Deaths Design: Breaking Down the Most Memorable Deaths in Every ‘Final Destination’ Movie
- Shauna Bushe
- 11 hours ago
- 5 min read
By Shauna Bushe - May 13, 2025
The Final Destination franchise continues to traumatise generations with inventive freak accidents that occur in the most harrowing and bloodiest of ways. Death is presented as a persistent, personal force, determined to repossess the lives of who cheated their fate. The series of films centres around one particular individual who escapes their intended fate by receiving a premonition but then becomes a target of revenge as death tries to rectify the design and correct his original plan.
To celebrate the upcoming release of Final Destination: Bloodlines, I’ve put together a list of unforgettable deaths from throughout the franchise.
Final Destination (2000), Dir James Wong
Kristen Cloke as Valerie Lewton – Moving and packing can be a tedious activity. It’s messy, clutter gets in the way, and for Miss Lewton it’s supposed to be a fresh start, however death had other plans. Beginning with a drink, to then finishing with a knife in her chest, it’s a bizarre turn of events but the way Valerie suffers makes this death a hard one to forget.
Amanda Deter as Terry Chaney – The events of death are usually built up, the tension lies in seeing it manifest, but for Terry, her death was the first jump scare for the audience. Coming out of nowhere she is blasted by a bus. The irony of her encounter with death is how she talks to Carter, moments before, about “dropping dead” and then she does. The humour around her death is well balanced with the initial shock value.
Final Destination 2 (2003), Dir David R. Ellis
James Kirk as Tim Carpenter – A routine checkup at the dentist is a worst fear for many people, but poor Tim, his day was about to get even worse. Running through a flock of pigeons Tim causes one of the construction men to lose control of a crane, releasing a pane of glass that drops, reducing him to a bloody pulp. The horrifying reality about Tim’s death is not only because his mother watches helplessly but the fact he was just a teenager. It’s a shocking and hard-hitting misfortune.
Noel Fisher as Brian Gibbons – Unlike the main characters of Final Destination 2, Brian isn’t a survivor of the primary catastrophe, even so, he ends up on deaths radar anyway after someone intervenes and saves him from being hit by a news van. What’s fun about Brians death is how it calls attention to the rules. When one intervenes, the design is passed along but will eventually come back around, leaving no loose ends. Although a BBQ explosion isn’t much of a freak accident, it’s still a death that finishes Final Destination 2 with a clever twist and a big bang.
Final Destination 3 (2006), Dir James Wong
Crystal Lowe as Ashlyn Halperin and Chelen Summers as Ashley Freund – The girls were inseparable throughout Final Destination 3, so of course their death would pay tribute to that. The incident starts when Ashley places her cup on top of the tanning bed control box, leading the condensation to cause the system to malfunction. By the time either of them realises what is happening, they can’t escape, leaving the girls to be excruciatingly burned alive. There are TWO things that make their deaths stand out; one, the track in the background ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers – Love Rollercoaster’, a catchy song but subtly hints to the fairground opening scene. And two, the transition from sun beds to coffins, it’s so clean and at the same time haunting. I’m sure it made a lot of people think twice about ever using tanning beds again.
Alexz Johnson as Erin Hulmer – Erin is the girlfriend of Ian and the fifth victim to die. Wendy and Kevin make many attempts to warn the pair of deaths design, but it falls on deaf ears. After several close calls in the warehouse Erin is definitively flung backwards into shelf where her head triggers the nail gun, that nail gun then empties out into her skull. It is brutally sudden, and the effects deliver a graphic pay out.
The Final Destination (2009), Dir David R. Ellis
Nick Zano as Hunt Wynorski – Hunt is part of the central friendship group in The Final Destination, his best friend Nick being the visionary for this instalment. His death happens at the country-side pool, where his obsession with his lucky coin betrays him. When his coin falls into the swimming pool he dives in after it, unbeknownst to him on the surface, the settings switched and begin to suck anything inside the swimming pool toward the bottom. His trunks get caught and he begins to drown, but as the pressure also begins to pull, his insides then get sucks out through is bottom and explode in a grotesque fashion out of the pool pump. Without a doubt one of the more uncomfortable deaths to watch unfold and manifested a fear I didn’t think was possible.
Krysta Allen as Samantha Lane – After surviving an array of dangers in the salon, Samantha thinks she’s home free. Only once she leaves, she’s blinded by a rock plummeting its way through her eye socket. The fact her kids watch their mother die adds a bitterness to this scene and the bait-and-switch of it all gives a spark of humour. Whichever way you look at it, definitely one of the more tense and funnier deaths.
Final Destination 5 (2011), Dir Steven Quale
Ellen Wroe as Candice Hooper – The horrifying undoing of Candice is not only the best death in Final Destination 5, but out of the entire franchise. The set up is fantastic, playing a game with you by throwing breadcrumbs all the way around the gymnasium. Will it be the nail on the balance beam, or the malfunctioning air conditioning? No, what actually happens is much more unexpectedly vicious. She slips off the parallel bars, nose diving into the floor below her, her body unnaturally bending over and almost every bone in her body exits. It’s such an extreme death that stays with you long after the films finished.
Nicholas Agosto as Sam Lewton and Emma Bell as Molly Harper – Sam believes he’s managed to beat deaths design and stall his fate by taking the remaining life span of Peter, but he wasn’t that lucky. The audience then get to the big twist of the movie and that’s when you learn Sam and Molly are on Flight 180, the same plane as Alex from the original movie. It is a mind-blowing twist. Effortlessly connecting the films altogether in one final explosion.
What are your favourite, stand out deaths in the Final Destination franchise? Make sure to see Final Destination: Bloodlines at your local cinema on May 14th.