Misc
The Top 10 Final Destination Deaths
The Final Destination franchise is all about how Death will not allow people to cheat it and, when they do, it seeks revenge in a variety of nasty, Rube Goldbergian ways. Because of this, there is naturally an immense roster of creative, outlandish kills in the series, even more so than a typical slasher franchise. So cutting the wheat from the chaff to craft a Top 10 is much more difficult than usual, but never fear. Let me bravely guide your path toward the best and bloodiest ways that FD characters have shuffled off this mortal coil.
The Final Destination franchise is all about how Death will not allow people to cheat it and, when they do, it seeks revenge in a variety of nasty, Rube Goldbergian ways. Because of this, there is naturally an immense roster of creative, outlandish kills in the series, even more so than a typical slasher franchise. So cutting the wheat from the chaff to craft a Top 10 is much more difficult than usual, but never fear.
Let me bravely guide your path toward the best and bloodiest ways that FD characters have shuffled off this mortal coil.
A note: I won’t be counting any deaths from the franchise’s signature opening sequence premonitions here, as they technically don’t happen in-universe, and they’re generally so stellar that they deserve their own article.
For a ranking of every entry in the franchise, click here!
The Top 10 Deaths in The Final Destination Franchise
#10 Surprise Bus (Final Destination)
The “surprise death” has become a staple of the franchise, but – as is so often the case – the first is the best.
#9 LASIK (Final Destination 5)
This one is ranked slightly lower because the actual Death (Olivia falling out of the window) isn’t that interesting. But the way it plays out beforehand is pitch perfect grossout thriller tension-building. From the way it harnesses everyday fears (I haven’t gotten LASIK myself, but I imagine this is what everyone who gets it worries is going to happen) to the eye trauma to the hand trauma, this is a laundry list of some of the nastiest and most brutal ways to terrorize both a character and the audience.
#8 The Kitchen (Final Destination)
Just like the bus sequence, the Death of poor Ms. Lewton was the progenitor of many future Final Destination scenes, this time of the Rube Goldberg variety. This scene drags out her Death by putting her in an increasingly impossible situation and closing on a bloody moment where the thing that might save her – the dish towel – ends up spelling her doom. Plus, that gory little punchline at the end where the falling chair deals the killing blow is just deliciously nasty.
#7 The Fire Escape (Final Destination 2)
The fire escape sequence perfectly encapsulates everything the Final Destination franchise does best. It has a drawn-out rise and fall and deals the killing blow exactly when Evan thinks he’s escaped. But on top of the final moment, the entire four-minute sequence is chock full of fun grace notes, from the harrowing garbage disposal moment to the cheeky little foreshadowing of the fridge magnets spelling out “E Y E.”
#6 Shower Strangulation (Final Destination)
Because the first movie was a little less elaborate and focused on things that might conceivably happen to a human being in real life, its kills are less outré, but no less brutal for it. Seeing the veins in Tod’s eyes burst as he is being strangled is a deeply chilling injection of body horror verisimilitude.
#5 The Airbag (Final Destination 2)
This is the Final Destination equivalent of the photographer going, “Now, let’s do a fun one.” Kat survives a car wreck, only to have the airbag (something that’s meant to keep them safe) smash their head into a broken pipe. It’s funny, it’s gruesome, it’s a blast.
#4 The Pool (The Final Destination)
Sure, this may not be the best or most believable setup in the world, but this Death has everything it needs. 1) An everyday, commonplace fear dragged from the back of the collective subconscious. 2) A truly awful way to go that allows for an explosion of blood. 3) Shirtless Nick Zano. Hey, I don’t make the rules.
#3 The Weight Bench (Final Destination 3)
One of the best misdirects in the entire series! After the scene focuses so hard on the clattering swords on the wall, only for them not to hurt Lewis, they do indeed become instruments of Death, but in a way that nobody would have expected (and one that allows for a lovely explosion of blood, another staple of the franchise).
