Editorials
Is ‘Final Destination’ the Best Horror Franchise in History?
Final Destination is the best horror franchise in history. A part of me feels guilty saying that, especially as I survey all the figures of Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Michael Myers adorning my desk at this very moment. But while Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween all ultimately squandered their potential in later sequels, Final Destination has remained surprisingly consistent throughout its five entries, providing cheesy thrills without ever jumping the shark.
To understand how, let’s take a closer look at some of the issues other horror franchises have fallen victim to in the past.
A frequent dilemma is that the original film simply does not have much sequel potential, and so there is nothing new to say in future installments. As a direct result, storytellers begin throwing anything they can think of at the wall to see what sticks, getting nuttier and nuttier until a relatively serious picture has become a parody of itself. Think of A Nightmare on Elm Street; though a guilty pleasure, it’s a bizarre series just because of how all over the place it ends up being. One minute, Freddy is a terrifying representation of our subconscious fears, but the next, he’s like a demon Joker, slaughtering teenagers with a Power Glove and saying “bitch” a whole lot.
To a lesser extent, this applies to Friday the 13th as well. It became apparent after Part III that teens being offed in the woods could only last so many movies and the kills had to be taken to the next level. So before long, Jason’s dead, he’s alive, he’s fighting a girl with telekinesis, he’s in hell and, finally, he’s in space. Once again, this is definitely not to say the franchise is bad, but it’s certainly erratic, jumping up and down in quality as regularly as an American Horror Story season. With both Nightmare and Friday, the problems stem from the first installment, which works on its own and doesn’t leave much room for continuation. The directors of each sequel had nowhere to go except somewhere utterly insane, inevitably leading to a shift in tone.
Then there’s the case of the overcomplicated franchise storyline. When writers realize their series will be around for a while, as moviegoers have inexplicably not grown tired of it, they might start developing an overarching narrative. Theoretically, if returning characters and cliffhangers are utilized from now on, it will look slightly less ridiculous that so many sequels are being produced. Very quickly, though, that storyline usually turns into a complete disaster, with each sequel like a Jenga block being added to an increasingly unstable tower.
Just recall what happened to Saw: the main villain died in Saw III, which seemed like a fine place to wrap things up. Unfortunately, Lionsgate wasn’t ready to leave Saw behind, and so the next few sequels devolved into an incomprehensible onslaught of plot twists, flashbacks, flashforwards, and parallel events in an attempt to craft a mythology to put most soap operas to shame. It was a valiant effort, but in the end, Saw just became too convoluted for its own good. It wasn’t a Nightmare on Elm Street scenario, where the series took a nosedive because it was difficult to keep coming up with ideas. Instead, Saw actually had far too much going on.
An even more cataclysmic example of the botched expansive narrative is Halloween; Tommy Lee Wallace should be commended for trying something different with Halloween III: Season of the Witch. But, as we all know, everyone wanted Michael Myers back, and so Compass Pictures sadly had no choice but to hunker down and prepare for a long stay in Haddonfield. The result was an absurd ongoing plot about a cult that is eventually revealed to have been in control of Michael Myers all along. By adding so much backstory and so many ludicrous reveals, John Carpenter’s simplistic slasher had transformed into a bloated mess.
Learning from history, then, a successful franchise must start off with sequel potential, and it must connect each installment without completely running the plot into the ground. That brings us to Final Destination, which meets exactly that description and which has proven itself to be our finest horror series.
From the beginning, Final Destination is clearly built to last as a franchise. The killer of the piece isn’t a specific man or monster whose return must be explained. No, the killer is death itself, an invisible antagonist who will be taking lives until the end of time, whether these movies are made or not. The premise is ideal for followups, as by definition it’s a story about something that happens all the time.
