The Final Destination (2009)

The Final Destination (a.k.a. Final Destination 4) is a 2009 American horror film, and the fourth (and originally final) installment of the Final Destination film series. It was directed by David R. Ellis and written by Eric Bress, who worked together on Final Destination 2. The films stars Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten and Mykelti Williamson.

When Nick O'Bannon has a premonition of a terrible crash at the McKinley Speedway race, where several cars crashes into the public and eventually causes the collapse of a section of the stadium, killing him, his friends and a dozen other people. Although, he initially saves his friends, nobody cheats Death and gets away with it.

Plot
The story opens 8 years after the explosion of Flight 180, 7 years after the Route 23 pileup and 3 years after the Devil's Flight derailment, with Nick O'Bannon, a college student on study break, going with his girlfriend Lori Milligan and their friends, Janet Cunningham and Hunt Wynorski. During the race, Nick suddenly gets the strange feeling something is about to happen. Having the feeling the something touched him, it is brushed of as nothing. At that moment, during a pitstop, drives drives off with a lose screwdriver at the tank, due to miscommunication. At it drives faster and faster, the screwdriver ends up on road, before another driver rides over it, ripping a tire to pieces and losing all control over the vehicle. Due to the high speed, the car start to tumble and eventually, one of its tires is flung into the public, killing Nadia Monroy. This causes a massive panic in the section as people start to flee. On the racetrack, the tumbling car is hit by another driver, leading to the car exploding, and being thrown in the section, killing more people and causing even more panic. As the panicked people accidentally caused the exit to clog up, more cars crashes and more debris is blown into section 180, killing more and more people. In the panic people fall, either killing them in the fall, like mechanic Andy Kewzer, who gets impaled on a piece of broken wood, from the seatings or by the debris. Eventually the structual integraty of the section is comprised when another car is launched into the public. Leading to the building collapsing, blocking the exist. Lori and a security guard eventually perish when one of the cars, that crashed into the public, exploded. The blast throws Nick back, impaling him on a road, causing Nick to wake up, realizing that this is a premonition. As he made a scene, he managed to convince his friends to leave. In the process, he accidentally hits a man, Carter Daniels, who is mad and decided to set chase, but not before telling his wife to stay, to protect their places. The friends are also followed by Andy, his girlfriend Nadia, Samantha Lane and her children as well as a security guard, George Lanter. Outside, Nick is confronted by Carter but before things can get ugly, the premonition comes true, and large explosion tears through the section they would be sitting if it wasn't for Nick. As Carter tries to get back, to save his wife, he is stopped by George, enraging the racist redneck. What follows is a scuffle, which is interrupted by Nadia, asking them if they have lost mind, before being decapitated by a tire, that was catapulled out the stadium. Her death marked the first sign that Death is after them, as she was the first to die in the premonition. The events in stadium freaks out Nick and his friends, especially several days after the disaster, when Nick is plagued by another premonition, in which a hook on a chain alerts him of another death. While trying to uncover what this means, Carter is driving his tow truck to George's house. Carter, drunk on beer, has decided that George was responsible for the death of his wife, and as he already harbors racist prejudices against black people, decide to take revenge by planting a cross in the man's frontyard. He spills some of the beer on him when he leaves the truck and as he grabs his shovel, he accidentally lowers the towing cable, which drops on the ground. He ignores these things and continues with his plans. An odd wind however, flies through his open windows and cause a horseshoe, which was hanging from his rearview mirror, to fall. It hits the gear shift, allowing the truck to move forwards. The movement also knocks over a jerry can, leaving a trail of gasoline behind and as Carter tries to stop the truck, the towing hook got wrapped around his ankle, dragging him along. Shortly after, the sparks caused by the towing cable scraping over the asphalt, ignites the gasoline, setting the man on fire, before causing an explosion, that wrecks the car and dismembers Carters. His head ends up in the frontyard of George. The next day, Samantha's childern are playing with rocks, throwing them on a lawn, where a man on lawnmower is driving. As Samantha disciplines her children, she enters a beautysalon but just as she gave her children a final warning, the lawn mower runs over one of the rocks, propelling it, right in her eye, killing her instantly... This third death alerts Lori and nick that something is going on and while investigating the previous incidents, they realize that Death is stil after them. When they inform the other survivors, Hunt and Janet refuse to believe, as they want to leave thing behind. The only one they can convince, is George. Together, they revieuw the race tracks security tapes, only for Nick to remember who died next in his premonition, Andy. As they visit Andy at his mechanic shop, hoping to warn him, Andy almost gets crushed between the chain link fence and a car that due to certain malfunction, drove from its brigde. Seeing this as proof that he isn't in danger, he walks away, only to be hit by flying carbon dioxide tank, which wopen seconds prior. Hit in the chest, Andy was shot through the chain link fence, cutting his torso into pieces. Shortly after, Nick has another vision, involving water and a coin. This leads him to believe one of the next victims is either Janet or Hunt. Nick calls Hunt, as the latter is enjoying a day at a country club pool, to warn him about upcoming demise. the phone call is cut short however, when a kid squirts Hunt with a water gun, destroying his phone and drowning out the warning. Hunt takes the gun from the boy and places it on the pool drain.