#2 The Balance Beam (Final Destination 5)
The balance beam kill! Truly a tension sequence of epic proportions, both because of how much it draws out the audience’s anticipation of the fact that this poor gymnast is going to die epically and because of the downright Hitchcockian way that the sharp screw on the balance beam triggers the most squeamish, intimate fears hidden deep within our psyches. Nobody really has a sense of what getting decapitated feels like, but we can all squirm in revulsion at the thought of a tiny sharp object piercing the sole of our foot.
The only reason this is #2 is the same reason the LASIK kill is ranked so low: the actual Death isn’t the reason this scene is great. Just like Candice herself, it doesn’t really stick the landing, even though it is decently gnarly in its own right.
#1 The Falling Glass (Final Destination 2)
Look, the Final Destination franchise courts simple pleasures like watching a kid get squashed like a grape by a falling pane of glass, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a good ol’ explosion of gore, especially one this perfectly rendered. Not everything has to be Hitchcock.
In just a few days, Horror Press will be leaving the East Coast for the sunny rays of Los Angeles. Why, you may ask? For the Night Frights LA film festival! Night Frights LA was founded by the Winchester brothers (no, not Sam and Dean). Their goal? To celebrate bold, original horror and give independent creators the spotlight they deserve. What does Night Frights LA have to offer? Let’s take a look!
Location, Location, Location
From 10 AM to 10 PM on September 20th, Night Frights LA will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center in the West Hall. The convention center will also be host to Horrorcon Los Angeles on the 20th and 21st. You can park in the West Hall garage and head on directly to the theater on the 2nd floor.
What’s Screaming?
A film festival is only as good as its lineup, and Night Frights LA has a bloody, fun lineup for us! Doors open at 9:30 AM, and the festival kicks off at 10!
The festival kicks off with Short Film Block: Best in Blood. The short films included are: Ghosted, Playback, Knife, No Slasher Here, A Simple Life, Chickenboy, Banjo, Where the Shadows Feast, Love Forevermore, and The Carvening.
After a short break, the Horror Writers Association will host a panel called Page to Screen, hosted by Kevin Wetmore.
From there, it’s time to get back to the short films. Short Film Block: Mental Carnage will include: Vivir, Devil’s Prism, The Specter of Christmas, Contraction, The Vanity, The Last Thing She Saw, and Keep Coming Back.
The final set of shorts, Short Film Block: Planet Terror, will include: Umbra, La Croix, The Overkill, The Smell of Sin, Bananahead, and The Nature of Death.
A Special Screening ONLY at Night Frights LA
You know we love short films over here at Horror Press, but once the shorts are done, Night Frights heats UP with a special screening of the first-ever feature film to be screened at Night Frights LA with Teddy Grennan’s Catch a Killer. This screening will be followed by a Q&A session featuring the cast and crew.
But wait! There’s more! Starting at 6 PM, there will be a Q&A with John Massari (composer of Killer Klowns from Outer Space)! And this wonderful Q&A will be followed up with a screening of Killer Klowns from Outer Space, sponsored by us here at Horror Press! Sounds like a hell of a time to me! The festival will close out at 8 PM with the awards ceremony hosted by Elias Alexandro!
So what are you waiting for? Join me, and horror fans from around the world, for a day full of horror BY horror lovers.
Badges for Night Frights LA start at $20 and can be picked up here! See you there!
This month at Horror Press, the theme is New Jersey. As a dyed-in-the-wool slasher guy, the first horror-related thing that comes to mind when thinking about the Garden State is obviously the Friday the 13th franchise. The first movie was shot in New Jersey, and the majority of the subsequent movies are set there when they’re not wandering off to Manhattan or space. However, Mrs. Voorhees and her son Jason aren’t the only New Jersey natives to have spawned a slasher franchise.
After all, the bloodthirsty Charles Lee Ray, better known as the killer doll Chucky, grew up in Hackensack. So what do you do when you have two slasher villains on your hands? You have them battle, of course. In order to figure out which killer is the best New Jersey horror icon, we’re going to compare the two in a variety of categories, but the one that will be weighted the heaviest is obviously “New Jersey-ness.” Without any further ado, let the head-to-head begin!
Which Horror Icon is the Most Jersey?