The deaths themselves are also always entertaining because the series allows for unlimited possibilities. With Friday the 13th, there are only so many ways a man with a machete can murder teenagers. Sure, some of the sequels get creative, like the sleeping bag kill in The New Blood or the frozen head smash in Jason X. But even the most innovative deaths are still some variation of a strong man slaughtering his victims with blunt force.
In the Final Destination movies, absolutely anything can happen and it will fit within the established rules without any issue. Want to kill someone in a brutal and realistic fashion by having them get hit by a bus or strangled by a clothes line? That works! Want to do something preposterous like have a flying barbed-wire fence slice someone into three pieces or have a set of weights crush a guy’s face like a watermelon? That works too! Death does whatever the hell it wants, and so the screenwriters can do whatever the hell they want. Friday the 13th had to journey into space in a desperate search for something unique, but Final Destination requires no such reach.
Final Destination also perfectly integrates its overarching plot, letting each film stand on its own but also ensuring it feels like a piece of a larger puzzle. Final Destination 2, for instance, reintroduces Clear Rivers, the only survivor of Flight 180. She becomes an integral part of the story, continuing her arc from the original and offering the valuable knowledge that comes with being a seasoned death-dodger. This sequel also expands upon the rules of the Final Destination canon, establishing what happens when a new life is added into the mix. Yet at the same time, it is not even necessary to have watched the first installment to enjoy this one. Right away, Final Destination is serving up sequels that please both casual and hardcore fans.
The same is true of Final Destination 3, which clearly exhibits the franchise’s DNA but is also a totally fresh narrative. Just as Final Destination 2 played with the idea of new life cancelling out death, this sequel involves a series of clues in the form of pictures that heavily foreshadow how each character will die. There were omens in the other movies, but now getting to the bottom of these specific photos is a major part of the drama, another effective way to spice things up.
The Final Destination, which is a bit more predictable compared to the predecessors, still answers another fascinating question: “What happens when someone who isn’t next in line tries to kill themselves?” Next up, Final Destination 5 revolves heavily around figuring out how committing murder affects death’s priorities, a cool idea not at all reflected in the previous four films.
As you can see, every sequel is connected as to not create a Season of the Witch scenario, but the bridge between all five is mostly a bonus intended to please hardcore fans. Never is the story dragged down by the need to explain an overly complex narrative with dozens of characters and increasingly stupid ideas like the lead character being under the influence of a cult. Instead, each movie is self-contained while nevertheless carrying over familiar elements, throwing in fun easter eggs, and addressing unanswered questions.
The only weak link is The Final Destination, which is cheapened by the poor special effects and awkward use of 3D, but it thankfully never verges into the franchise-ruining territory of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers or A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. Even if fans found themselves disappointed with the fourth entry, the series quickly bounced back with Final Destination 5 just two years later, correcting every complaint and standing out as one of the strongest films yet.
What other series brings the same basic feel to every sequel but requires they all say something slightly different? What other franchise consistently impresses with the creative kills and jaw-dropping moments to top what came before, never jumping the shark with a trip to space? Most importantly, in what other franchise are 80% of the entries absolute perfection? Not Friday the 13th. Not A Nightmare on Elm Street. Not Halloween. Not Saw. Not The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Not even Scream.
In terms of pure creativity and consistency, Final Destination reigns supreme.
Here’s what we know about Longlegs so far. It’s coming in July of 2024, it’s directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), and it features Maika Monroe (It Follows) as an FBI agent who discovers a personal connection between her and a serial killer who has ties to the occult. We know that the serial killer is going to be played by none other than Nicolas Cage and that the marketing has been nothing short of cryptic excellence up to this point.
At the very least, we can assume NEON’s upcoming film is going to be a dark, horror-fueled hunt for a serial killer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five disturbing serial killers-versus-law-enforcement stories to get us even more jacked up for Longlegs.
MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)
This South Korean film directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is a wild ride. The film features a handful of cops who seem like total goofs investigating a serial killer who brutally murders women who are out and wearing red on rainy evenings. The cops are tired, unorganized, and border on stoner comedy levels of idiocy. The movie at first seems to have a strange level of forgiveness for these characters as they try to pin the murders on a mentally handicapped person at one point, beating him and trying to coerce him into a confession for crimes he didn’t commit. A serious cop from the big city comes down to help with the case and is able to instill order.
But still, the killer evades and provokes not only the police but an entire country as everyone becomes more unstable and paranoid with each grizzly murder and sex crime.
I’ve never seen a film with a stranger tone than Memories of Murder. A movie that deals with such serious issues but has such fallible, seemingly nonserious people at its core. As the film rolls on and more women are murdered, you realize that a lot of these faults come from men who are hopeless and desperate to catch a killer in a country that – much like in another great serial killer story, Citizen X – is doing more harm to their plight than good.
Major spoiler warning: What makes Memories of Murder somehow more haunting is that it’s loosely based on a true story. It is a story where the real-life killer hadn’t been caught at the time of the film’s release. It ends with our main character Detective Park (Song Kang-ho), now a salesman, looking hopelessly at the audience (or judgingly) as the credits roll. Over sixteen years later the killer, Lee Choon Jae, was found using DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence for another murder. Choon Jae even admitted to watching the film during his court case saying, “I just watched it as a movie, I had no feeling or emotion towards the movie.”
In the end, Memories of Murder is a must-see for fans of the subgenre. The film juggles an almost slapstick tone with that of a dark murder mystery and yet, in the end, works like a charm.
CURE (1997)
If you watched 2023’s Hypnotic and thought to yourself, “A killer who hypnotizes his victims to get them to do his bidding is a pretty cool idea. I only wish it were a better movie!” Boy, do I have great news for you.
In Cure (spoilers ahead), a detective (Koji Yakusho) and forensic psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) team up to find a serial killer who’s brutally marking their victims by cutting a large “X” into their throats and chests. Not just a little “X” mind you but a big, gross, flappy one.
At each crime scene, the murderer is there and is coherent and willing to cooperate. They can remember committing the crimes but can’t remember why. Each of these murders is creepy on a cellular level because we watch the killers act out these crimes with zero emotion. They feel different than your average movie murder. Colder….meaner.
What’s going on here is that a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is walking around and somehow manipulating people’s minds using the flame of a lighter and a strange conversational cadence to hypnotize them and convince them to murder. The detectives eventually catch him but are unable to understand the scope of what’s happening before it’s too late.
If you thought dealing with a psychopathic murderer was hard, imagine dealing with one who could convince you to go home and murder your wife. Not only is Cure amazingly filmed and edited but it has more horror elements than your average serial killer film.
MANHUNTER (1986)
In the first-ever Hannibal Lecter story brought in front of the cameras, Detective Will Graham (William Petersen) finds his serial killers by stepping into their headspace. This is how he caught Hannibal Lecter (played here by Brian Cox), but not without paying a price. Graham became so obsessed with his cases that he ended up having a mental breakdown.
In Manhunter, Graham not only has to deal with Lecter playing psychological games with him from behind bars but a new serial killer in Francis Dolarhyde (in a legendary performance by Tom Noonan). One who likes to wear pantyhose on his head and murder entire families so that he can feel “seen” and “accepted” in their dead eyes. At one point Lecter even finds a way to gift Graham’s home address to the new killer via personal ads in a newspaper.
Michael Mann (Heat, Thief) directed a film that was far too stylish for its time but that fans and critics both would have loved today in the same way we appreciate movies like Nightcrawler or Drive. From the soundtrack to the visuals to the in-depth psychoanalysis of an insanely disturbed protagonist and the man trying to catch him. We watch Graham completely lose his shit and unravel as he takes us through the psyche of our killer. Which is as fascinating as it is fucked.
Manhunter is a classic case of a serial killer-versus-detective story where each side of the coin is tarnished in their own way when it’s all said and done. As Detective Park put it in Memories of Murder, “What kind of detective sleeps at night?”
