Final Destination **** (2000, Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith, Seann William Scott, Brendan Fehr, Amanda Detmer, Tony Todd) – Classic Movie Review 271

James Wong’s 2000 film Final Destination is a great fun, cleverly staged teen chiller. It is ingeniously written by Jeffrey Reddick, with effective performances (especially by Devon Sawa) and scary set pieces.

Director James Wong’s 2000 American supernatural horror film Final Destination is a great fun, cleverly staged teen chiller flick. Based on a story by Jeffrey Reddick, it is ingeniously written, with a strong theme, credible dialogue, effective performances (especially by main star Devon Sawa) and some excellently scary set pieces.

Alex (Devon Sawa) has a premonition that a high-school flight he’s on, headed for France, will crash. He tells everyone to get off the plane, and seven people are forced to disembark. Moments later, in the departure lounge they see the plane with their fellow students aboard explode. The FBI thinks Alex has something to do with it and follows his every move, while his friends start to become suspicious and fade out of his life.

But he discovers that all seven survivors are being stalked by the Grim Reaper, intent on collecting the souls of those who cheated Death, with the deaths occurring in the order they would have happened on the plane. Can Sawa and his buddies find a way to cheat Death again?

It is all very exciting, well paced and tautly handled by director Wong, with an extremely ingenious, fresh and expert screenplay, especially for this kind of chiller. The story is by Jeffrey Reddick and the screenplay by him, James Wong and Glen Morgan.

The other cast members include Ali Larter, Kerr Smith, Seann William Scott, Chad E Donella, Roger Guenveur Smith, Kristen Cloke, Tony Todd, Daniel Roebuck, Amanda Detmer and Brendan Fehr. Most of them seemed destined to have much better movie careers than they actually have.

Final Destination is based on a spec script by Jeffrey Reddick, written for The X-Files TV series for Reddick to get an agent. Jeffrey landed an internship at New Line while in college and worked for them for over 10 years. A studio co-worker got him to re-write his spec script as a feature film. Then The X-Files writing partners James Wong and Glen Morgan agreed to rewrite the script, with Wong making his film directing debut. New Line agreed to produce the film and it was released on 17 March 2000. Filming took place in New York City and Vancouver, with additional scenes filmed in Toronto and San Francisco.

Jeffrey Reddick recalled: ‘I was flying home to Kentucky and read a story about a woman who was on vacation and her mom called her and said “Don’t take the flight tomorrow, I have a really bad feeling about it.” She switched flights and the plane that she would have been on crashed. I thought, that’s creepy – what if she was supposed to die on that flight?’

James Wong recalled: ‘I believe that at one time or another we’ve all experienced a sense of prescience. We have a hunch, a feeling, and then that hunch proves true. We want to do for planes and air travel what Jaws did for sharks and swimming.’

The prediction back in 2000 was to expect a Final Destination 2. And, lo, after the film took $53 million in the US and $112.9 million worldwide, the sequel came to pass in 2003. And there were three more: Final Destination 3 (2006), The Final Destination (2009) and Final Destination 5 (2011).

It was announced on 12 January 2019 that New Line Cinema is rebooting the Final Destination franchise with a ‘re-imagining’ by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, the writers behind four of the Saw sequels.

In August 2023, series creator Jeffrey Reddick confirmed the sixth film was going into production as Final Destination 6: Bloodlines once the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike ends. Principal photography began in Vancouver, British Columbia, in March 2024, for release in 2025.

Smith and Fehr reunited for The Forsaken in 2001.

A screenshot from Final Destination with the main cast.

The cast are Devon Sawa as Alex Browning, Ali Larter as Clear Rivers, Kerr Smith as Carter Horton, Kristen Cloke as Valerie Lewton, Daniel Roebuck as Agent Weine, Roger Guenveur Smith as Agent Schreck, Chad E Donella as Tod Waggner, Seann William Scott as Billy Hitchcock, Tony Todd as William Bludworth, Amanda Detmer as Terry Chaney, Brendan Fehr as George Waggner, Forbes Angus as Larry Murnau, Lisa Marie Caruk as Christa Marsh, Christine Chatelain as Blake Dreyer, Barbara Tyson as Barbara Browning, Robert Wisden as Ken Browning, P Lynn Johnson as Mrs Waggner, Larry Gilman as Mr Waggner, and Mark Holden as co-pilot.

Oh, here’s the story and the moral: sometimes dogged persistence pays off. At 14, Jeffrey Reddick wrote a ten-page treatment of a prequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street and sent it to New Line Cinema. But it was returned unread as the studio did not accept unsolicited work. Then Reddick contacted studio founder Robert Shaye and asked him to read the treatment, which he did and replied. So began Reddick’s letter-and-phone relationship with Shaye and his assistant, which continued for years. And it ended up with Final Destination.

Tony Todd (December 4, 1954 – November 6, 2024)

American actor Tony Todd (December 4, 1954 – November 6, 2024) is best known for playing the title character in the Candyman film series (1992–2021) and William Bludworth in the Final Destination franchise (2000–2025).

Tony Todd died after a long illness at his home in Marina del Rey, California, on 6 November 2024, aged 69. In 2024 Todd returned as William Bludworth, when he filmed Final Destination: Bloodlines for release in 2025.

A direct sequel to Candyman, directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Jordan Peele, was released in 2021. It features Tony Todd in his final role as the the Candyman character before his death in 2024.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Film Review 271 derekwinnert.com