Final Destination isa horror seriesyou can always rely on to deliver some of the most out-of-the-box, fear-inducing accidents that will traumatize you for the rest of your life, some being very relatable and others being more trivial things you now consider deadly. Spanning 25 years across six installments, Final Destination only continues to outdo itself, thanks to the wonderful and imaginative writers.
While the earliest entry in 2000 didn’t go to the extremes that later films would, there are still memorable and horrifying deaths in that one, but Final Destination 2 and the sequels beyond make sure to squeeze in as many fears as they can to make you cautious for the rest of your life, with 2025’s Bloodlines really bound to knock your socks off with the dangers they achieved.
Spoilers ahead for the Final Destination movies, including Final Destination Bloodlines
10Movie Theater Explosion And Mall Escalator
The Final Destination
Compared to other Final Destination films, the fourth one is not that great. However, it still had some excellent kills, among the best beingthe whole mall premonitionthat Nick has of a 3D movie theater screening exploding and sending flames and debris at the audience, which is amazingly meta, and that directly leads to the escalator breakdown sequence as they escape, where Nick’s girlfriend gets tragically caught in the belt and grinded up.
With all the immersive 4DX and D-Box XD theaters now available that simulate motion and realism during a movie, it really made the movie theater death age well, and FD Bloodlines should be experienced in that setting. And you also have this movie to thank for conjuring up the image of Bobby Campo’s Nick trying to help Shantel VanSanten’s Lori from getting crushed each time before stepping onto an escalator.
9Fire Escape Ladder
Final Destination 2
In Final Destination 2, lottery winner Evan Lewis was one of the first from the highway pile-up to die, which is a shame because he just got a ton of cool new stuff, like an Apple iMac computer, a new watch, and a few other gifts. However, his death is handled brilliantly, with him avoiding so many potential hazards before his ultimate demise.
Evan heats a frozen meal on his stove just as his toaster oven malfunctions and his new ring falls down the drain. Attempting to fish it out, his hand gets stuck, and you believe the garbage disposal will turn on, but Evan escapes that fate. Eventually, he gets his hand out, as a fire is already blazing through the apartment. He breaks a window to get down the fire escape, and then ends up slipping on the leftover spaghetti he tossed out moments before to fall shirtless onto broken glass, with a ladder coming down on his face.
The Apple i-(eye)-Mac and ‘Eye’ spelled out with fridge magnets and the letter ‘H’ that looks ladder-shaped were some hints throughout the scene.
8Tim’s Death
Young Tim Carpenter’s death also had some wonderful twists and misdirects in Final Destination 2, and also made you paranoid of suspended glass panes and dental offices. At first, you believe it’ll happen during his dental procedure, especially since there’s a nice detail of a dead fish sucked into an aquarium filter. While left unattended and undergoing anesthesia, a toy fish from a mobile falls into Tim’s mouth, causing him to suffocate.
In the nick of time, the receptionist manages to remove the fish from Tim’s mouth, and the procedure goes off without a hitch. When Tim and his mom are outside, Kimberly is there to warn them, but an oblivious Tim decides to scare the pigeons, which triggers a large glass pane to fall from the air and land on Tim right before his mother’s eyes. You could say it was a pretty crushing moment.
7Shower Clothesline
Final Destination
The vibe of the first Final Destination movie is very different from that in later films, which became a lot more comedic. The deaths here are very dramatic, and one of the most disturbing and harrowing of the series remains Tod Waggner’s terrible bathroom accident with a clothesline, due to how realistically it was captured. It’ll also make you wary of hanging your laundry indoors and dealing with toilet issues right away.
As Tod is shaving, a pool of water from his leaking toilet travels towards his feet, and almost electrocutes him as he handles a faulty electrical outlet, but he ultimately slips on the water while removing laundry drying on a clothesline strung across his shower. The clothesline wraps around his neck like a garrote wire, and then he further slips on spilled body wash inside the tub as he tries to reach for scissors.
6Tanning Beds
Final Destination 3
One of the most infamous kills in Final Destination 3, aside from the roller coaster premonition, is the tanning salon sequence, especially the transition from the burning beds to the coffins. You should avoid these establishments anyway to prevent the risk of skin cancer, but if you need another excuse to steer clear, look at what happened to BFFs Ashley and Ashlyn during their final visit.
