to say that it can’t be horrific and absolutely terrifying at times, but it has always worked best as a roller coaster, andnot just one that derails and kills everyone like inFinal Destination 3. The films all start with an inciting disaster, where we meet our heroes, only for them to die in a grisly way in a vision. When those heroes now flee that prospective death, it’s up to the Grim Reaper to collect the souls who have evaded them. It’s a heart-pounding thrill to know they are all going to die in a vision in the beginning, letting the suspense build before the nightmare plays out.
Those ups and downs are what the plots thrive on. That’s the reason why we watch them. We want to meet a character, then have that screw of tension turned bit by bit with false moments of impending doom before the coaster drops asa character dies in the most disgusting way you can imagine. We bottom out, our hearts racing, before the climb begins again, but as fun as that can be, it’s not true fear, no more than a cheap jump scare is.
The Entire Final Destination Franchise Is Anxiety-Inducing — But This Sequel Does It Best
Logging trucks, dentists, and elevators, oh my!
Outside of the leads,the supporting characters in theFinal Destinationmovies are simple fodder, like horny teens in a slasher. Some of the deaths are so silly that it may as well be an oldLooney Tunescartoon. So many things often have to go wrong before the final drop, with string after string being cut before the piano slams down. The best example of this comes fromFinal Destination 3during the infamous tanning bed scene. Here, Ashley and Ashlyn (Chelan SimmonsandCrystal Lowe) are not fleshed out very much as characters to care about. They are stereotypes written to die, and you’re able to’t help but laugh at everything that leads up to them being cooked to death in their tanning beds. Are we heartbroken that Ashley and Ashlyn are dead? Nope. They are even given names so similar because they are not separate identities worth having sympathy for.
The most gruesome death in the franchise comes fromFinal Destination 5. It’s the gymnast routine, and it plays out perfectly, with the suspense becoming unbearable before Candice (Ellen Wroe) is snapped in half during her uneven bars routine. That scene is unforgettable in its imagery, but unless you’re a big fan who has watched the movies many times, can you say who Candice was as a person? Probably not, and that’s okay. Candice wasn’t crafted to evoke sympathy, but to add to the body count. The roller coaster drops when she does, then we move on to the next death, her character forgotten and not missed.
A TV Series Would Give Final Destination More Time To Be Scary
This is not necessarily a criticism.TheFinal Destinationmovies work for their roller coaster ride. It’s sickeningly exciting to watch people on a highway die at the hand of huge logs on the back of a truck,plummet to the ground on a roller coaster, or see the mass casualty of a NASCAR crash in 3-D. It’s a way to look death in the face — sort of — and laugh at it. That’s why, a quarter of a century later, a sixth film is highly anticipated. But for it to all mean more, the franchise would work best by trying a stint as a TV series.Final Destination 6will probably give us the most over-the-top death scenes yet, but that doesn’t create fear in the viewer. A trip to the small screen can lead to horror and not just the horrific.
Roller coasters are meant to be short trips, and that’s why theFinal Destinationfranchise has worked as contained films. A TV series turns it into something more than a ride. With so much time to tell a complex story, we can learn more about the characters, living with them as they go about their lives, not just their deaths. A series gives us time to care about more than just our leads, so that when they do die, it’s truly scary as hell, a scene we want to hide from in fear because we love these people and don’t want to see them hurt, rather than something silly and brief.
TheFinal Destinationfranchise’s most memorable moments are when it gives us time to invest in its tragic figures. The best example of this comes at the end ofFinal Destination 5. It looks as if our heroes, Sam (Nicholas D’Agosto) and Molly (Emma Bell), have beaten death and are going to make it.Then comes one of horror’s best twists. When they board a plane, Sam realizes they are on the plane that blows up in the first film. The entire fifth film has been a prequel to the original without telling us until now. Sam and Molly both die, but it’s not how they die that gets us, but rather the realization of what’s about to happen. We don’t laugh at their demise. Instead, we’re in shock because we’ve spent an entire movie invested in and rooting for them.
This doesn’t mean that aFinal Destinationseries needs to be a huge downer. We can still have some of the deaths be silly, delivering laughs to release the tension — but a TV series allows for the expansion of themes and worlds to become something more. Death is meant to be scary. If a character dying is something to be frightened of, we must first see them live. AFinal DestinationTV series allows the time needed to truly care about a character and have them be more than fodder. In this era where so many big horror franchises are trying and succeeding with the TV series route, now is the perfect time to make it happen.