Nick receives visions of water, a coin, a damaged control box and a broken pipe, hinting that Janet and Hunt are in danger and should stay away from water. Nick tries to warn Hunt who is at a country club pool, but a kid squirts Hunt with a water gun and damages his phone. Hunt takes the gun and places it on the pool drain, but the gun falls onto the drain's On/Off switch, causing the pool to start draining. When a group of golfers, on the golf court next to the pool, hit their ball, they accidentally hits Hunt, causing him to lose his lucky coin. The coin drops in the water.

In the meantime, Janet is going to the car wash. Neglecting to follow all safety precautions, a brush oscillator rips off the antenna of her car, slamming it into a control box, causing it to malfunction. At that moment, Lori tries to call her, warning her to stay away from water. This of course, is already too late, seeing she is an car wash. Too make matters worse, the connections drops and she is unable to move. As the icing on the cake, the skylight malfunctioned again, opening, just as the pipe above her start to break. As it fills up the car, she tries to escape. But once again, Death isn't giving up and closes the skylight, when her head is poking out. At that same time, Hunt dives in the pool to retrieve his coin, only to be sucked in by the drain. In the car wash, the car is moving again, and now moving in Janet to have her face shredded to pieces by the brush oscillators. She is saved just in time by Lori, who helps out of the car, before another pipe breaks and crashes into the windscreen. Hunt isn't so lucky, as when Nick arrives, the drain that is slowly drowning him, disembowls him by sucking his small intestines out, through his buttocks, as the pool drain explodes, releasing the intestines, blood and the coin, shocking all at the pool.

But rescueing Janet did seem to have one other positive effect. George, who believes himself to be next, have tried to commit suicide several times, all ending in failure. From this, they draw the conclusion that Death is no longer interested in persuading them. Sometime later, Janet and Lori go to the mall cinema. Despite their apparent victory over death, the visions haven't stopped. It is then that they discover there is another survivor, Jonathan Groves. In his premonition, Nick had asked Jonathan, if he was willing to trade places with Lori, inadvertently sealing his fate as he would die in the vision as well. But when Nick and friends left, Jonathan was never asked to trade places and was able to survive the accident. He was hospitalized however and when George and Nick go to visit it him, Death starts to play another game. As the patient in the room above Jonathan, was drawing a bath, the bath is overflowing. The patient, an immobile elderly man, has no way of stopping this and his screams were so silent, none of the orderlies heard him. In shock, he looked as the floor started to collapse beneath the weight of the bath tub. Slowly, the tub starts to sink into the floor. Jonathan, who felt water dripping on him, realizes what was going on, tries to get away and crawls out his bed. And just as George and Nick arrives, Jonathan is crushed by the bath tub that falls through the ceilling. Just as they leave the hospital, it becomes clear why George fails to commit suicide, it wasn't his time yet. But with Jonathan dead, Death makes short work of George, who gets run over by speeding ambulance. At the movies, Lori begins to see omens as well and immediately realizes that Death isn't done with them. While a fire starts behind the movie screen, Nick comes to warn Lori, who immediately believed him. When they tried to convince Janet however, she refused to listen, stating that she is where she has to be. Before they can do anything else, the movie screen exploded, firing large pieces of shrapnel into the public, killing Janet amongst several other victims. Many other died by the fire that followed. The fire continues and causes several explosions that ravage the mall. Nick and Lori tried attempting to escape the mall on an escalator. Another explosion, causes the escalator to fall, exposing the gears in the process. As the stairs descend, Lori is slowly dragged to the gears, after which she is crushed between the gears. It is only than that he realizes that this was just another vision. Although he was no longer able to save George, he could get to the mall cinema and is eventually able to stop the fire, before it can cause the explosion that would kill them. He breaks his arm however, a small price however for saving a dozen lives.

Weeks later, Nick notices a loose pylon outside of a cafe and warns the workers about it before meeting Lori and Janet inside. Seeing several strange clues, Nick started to wonder if the mall disaster vision was just another trick of Death. What if everything has been leading up to this, to have them together, so it could kill them in one move. At that moment, the pylon collapses, setting off a chain reaction that led to a truck crash through the window. As the final scene turns into an x-ray format, Janet is shown to have been crushed under the tires while Lori's neck is snapped, twisting it almost 180°, and Nick is thrown into a wall, bashing his skull and jaw, ending their lifes as well and the story.

List of deaths
List of deaths in the film The Final Destination.