The rebellious Ashley brings her slushy drink into the tanning room and sets it down right above the VAC unit. When Ashlyn turns the thermostat up, the melting water droplets from the drink cause the VAC system to go into overdrive and make the beds increasingly hotter. The blast of the AC also causes a shelf to get knocked down, trapping the girls in their tanning beds, which quickly become a fire pit.
If you have the DVD ‘Choose Their Fate’ version, in the alternate scene, Ashlyn will exit her tanning bed before the plank comes down, hitting her on the head and knocking her out. However, she’ll come to the sounds of Ashley’s screams to attempt to save her friend, but still ultimately fails.
5Laser Eye Surgery
Final Destination 5
When it comes time for your annual eye exam and the optometrist suggests maybe it’s time for you to get laser eye surgery, you most likely decline and cite this scene from Final Destination 5 as the reason. It’s a nightmare scenario of what Jacqueline MacInnes Wood’s character, Olivia, goes through when she is seated and prepped for her session. It’ll make you want tohug your glassesas tightly as Olivia squeezes her teddy bear until its eye pops out.
The setup for the laser eye surgery death is similar to the tanning bed and other kills throughout the series, with water sparking an outlet and powering the laser machine to the max, where it goes haywire and turns this surgical procedure intoa trap devised by Jigsaw. When her friends find her, it’s too late. Olivia’s been blinded and cut, tripping on the teddy bear’s eye and sending herself out the window, with her other eye getting run over by a car for some added irony.
4Garbage Truck Compactor
Final Destination Bloodlines
The trash compactor was the most clever and unexpected death in Final Destination Bloodlines, with the misdirects starting from the movie’s trailer. The person next to die down the bloodline is seemingly Richard Harmon’s Erik, who you learned escaped death at the tattoo parlor and now also avoids nearly getting run over. His cousin, Stefani, warns him next about the garbage truck on their street, which he crudely disregards.
In a twist, it’s actually Erik’s sister, Julia, who gets killed by the garbage truck. A chain reaction of a leaf blower and a soccer ball causes her to fall into a bin that’s immediately picked up by the truck. Meanwhile, the driver is hilariously distracted by his music and swiping right on a dating app, so they fail to get Julia out before the trash compactor gruesomely finishes the task — no Star Wars garbage compactor rescue for Julia here.
3Gymnastics Routine
Final Destination 5 also shows that gymnastics can turn into a deadly bloodsport. Once again, the suspense and setup are just too good here, and the gymnastics balance beam and bar routine kill ends up being one of the most memorable because of it. The air conditioning unit’s screw comes loose and lands right before gymnast Candice’s feet, and, miraculously, she avoids stepping on it.
Candice moves on to the bar portion, while another gymnast takes up the beam andthat characterends up with the screw lodged in her foot, thus stumbling and knocking over the white chalk powder, which obstructs Candice’s visibility for her dismount, thereby losing control and landing in a grotesque pose that some dub ‘the human pretzel.’ The whole time you’re laser-focused trying to predict what will happen next, and it’s brilliant.
2MRI Machine
After speaking toTony Todd’s Bludworth, Erik devises a plan to have his peanut-allergic brother, Bobby, eat a peanut product and then resuscitate him back to life to stop Death’s cycle. They get one from a vending machine, but not before cracking the glass. Erik and Bobby then use an MRI room, where the machine starts up and gets out of control, with a ton of metal objects there, including a wheelchair. What happens next is a gruesome image that will be seared into memory.
Bloodlines' MRI machine kill is by far the longest, most brutal, and twisted you’ve seen, one that can truly make even the most non-squeamish viewer be taken aback by where it goes. It’s also both painful and a little funny due to a certain piercing on Erik’s body, and it gets combined with the vending machine’s spring to become a double kill that claims both brothers, even after Bobby successfully uses his EpiPen.
1Log Truck
The most famous, unforgettable, long-lasting, and life-teaching Final Destination death of all time is the opening log truck highway disaster from Final Destination 2. This is one where, if you seethose log trucksin real life, it means you’re automatically switching lanes without even looking over your shoulder to avoid them. This was so effective that over two decades later, Final Destination Bloodlines used log trucks as part of its marketing.
It starts when a police officer spills coffee on himself as he drives behind a log truck, from which a chain snaps and sends a log through his windshield before he can swerve out of danger, soon causing a major pileup and a wave of explosions on the highway. You could say the officer was working too hard, and that was reality’s way of hitting him in the face with a sign he should be sleeping like a log.