INSOMNIA (2002)
Maybe it’s because of the foggy atmosphere. Maybe it’s because it’s the only film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography he didn’t write as well as direct. But for some reason, Insomnia always feels forgotten about whenever we give Nolan his flowers for whatever his latest cinematic achievement is.
Whatever the case, I know it’s no fault of the quality of the film, because Insomnia is a certified serial killer classic that adds several unique layers to the detective/killer dynamic. One way to create an extreme sense of unease with a movie villain is to cast someone you’d never expect in the role, which is exactly what Nolan did by casting the hilarious and sweet Robin Williams as a manipulative child murderer. He capped that off by casting Al Pacino as the embattled detective hunting him down.
This dynamic was fascinating as Williams was creepy and clever in the role. He was subdued in a way that was never boring but believable. On the other side of it, Al Pacino felt as if he’d walked straight off the set of 1995’s Heat and onto this one. A broken and imperfect man trying to stop a far worse one.
Aside from the stellar acting, Insomnia stands out because of its unique setting and plot. Both working against the detective. The investigation is taking place in a part of Alaska where the sun never goes down. This creates a beautiful, nightmare atmosphere where by the end of it, Pacino’s character is like a Freddy Krueger victim in the leadup to their eventual, exhausted death as he runs around town trying to catch a serial killer while dealing with the debilitating effects of insomnia. Meanwhile, he’s under an internal affairs investigation for planting evidence to catch another child killer and accidentally shoots his partner who he just found out is about to testify against him. The kicker here is that the killer knows what happened that fateful day and is using it to blackmail Pacino’s character into letting him get away with his own crimes.
If this is the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue we get with the story from Longlegs? We’ll be in for a treat. Hoo-ah.
FALLEN (1998)
Fallen may not be nearly as obscure as Memories of Murder or Cure. Hell, it boasts an all-star cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and Elias Koteas. But when you bring it up around anyone who has seen it, their ears perk up, and the word “underrated” usually follows. And when it comes to the occult tie-ins that Longlegs will allegedly have? Fallen may be the most appropriate film on this entire list.
In the movie, Detective Hobbs (Washington) catches vicious serial killer Edgar Reese (Koteas) who seems to place some sort of curse on him during Hobbs’ victory lap. After Reese is put to death via electric chair, dead bodies start popping up all over town with his M.O., eventually pointing towards Hobbs as the culprit. After all, Reese is dead. As Hobbs investigates he realizes that a fallen angel named Azazel is possessing human body after human body and using them to commit occult murders. It has its eyes fixated on him, his co-workers, and family members; wrecking their lives or flat-out murdering them one by one until the whole world is damned.
Mixing a demonic entity into a detective/serial killer story is fascinating because it puts our detective in the unsettling position of being the one who is hunted. How the hell do you stop a demon who can inhabit anyone they want with a mere touch?!
Fallen is a great mix of detective story and supernatural horror tale. Not only are we treated to Denzel Washington as the lead in a grim noir (complete with narration) as he uncovers this occult storyline, but we’re left with a pretty great “what would you do?” situation in a movie that isn’t afraid to take the story to some dark places. Especially when it comes to the way the film ends. It’s a great horror thriller in the same vein as Frailty but with a little more detective work mixed in.
Look for Longlegs in theaters on July 12, 2024.
4 New Horror Movies Releasing This Week Including ‘Late Night with the Devil’ at Home
Spring 2024 Horror Preview: 12 Horror Movies You Don’t Want to Miss
The ‘Scary Movie’ Spoof Franchise Is Getting a Reboot at Paramount!
‘Ready or Not’: Radio Silence Filmmakers Tease the “Absolute Banger” of a Sequel That’s Taking Shape
“We Built Every Creature” – ‘Alien: Romulus’ Goes Heavy on the Old School Practical Effects!
You must be logged in to post a comment.