As unlikely as it seems that cheating death will come back to get you, how sure can you be? Audiences have been avoiding taking risks for years for this exact reason.
Have you ever been driving on the motorway when a log truck pulls in front of you and you’re filled with dread?
Have you ever gotten on a plane and feared that the worst could happen? Or a roller coaster and feared it could derail?
The one thing that connects all of these fears is the horror classic ‘Final Destination’. Since its release in 2000, the film has been filling its viewers with images of disaster at every corner, and with the release of the series latest installment, ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’, seeing death in the mundane has been at its peak.
From getting trapped in a sunbed machine to being sucked into an MRI machine, Final Destination has made us all paranoid of what freak accidents could occur at any moment. For Max Wager, horror fan and self-proclaimed film critic, it’s actually changed how he views certain aspects of his daily activities.
First watching the film at age 15, he claims that he doesn’t think he should have been so paranoid by what he was watching, but it did change something in his perspective.
“I get a bit on edge after watching a horror film anyway, as much as I love them, if I’ve just watched one like Woman in Black, I almost imagine I’ll look out my window and see a face staring back at me.”
Being such a horror fan, especially a fan of the Final Destination movies, this paranoia has only reinstated itself with the release of the latest installment.
“With the new film that came out last year, I decided to rewatch the other five as a sort of refresher, and my god it sent me into a spiral.”
Some of the most memorable deaths within the series are those of Olivia Castle in Final Destination 5, Evan Lewis in Final Destination 2 and Valerie Lewton in the original Final Destination. All of which Wager mentions as stand-outs to him.
“After the first film, where the teacher dies from the computer exploding and everything setting on fire and that knife falling into her, I was like holy shit that’s feasible. It obviously actually isn’t, it’s so far fetched, but after watching that one I couldn’t get too close to an overheating computer, and when I was cooking I would make sure nothing was close to the stove.”
“Then with the second film, when the guy wins the lottery and he’s cooking, and his microwave explodes after the magnet falls into his noodles, it spells out ‘eye’ on the fridge, and that’s exactly how he died.”
These two deaths have altered Wagers activities. “Since I watched them, I can’t have my fridge magnets on the side of the fridge in case they fall off, everything needs its designated space at least two inches away from the stove when I’m cooking. Honestly it’s ridiculous but whenever something gets too close I just have flashbacks to the scenes.”
It’s even affected his decision making process in his personal life, preventing him from getting lasik eye surgery.
“There’s loads of other factors to why I won’t get lasik, but honestly every time I think about it I just think about the scene where it goes terribly wrong and she ends up falling out the window cause she’s blind. It’s stupid I know, but I can’t help it.”
As stupid as Wager might find his paranoia, it’s clearly not just him that experiences these flashbacks to the films. It’s something the marketing team is fully aware of as well.
For the release of Final Destination: Bloodlines, the promotional material teased the audience, putting log graphics on the back of lorries with the release date of the latest installment. One featured a shard of glass sticking out of an icy glass of water, something audiences had likely never feared before but now can’t help but think about.
As cruel as the marketing and films may seem, it’s also an interesting insight into how people view death and the fear it installs. Nobody wants to die in a tragic accident like the characters in the series, so the body’s protective mechanisms kick in when they’re confronted with a similar situation as one of the victims.
The paranoia it instills into the audience that death could be around any corner makes it one of the most beloved horror series of the 21st century, and may lead people to live safer lifestyles, because who knows when death might be out to get you.