WARNING: This article contains descriptions of gory scenes from the famous horror franchise. Proceed with caution. If you are sensitive to gore or don’t want any spoilers, look away.
“No accidents. No coincidences. No escapes.” This was the tagline of the original “Final Destination,” portraying the movie’s mood perfectly. The “Final Destination” franchise, throughout its 6 movies, shows a small group of people surviving deadly accidents. Once they survive, Death himself is shown to come after the survivors and “murder” them in the most gruesome ways possible. Although these deaths are gruesome, the franchise– in some ways–has shown a way to humorize them, no matter how insane they are. After watching all the movies, I have seen maybe around 40+ deaths, but in my opinion these are the five goriest.
Starting off at number 5, Nadia Monroy from “The Final Destination” (fourth movie, 2009). The movie starts off with one of the main characters, Nick, having a premonition of the racecar track he was in being completely destroyed and everyone at the facility dying. But how does this connect to Nadia’s death? Nadia’s death was at the very beginning of the movie. It was also the same exact premonition Nick had and was already able to escape from (as he already knew what was going to happen). It started as a typical bandwagon of events–one car hit another, hitting another, and creating a chain reaction.The cars then proceeded to hit the audience, making the entire structure collapse and crushing around 60 people in the audience. In my opinion, what happens next is so stupid. Even though Nadia was able to escape, the moment she exited the racetrack, a flying tire came from the sky and decapitated her right next to her boyfriend (watch a clip of it at your own expense).
At number four, Isaac Palmer from “Final Destination 5” (2011). Isaac was on a bus with his colleagues from work, driving to a conference, when Sam Lawton had a premonition of the bridge they were about to drive over collapsing. Luckily, the bus Palmer and Lawton were on survived the collapse of the bridge, however citizens who were still driving over it met their unfortunate end. A couple days after the memorial was held for those who didn’t survive the accident, Isaac realized that all the drama and confusion of the event was too much to handle, and went to go receive some relaxing acupuncture. Back to the actual plotline, once he got acupuncture done he was told to sleep for 30 minutes so the effect would take place, which is when things started to get problematic. When the acupuncturist exited, there had been incense all around the room, and due to the door pressure, needles began to fall and a fire began. Just shocking. Since Isaac had acupuncture needles all over him, he was mostly immobile. His screams of “Hey, there’s a fire!” were somehow unreachable. At this point, Isaac is terrified and tries to move but eventually falls off the mattress he is on, stabbing himself with the tons of needles surrounding his body, along with a gallon of alcohol spreading all over the floor (when doing acupuncture alcohol is needed so infections are less or unlikely to occur). Incredibly, he was barely burnt. But while sitting against a wall to stay out of harm’s way, a mini Buddha statue fell off a high shelf and crushed his head (and yes I laughed when he died, don’t judge me).
Coming in at number 3, Ashley Freud and Ashlyn Harpin from “Final Destination 3” (2011). For some context, a crucial character named Wendy, had a premonition that the roller coaster she was on was going to malfunction and kill everyone on the ride. Before the actual event had happened, she screamed at the top of her lungs to let her off the ride, and that everyone was going to die if they continued to go on it. The people in charge eventually let her off the ride before they started–about half the other people leaving alongside her because her screams left them scared to death. The other half that stayed on the ride ended up being killed. After this terrible incident, the two friends decided to go to a relaxing tanning bed salon. The girls reasonably set the tanning bed temperatures, hung their coats, and got themselves refreshments. While relaxing inside the machines, everything seemed completely normal, with no hint of how wrong things were about to go. They had brought refreshments next to the beds, and they didn’t notice water slipping from the outside of their drinks. A slight drop touched the wiring of the machine and started to make the heating go rogue. A minute later, the girls noticed that their tanning machines had started to feel a little too hot. They began to leave, however right in between their tanning machines was a large wooden plank preventing the electrical beds from moving. Now of course the girls didn’t put the plank there, but right when they had entered the tanning beds, the weight from the coats made the rack fall. Coincidentally the wood plank had been right next to it and it had fallen in between both of the tanning beds, trapping both of the girls inside and burning them alive. From what I’ve seen on Insta, a lot of the Final Destinations fans think this death was scary. Overall, it wasn’t the fact that it was scary that made me have this death top 3, but it was more of how the girls died, and how everything plays out very suspensefully.
Before I begin, this death and the next are both from the same movie, “Final Destination Bloodlines” (2025). This is also the 6th and most recent movie. Unlike all the other films, this movie was the only one released in the 2020’s with CGI and with major technological upgrades since the 2000’s and 2010’s. My first “favorite” death was portrayed in this movie by Julia Campbell–dying in the most illogical way I have ever seen. Prior to her death, Julia’s father had just died due to a brutal lawn mower incident so she was still extremely depressed from the incident. Julia decided to go for a jog. If I’m being honest, things turn insane in a very short amount of time, because after jogging for less than a block, a child beside her gets leaves blown into his eyes while playing soccer, knocking the ball onto Julia’s face. This sends her into a garbage bin. The moment she lands in the bin, a garbage truck immediately collects the trash, sending Julia inside as well. Julia’s cousin and two brothers immediately turned their heads as they heard Julia scream and saw her land inside the truck. They immediately raced after it, while yelling at the top of their lungs for the driver to stop. Her brothers tried to grab the drivers’ attention while her cousin climbed up the truck to see if she could reach down the truck. Julia quickly noticed her cousin, and tried to get out, but she wasn’t fast enough. The top of the truck slowly closed on her, cutting her head, and slicing her arm in half. When I first saw this, I admit I was creeped out, but that was only because I watched this in theaters. It was extremely crowded and people kept screaming (full grown adults by the way). In my opinion, the way they showed her death was extremely realistic, and the creators have proven to become increasingly more creative when it comes to death.
The highest ranked death on my list is Iris Campbell from “Final Destination Bloodlines (2025),” once again. Unlike the other deaths that I ranked, this one occurred in Iris’s premonition, which I honestly believe is better than her actual death in the movie.The movie starts off with Iris’s boyfriend, Paul, taking her to the grand opening of the Sky View Tower, in 1968. Iris is intrigued by the tower as she and Paul step inside the elevator to reach the top floor and is informed the tower was completed five months ahead of schedule. Once the couple reaches the Skyview, Iris takes a look at the glass panel showcasing a beautiful but slightly terrifying view of her entire town. Paul soon realizes that she looks horrified and takes her outside on the balcony (which is somehow a better idea…?). I actually thought that Paul was being completely irrational taking her outside, which is probably more fearful than staying inside the tower, but he ends up proposing to Iris and then proceeds to take her to the dance floor. At the moment, everything seems fine. However, we are able to see a teenager standing on the balcony start to throw pennies outside, leading to one getting stuck in the air ducts. Back to Iris, Paul, and everyone else in the facility, they have now started dancing to “SHOUT!” by the Isley Brothers–without noticing they all jumped on glass. As soon as Iris begins to notice, it’s too late. Several people fall to their deaths from the broken glass. Panic immediately erupts as a sudden fire starts to spread, elevators become crowded, and the tower slowly falls apart, along with lives left in it…I know, a lot happening all at once. Paul was unfortunately a part of the crowd that died after falling from the glass. However, Iris was still alive at that point. She saw a helpless young boy and tried to save him from the lethal situation they were in. However, even with her relentless efforts, the tower had collapsed along with Iris. She was gruesomely shown falling to her death and decapitated from a ruinous stalagmite.
Now that I have explained freak accidents occurring in several different types of ways, and yes, even though it is fake, nobody has the right to call me paranoid now.
