Editorials
[Special Feature] Top Kills From Previous ‘Final Destination’ Entries!
Coming out this Friday, New Line’s Final Destination 5 (official website) is the latest sequel in the horror franchise that with every entry sees a new set of unlucky characters ripped, shredded, maimed, burned, stabbed, beheaded, disemboweled, and generally tormented by that most relentless of all movie killers: Death itself.
In anticipation of the film’s release, I’ve compiled a list of my choices for the top kills from the last four movies, each of which I’ve embedded a clip of for your viewing pleasure. So enjoy – and when you’re finished reading through my list, be sure to let us know in the comments what your favorites are!
So let’s cut the crap, shall we? The fun of the FD films is the opportunity they afford us in watching a bunch of good-looking actors die in unimaginably gruesome ways. I ask you: in what other franchise have you seen Seann William Scott’s head sliced in half by a sharp sliver of flying metal? Or Ali Larter’s face instantaneously broiled by an explosion? I rest my case.
As with anyone, of course, I can’t help but play favorites, so in honor of the release of the fifth entry, coming out this Friday, I culled through every single FD kill scene on YouTube to come up with my top pick from each installment. Look, it’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
Victim: Ms. Lewton (Kristen Cloke)
Cause of Death: Impaled by a kitchen knife
Though the first movie suffered a bit from post-Scream “self-aware-itis”, it’s still my favorite of the series. The deaths weren’t quite as gruesome, sure, but in my opinion it gave us the best set of characters in any FD movie to date.
Not that it didn’t feature some pretty neat kill scenes, my favorite being the unfortunate chain of events that result in the death of teacher Valerie Lewton (Get it? Val Lewton? Ha!). Not only is the nifty Rube Goldberg aspect of the series in full force here, but having the entire ugly spectacle soundtracked to her mom’s favorite John Denver record is just beyond cruel.
Victim: Brian Gibbons
Cause of Death: Blown apart by an exploding barbeque
The main strength of FD2 lies in the inventiveness of the kills, so I’m a bit ashamed to say that my favorite death in the film involves a gag at the end where a kid is instantly incinerated by a freak barbeque explosion.
But I can’t help it. When a mother witnesses the death of her child in real life, it’s horrifying. When a mother witnesses the death of her child in the movies, it’s still pretty horrifying. When a mother witnesses the death of her child in the movies and then his flaming, severed arm lands on her dinner plate, that shit is funny.
Victims: Ashley Freund (Chelan Simmons), Ashlyn Halperin (Crystal Lowe)
Cause of Death: Roasted alive in tanning beds
My favorite deaths of the entire series thus far are those of Ashley and Ashlyn, best friends who go for a little indoor tanning session and come out, shall we say, a few shades darker than they intended.
What makes this particular bit so fantastic for me is that I live in L.A., and you can’t throw a rock without hitting some crazy, narcissistic bitch just like these girls. So sue me if I happen to enjoy watching two fictional characters modeled off of this totally warranted stereotype catching fire and screaming in agony. Besides, aren’t the movies all about wish fulfillment?
Victim: Hunt Wynorski (Nick Zano)
Cause of Death: Sucked through a swimming pool drain
This, friends, is why I’m scared shitless of pool drains. If you ever find yourself tempted to sit on one for whatever stupid reason, don’t. If it’s cracked or broken, it will suck your insides out through your ass.
While I’d have to say the most painful death imaginable probably involves some combination of fire and an intestinal crank, Hunt’s death ranks pretty high up there as one of the scariest. Imagine: you’re stuck at the bottom of a public pool, drowning, your entire body being sucked through a drain about the size of a baseball, and to top it all off you’re swallowing water made up of about 29% urine. Really, does it get any worse?
Victim & Cause of Death: Watch the trailer and tell us what “death” you’re looking forward to the most!
‘Final Destination 5’ comes out nationwide on Friday, August 12th.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
You must be logged in to post a comment.