What’s riskier than a horror movie sequel, you ask? A horror movie THREEqual, of course! It’ll either destroy the legacy of the first movie entirely or solidify the base for a gloriou$$$ franchise opportunity. In 2006, Final Destination 3, directed by James Wong, definitely did the latter, even if it was intended as a stand-alone sequel by the producers.
Anyone who spent their sponge-brained teens soaking up the Final Destination movies and their way over-the-top deaths has a surplus of irrational fears and neurosis that can only be accredited to these films. The biggie for me: roller coasters…although it probably doesn’t help that I went on a school trip as a youngster to a theme park while part of it was still a crime scene due to a deadly accident a few days prior, but we’ll pretend that’s unrelated.
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Even if a pretty pathetic 43% of RT critics gave Final Destination 3 a positive review, calling it “more of the same: gory and pointless, with nowhere new to go,” and scored a measly 41/100 on Metacritic, I’d rank it as the #1 Final Destination movie (joint with the OG movie, of course), and would genuinely count it as one of my favorite horrors from the 2000s. Films like this always get a bad rap for their cheesiness and over-the-top gore and violence, but sometimes that’s all you need – movies are meant to be a distraction from reality.
Some critics often seem to forget that a movie can be intentionally cheesy and formulaic, and dismiss this as poor writing/directing. This is so far from the case with Final Destination, the writing is impeccable, with the foreshadowing of characters’ deaths unknowingly thrust into your face almost as soon as you’re introduced to them.
And let’s not forget that Final Destination 3’s DVD release did a choose-your-own-adventure long before Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, in its “Choose Their Fate” mode.
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Final Destination 3 , starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, features some of the most iconic deaths not just of the franchise, but of the genre era. Ashley (Chelan Simmons) and Ashlyn’s (Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe) sunbed slaughter (with “Love Train” as the soundtrack, told you it was genius), Lewis’ (Texas Battle) weight-lifting, head-crushing demise, and Erin’s (Alexz Johnson) nail-gun execution, just to name a few. Not to mention its ending that cements the fact within this franchise that death CANNOT be cheated. The build-up to most of these deaths is in itself enough to have you bite your fingernails down to the bone.
The film’s deaths were also teased in the perfect promo items that were released along with it, as with all of the Final Destination movies. T-shirts stating ‘I survived Devil’s Flight’ were available, handheld fans with the message ‘control the ride’ within the blades were Comic-Con treats for fans, and disposable cameras emblazoned with the movie poster artwork were crafted for promotional packs by the brilliant marketing department.
Both as a stand-alone sequel, and a part of the wider franchise, Final Destination 3 holds its own now 15 years later, as well as it did when it was first released. Creating its own sub-genre of the slasher movie, where the villain is simply the certainty of death, even with its over-the-topness, it creates a horrifying unjustifiable existential dread in anyone who watches.
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