Editorials
Death’s Sadistic Design: ‘Final Destination’ Turns 20!
“Final Destination will no doubt be a hit and inspire the obligatory sequels. Like the original Scream, this movie is too good to be the end of the road. I have visions of my own,” famed critic Roger Ebert declared in his review of the 2000 film that birthed a franchise. He was one of the few critics to give a positive review at the time, but his declaration proved accurate. Released in theaters twenty years ago, on March 17, 2000, Final Destination became a sleeper hit that earned a substantial international gross and inspired four sequels with a reboot on the way. Offering a unique slant on the slasher, Final Destination explored the concepts of death and fate in earnest while maximizing dread.
Conceived by Jeffrey Reddick as an episode for The X-Files, he later turned the idea into a feature-length script for New Line Cinema. The X-Files series writers Glen Morgan and James Wong, who also directed, took additional passes at the screenplay. All were in agreement to avoid approaching this as a standard slasher; no masked maniac or monster is hunting the teens in this story, just Death itself. In both life and horror, not much is more dread-inducing than the inescapable realities of dying.
The plot centers around Alex Browning (Devon Sawa), an unassuming teen set to travel on a class trip to Paris. He’s established as superstitious. He reads a series of strange coincidences as ill omens that leave him with a foreboding feeling. It culminates in the plane exploding shortly after take-off. Alex sees many of the passengers dying in excruciating detail, ending in his own death as flames engulf him. It turns out, though, that it’s a horrific vision that sends him into a full-blown panic that results in him and a handful of passengers getting ejected from the plane. Emotions are still at peak intensity at the gate when the plane really does explode, sending the survivors reeling from their intimate brush with Death.
They’re still sorting through their complicated feelings about the situation when Death comes back to collect, killing the passengers off one-by-one.
After the elaborate inciting plane explosion, the narrative slows down to show each character processing in different ways. Jock Carter Horton (Kerr Smith) channels the lack of control he feels over his life as wrathful aggression toward Alex, a physical representation of that helplessness. Teacher and chaperone Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke) recoils in terror as if Alex’s premonition is a supernatural contagion. His best friend Tod (Chad E. Donella) keeps his distance as his family holds Alex responsible over the death of the elder sibling that died on the plane. Then there are survivors like Billy (Sean William Scott), Terry (Amanda Detmer), and Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), who all represent different facets of survivors with a new lease on life, thankful for the chance to keep living.
Being that this was the first installment in a franchise, Final Destination hadn’t yet established the elaborate deaths for which it earned its reputation. At least not fully. The first to be reclaimed by Death, Tod, chokes to death in his bathtub after slipping. Water leaks out from under the toilet, following Tod’s movement, making it clear where this is headed. The second death is a jump scare; poor Terry steps out into the street and is immediately hit by a bus that seemingly comes out of nowhere. Once it’s become clear that Death is on the hunt in the precise order the victims were initially meant to die, it’s Val Lewton’s death that irrevocably changes everything. Specifically, it introduces the masterful suspense and intricate chain-of-event kills. A shard of her computer monitor slices open her throat, she’s impaled by a kitchen knife, and her house explodes, and Wong stretches the moment out with powerful coiling tension. No other death in the film reaches the same level of complexity, though Death certainly tries in the climax.
It’s the idea that death can come from anywhere and that it can happen at any time that offers up the most significant source of intensity here. As Tony Todd‘s mortician William Bloodsworth chillingly explains to the protagonists, “It’s all part of Death’s sadistic design.” Emphasis on sadistic. Even though Death is an unseen force, a fundamental part of life, there’s a feeling of gleeful sadism to the way it claims those that dared to escape it. The film takes special care to note a crying baby in first class as Alex initially boards the plane, adding extra devastating heft to the explosion, for example. It adds a lofty existential core to the slasher formula. The characters are grappling with heady thoughts of fate and survivors’ guilt while being brutally dispatched one-by-one—a fantastic setup for a horror franchise.
As if that wasn’t enough, the film is filled with nods and winks to horror fans. The most overt of which is in the character naming. Valerie Lewton pays homage to the great horror filmmaker Val Lewton, and Terry’s death makes for a literal example of the “Lewton Bus” technique. Terry’s last name pays tribute to Lon Chaney, and Billy’s is a bow to Alfred Hitchcock. It’s not just the ominous foreshadowing and multifaceted deaths that became a staple of the film series, but the horror-centric naming, too.
Final Destination, and the series as a whole, never goes quite as deep with its meditations on fate and death, but that’s probably for the better. Death is cruel, on-screen and in life, so levity is welcome. Twenty years removed from release, Final Destination makes for an intriguing entry in horror that’s both a product of its time and yet timeless. It gave a solid foundation for sequels to expand and improve upon- ranked lists often feature Final Destination 2 or Final Destination 5 near or at the top.
On its own, though, Final Destination blends existential dread with humor, heart, and atmosphere to create a unique standout of the early aughts.
In this day and age, the word “troll” is often used to describe various online nuisances. Yet as abundant and irksome as the modern troll can be, they aren’t usually as fearsome as their mythological counterparts. I’m not talking about the small and gentler versions that have become more common to see in media. No, there are much bigger and scarier trolls out there—and André Øvredal’s movie Troll Hunter is one of the best places to find them.