Kill Count
Jason: 179 (give or take)
This total spans 10 movies, including the 2009 reboot, but not the original 1980 Friday the 13th or 1985’s A New Beginning (neither of which feature Jason as the killer). Nor does it include non-body count deaths like the remaining teens on the sunken Lazarus in Jason Takes Manhattan or the entire population of the destroyed Solaris station in Jason X, so if anything, the actual number is even higher than this. This makes for an average of 17.9 per movie.
Chucky: 104 (give or take)
This total spans seven movies and three television seasons. If we count that as a total of 10, Chucky hits an average of 10.4 per outing.
Winner: Jason
Personality
Jason: He does have a lot of creativity to express when it comes to finding new and exciting ways to turn people’s insides into their outsides. And that hockey mask adds a certain amount of flair, true. But this big lug is the strong and silent type. There’s really not a lot going on with him.
Chucky: The fact that he talks certainly helps him stand out, but regardless, Chucky is all personality from top to bottom, whether it’s the wholesome and child-friendly appearance that he presents to the world when he’s not pursuing his insidious desires or the true self he exposes once you get to know him a little better. He’s narcissistic, bad to the bone, and loves nothing more than wise-cracking while doling out creative kills. He’s also smart enough to design certain murders to cast the blame on others. What a guy!
Winner: Chucky
Franchise Quality
Jason: Friday the 13th has some high highs. For instance, The Final Chapter is the platonic ideal of the 1980s slasher movie. However, while the franchise generally tends to be relatively reliable and consistent, those lows can be crushing. Everybody disagrees on which are the lowest, which adds some benefit of the doubt here. Still, whether it’s A New Beginning, Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell, or Jason X (which is my personal pick), there’s gonna be at least one movie you don’t like here.
Chucky: Not only is the Child’s Play franchise consistent, but it is all in strict continuity (minus the 2019 reboot, which we’re pretending doesn’t exist). It has some glorious highs (Bride of Chucky is one of the iconic 1990s horror movies) and its lows aren’t all that bad. Child’s Play 3 tends to be people’s least favorite, but even that one is a totally watchable, if lightweight, horror romp. (If Seed of Chucky is your lowest-ranked, please come see me after class.)
Winner: Chucky
New Jersey-ness
Jason: Now, there’s a lot to break down here, both in-universe and on a meta level. First of all, one huge point goes to Jason because the majority of his slayings are committed in New Jersey. Jason was also canonically born in the small (fictional) town of Crystal Lake, growing up there as well, as shown by the inexplicable Voorhees family manor in Crystal Lake township that appears in Jason Goes to Hell. In fact, beyond going to Manhattan, space, etc., there is no evidence that he has ever left Crystal Lake and its surrounding environs more than a handful of times (mostly for killing – for example, his field trip to take care of original final girl Alice Hardy in Part 2).
However, on a more meta level, very few of the Friday the 13th movies were shot either partially or entirely in New Jersey. They were mostly shot in California, the South, or Canada. Not very Garden State, if you ask me.
Chucky: Chucky gets a huge boost from the fact that he was raised in Hackensack, New Jersey, which is actually a real place as opposed to Crystal Lake township. However, most of his killings from the franchise do not take place in New Jersey. While the Chucky series rectifies this by setting season 1 in Hackensack and featuring the killer doll returning to his hometown in the modern day (alongside flashbacks of his antics as a youngster), his reign of terror has mostly taken place elsewhere. One additional demerit is that, as a human, he was known as the “Lakeshore Strangler,” having taken up residence in Chicago as an adult.
However, while Hackensack is a real place, the Chucky movies and shows don’t shoot there. In fact, as far as I can tell, not a single frame of footage was shot in New Jersey for the entirety of the iconic slasher franchise (which has been produced out of Canada for some time now).
Winner: Jason
Winner
Because the New Jersey section is weighted to be worth two points, I can proudly proclaim that Jason Voorhees is the winner! While this makes sense, considering the fact that he has been an icon since before Chucky was a twinkle in Don Mancini’s eye, the killer doll put up a tough fight, going neck and bloody neck with the Crystal Lake behemoth.
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