THE FINAL DESTINATION
Final Destination is a 2000 supernatural thriller, about a group of teenagers who cheat death by avoiding a plane crash when one of them, Alex, has a premonition of their deaths. Soon after their escape, they begin dying one-by-one in mysterious freak accidents. The script was originally written by Jeffrey Reddick as a spec script for the X-Files. (Director James Wong worked as a writer, producer and director on that series.) The story shares similarities with an episode of The Twilight Zone titled "Twenty-Two". The film is distributed by New Line Cinema. The DVD was released on September 26, 2000. The film was the first in the Final Destination series, which has since produced three sequels and a series of books.
- Alexander Chance "Alex" Browning (played by Devon Sawa): Alex is a student and the main character. He has the premonition that Flight 180 will explode, which leads to a handful of passengers being thrown off the plane.
- Clear Rivers (played by Ali Larter): Clear is a fellow classmate of Alex's.
- Carter Horton (played by Kerr Smith): Carter is an athlete who deeply resents Alex.
- William "Billy" Hitchcock (played by Sean William Scott): The jokester of the group.
- Ms. Valerie Lewton (played by Kristen Cloke): Ms. Lewton is one of the teachers supervising the trip to Paris. She volunteers to stay behind with the students forced off Flight 180.
- Terry Chaney (played by Amanda Detmer): Terry is Carter's girlfriend.
- Tod Waggner (played by Chad Donella): Alex's best friend.
- Agent Weine and Agent Schreck: Two FBI agents who suspect Alex may be involved with the explosion of Flight 180 and the subsequent deaths of the survivors. Portrayed by Daniel Roebuck and Roger Guenveur Smith respectively.
- William Bludworth: William Bludworth is a mortician who introduces the characters to the concept of Death's Design. He is portrayed by Tony Todd.
Deaths
- Carter Horton - Location of Death: Downtown Paris. Cause of Death: Hit by a sign.
A group of birds are startled by a bus which nearly kills Alex. The birds then fly up and into a sign. The sign is knocked out of its anchoring and is then sent hurdling towards Alex, but Carter pushes him out of the way causing the sign to swing back and hit Carter.
- William Hitchcock - Location of Death: Rural Railroad Crossing. Cause of Death: Partially decapitated.
A metal shard (presumably from Carter's car) is kicked up by the chains of an oncoming train. This shard then ricochets and hits Billy in the head, severing it from the top jaw upward. It happens right after Carter is saved from death because Alex pulls him out of his car when his seatbelt jams, just before the car is hit by the train.
- Valerie Lewton- Location of Death: Her Kitchen. Cause of Death: Severe Trauma & Multiple Stab Wounds causing massive bleeding.
After throwing out hot tea she had been preparing, Val fills her glass mug with ice cold vodka. The sudden tempurature change causes the mug to crack the vodka in her glass leaks into the monitor of her computer, causing it to short-circuit and blow up. This propels glass shards from the monitor screen into her neck. She ultimately dies when she reaches for a towel that is snagged on a knife rack. She pulls down the towel in attempt to stop the bleeding and the knives come down piercing her several times in the chest. Alex enters the house and attempts to save her, but the knives are pushed down even deeper when the microwave explodes and the concussion from the blast blows a chair over, which falls on her.
- Terry Chaney - Location of Death: City Street. Cause of Death: Hit by a bus.
Getting into an argument with Alex, Clear and Carter causes her to walk off in disgust. She walks off into the street and right into the path of an oncoming bus.
- Tod Waggner - Location of Death: Bathroom. Cause of Death: Strangulation by shower wire.
Slips on water that leaked from the bathroom toliet. He becomes entangled in the shower hanging wire when it wraps around his neck. During the struggle to survive, he knocks over various shampoo and conditioner bottles. This makes standing up nearly impossible. He is eventually strangled to death. The water is seen afterward seeping back into the toliet.