It doesn’t take long for Troll Hunter (or Trolljegeren) to dump the Blair Witch Project-esque setup and aim for something a lot fresher. The trajectory of the story is augmented by Otto Jespersen’s character Hans, the titular Troll Hunter. The second he comes barreling out of the deep, dark woods and shouts “troll” at the camera, this movie takes a turn into what feels like uncharted territory. Not only subject-wise, but also conceptually.
For fantastical and made-up subject matter in cinema, found footage is a fast way to add a guise of believability. After all, what we accept to be the most crucial aspect of documentaries—the truth—rubs off on pseudo-documentaries, despite our understanding of the pretense involved. That is what Øvredal delivered with Troll Hunter: a movie so convincing that some viewers wondered if trolls really do exist. So, had this been straightforwardly made, it likely wouldn’t have been as effective. Conventional narratives would be more inclined to treat something like trolls as flat out unreal, and never try to convince the audience to think otherwise.
Hans petrifies the three-headed Tusseladd troll.
The viewers, like the characters trailing Hans, are quickly thrown into the deeper end of that extraordinary story. They have to process all this new information while staying on the go. So, although there is no significant amount of meandering, narratively or physically, there is still a good amount of atmosphere, not to mention tension building. It’s never anything frightful, but then again, Troll Hunter isn’t your standard offering of horror; it’s more on the low end of the dark fantasy spectrum. We aren’t ever spirited away to a faraway world—we stay in rather familiar surroundings, as well as dip into those less so. The outcome is a movie where you’re constantly more in awe than in terror.
As fantasy fiction might do, Troll Hunter prefers not to deal with incredulity. There is no time to waste on doubt, as interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), soundperson Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) all follow Hans around, recording whatever this character is willing to reveal about his bizarre job. Of course, the Troll Hunter himself is not an open book; in that respect, the diegetic documentary fails to fully capture and unpack the more interesting of its two subjects. Yes, all those giant, monstrous trolls are indeed incredible, but understandably, your mind wanders to their pursuer. What kind of person signs up for this gig and then chooses to stick with it for so long?
Reviews have called out Troll Hunter for its lack of character development. In regard to Thomas and his fellow documentarians, that criticism is valid, but bear in mind, they aren’t the focus of the story, either. Meanwhile, Hans is a well-crafted character. At least better than first realized. Before he was introduced, Hans had already grown tired of the troll grind. Fed up with that low compensation for his services, resentful of the bureaucracy, and wanting to expose his employer on a large scale, Hans’ discontent is glaring.
Then there are those finer details about the Troll Hunter, such as that indifference to both the natural splendor of his everyday surroundings and the affections of an obviously smitten colleague, that also suggest some level of despondency. So it is fair to say this movie doesn’t feature any sizable growth for its characters; however, the namesake isn’t underwritten. No doubt, putting a real-life character like Otto Jespersen in that role is partly why Hans is so fascinating—maybe even relatable.
Otto Jespersen as Hans the Troll Hunter.
There is always a small risk whenever using the term “mockumentary” to describe a found-footage movie, as the word could imply humor where there is none. In the case of Troll Hunter, the term’s usage is appropriate. Some folks have claimed the English-dubbed version has the more comedic tone, however, the Norwegian cut isn’t exactly humorless. Apart from the trolls’ absurd appearances, this is a movie where the characters nearly choke on the monsters’ farts, and Christians are like walking targets. Hans’ complete apathy towards everything is another cause of laughter. Overall, the comedy is intentionally dry and inconsistent. Unfunny, though? Absolutely not.
In a movie where endemic creatures are maltreated, as well as disavowed from living freely and peacefully, it’s hard not to notice the ecological message buried beneath the story. In addition to that is the unmistakable political satire. There is this whole business about intrusive and unsightly power lines—like trolls, they’re big blemishes on the land—that leads to what is perhaps the movie’s funniest moment. The scene in question is that one where certain electric lines, the ones secretly being used to keep the trolls at bay, go in a loop and don’t actually send power to any residents. Yet the monitors of said lines don’t find this at all weird. So it stands to reason that Øvredal was having a go at those who accept the government’s doings without question.
Looking past the fact that trolls aren’t actually real, this movie is an enlightening source of information. And not just for international audiences; Norwegians, too, get schooled about their homeland’s own mythology. It’s also evident from everything on screen that Øvredal and his crew were enthusiastic about the topic. The creature designs are the most indicative of that zeal; those imaginative yet myth-accurate manifestations are equally amusing and grotesque. One second you’re laughing at their phallic noses, the next you’re white-knuckling during a hairy sequence. Most surprisingly is how well the trolls’ visual effects hold up after fifteen years. It’s not all spotless, but on the whole, they remain impressive.
Vouching for a mockumentary about trolls isn’t easy, but those who do come around and give it a shot will more than likely be grateful for the recommendation. For Troll Hunter is a real find in that vast and varied genre we call “found footage“.
A bridge troll reaches up for food and finds Hans decked out in armor.
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