Cast

 * Bobby Campo as Nick O'Bannon
 * Shantel VanSanten as Lori Milligan
 * Nick Zano as Hunt Wynorski
 * Haley Webb as Janet Cunningham
 * Mykelti Williamson as George Lanter
 * Krista Allen as Samantha Lane
 * Andrew Fiscella as Andy Kewzer
 * Justin Welborn as Carter Daniels
 * Stephanie Honore as Nadia Monroy
 * Lara Grice as Cynthia Daniels
 * Jackson Walker as Jonathan Groves

Development
As a reaction to the success of Final Destination 3, Eric Bress wrote a script for a sequel, which ended up with producer Craig Perry. The script impressed Perry and Warner Bros and they green-lighted the project. It was also decided that the film would 3D, something they actually wanted to for Final Destination 3, but they eventually refrained from doing that. Originally, James Wong would direct the film but due to scheduling conflicts with Dragonbal Evolution, Wong eventually decided to drop out. Consequently, the studio executives contacted David R. Ellis, who also directed Final Destination 2. Being interested in the project, especially in the light of it being 3D, Ellis accepted the offer. Perry also made clear that he wanted the 3D effect to add depth to film. He didn't want it to be cheap gimmick, where just "something pops out at the audience every four minutes.

Filming
The film was filmed in three locations, in New Orleans, Louisiana, in Irvington, Alabama and in Orlando, Florida. This makes it the only film in the franchise, that wasn't filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia. Although originally planned to be shot in Vancouver, David R. Ellis convinced the producers to film it in New Orleans, as it would bring business to the city. Most of the film was recorded here. The car crash sequence was filmed at the International Speedway, in Irvington, Alabama. The film was filmed from March 2008 till late May 2008. In April 2009, reshoots were done at the Universal Studios Florida in Orlando, Florida.

Music
Soundtrack Three days before the film's theatrical release, on August 25, 2009, the soundtrack album of the film was released. This under the public record label JVC/Sony Music Australia. The album consists of 23 cues, composed and mixed Brian Tyler. This is also the first film, where score wasn't written by Shirley Walker, who tragically passed away on November 30th, 2006.


 * Commercial songs featured in the film

The film also featured a wide collection of commercial songs, as listed below.
 * Devour by Shinedown
 * How the Day Sounds by Greg Laswell
 * Burning Bridges by Anvil
 * Why Can't We Be Friends? by War
 * Don't You Know by Ali Dee and the Deekompressors
 * Faraway by Dara Schindler
 * Dream of Me by Perfect
 * Make My by The Roots
 * The Stoop by Little Jackie
 * Sweet Music by Garrison Hawk
 * Corona and Lime by Shwayze Shwayze
 * Make You Crazy by Brett Dennen


 * Reception

The soundtrack attracted generally favorable reviews. Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks.com gave the score 3 out of 5 stars and felt Tyler was "capable [...] to further explore new stylistic territory while making substantial use of the structures and tone of Shirley Walker's music, who wrote the scores for the previous films." His approach to the scores were called "intelligent", and provide "adequate if not strikingly overachieving recordings is testimony to his immense talents."

The reviewers were also impressed with the extension of the sound used by Walker in Final Destination 3. "It relates to an affection for Walker's contribution to the industry," said an unnamed critic.

A SoundNotes reviewer grades the film with an impressive score of 7.5/10, remarking "Brian Tyler slugs his way through the inadequacies of The Final Destination and produces a score with reasonable entertainment value and enough of an appeal to make it function well apart from the woeful film."

Release
On August 28, 2009 were released both in 3D and is the conventional format, in theaters. The release was postponed with a two weeks, as it was initially planned to be hit theaters, on August 14, 2009. The Final Destination was also the first 3D film that featured D-BOX motion feedback technology in select theaters. The movie was released uncut in Australian theaters with an MA15+ rating for strong horror violence and sex scene.

Box office
On release, The Final Destination debuted at the top of North American box office, earning $27,408,309. It beat Halloween II that opened the same weekend and made $16,349,565. The film remained #1 at the box office for two weeks. n September 11, 2009, it gained just over a million dollars and dropped to No. 7. It would also top the box office in the UK, when it was released. The film grossed $66,477,700 domestically and $119,689,439 in foreign sales, with a total of $186,167,139 worldwide.

Home media
The Final Destination was released on January 5, 2010 in the US on DVD and Blu-ray, after being postponed from December 22, 2009. Both the DVD and Blu-ray Disc included two pairs of 3D with each set. It also featured a 2D version on the disc however, along with additional scenes. Extras, exclusive for the Blu-ray Disc version, were two alternative endings, a "making of" feature about the deaths, a storyboard visualization and a preview for A Nightmare on Elm Street. The Blu-ray Disc release, also a combo pack, includes a standard DVD of the film. In Target stores, some of the DVDs included an exclusive Final Destination comic book.

When the movie's DVD/Blu-ray Disc release was reviewed in Australia, the ACB (Australian Classification Board) noted several scenes in the 2D version that exceeded the guidelines of the MA15+ category. There were two editions released in Australia: a DVD version which only contains a censored 2D version (most of the blood effects taken off and gore trimmed) and a DVD release awarded an R18+ rating (High impact violence) with both uncensored 2D and 3D versions (and 3D glasses included). The covers between the two releases vary.

Reception
In general, the film received negative reviews from critics. The film was rated 4.2 out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes, as 29% of 95 critics gave the film a positive review. The site's consensus is: "With little of the ingenuity of previous installments, The Final Destination is predictable, disposable horror fare." On Metacritic it was rated 30%, based on 14 reviews.