Editorials
‘Final Destination 2’ Expanded Death’s Rules and Delivered a Standout Opening Disaster
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If there’s one singular moment that stands above all the gruesome opening catastrophes and over-the-top deaths in the Final Destination film series, it’s the logging truck and the deadly highway pile-up it caused in Final Destination 2.
The original Final Destination set the bar high with a harrowing plane explosion mid-air. Its direct follow-up, released in 2003 and set one year after the first film’s events, upped the ante in terror with a far more statistically probable catastrophe that hits closer to home. Director David R. Ellis (The Final Destination, Snakes on a Plane) and screenwriters Eric Bress & J. Mackye Gruber (The Butterfly Effect) expanded upon their predecessor’s elaborate kills as well as Death’s rules.
Armed with an almost entirely new cast and set of characters, Final Destination 2 unceremoniously kills off Final Destination’s protagonist and premonition wielder Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) off-screen between films, noted via newspaper clipping and details by the sole returning character, Clear Rivers (Ali Larter). Clear acts as the new cast’s guide to Death’s designs, albeit with new wrinkles and hints toward divine intervention.
In anticipation of the sixth installment, Final Destination Bloodlines, we’re retracing Death’s steps to examine the established lore, formula, and, of course, the standout kills from the series, and Final Destination 2 remains one of the series’ highlights.
The Inciting Disaster
This sequel opens with an introduction to college student Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook), who’s on her way to Florida for Spring Break with friends. As the camera drifts in and out of vehicles to introduce key players, it also begins to toy with viewers and build suspense. The telltale signs of an encroaching premonition highlight all the various ways one small mishap can snowball into a world of destruction and hurt.
The actual cause is ultimately revealed to be the logging truck, whose bindings snap and cause its massive logs to roll out into traffic. It triggers a chain reaction of car crashes, explosions, freak accidents, and violent deaths for all on that stretch of road. Straight away, one log smashes through Burke’s patrol vehicle, coming out through the back covered in his viscera. While pinned in her overturned vehicle, Kimberly watches all of it happen in horror.
Before a careening car comes for her, she snaps out of the vision on the entrance ramp, avoiding the pile-up and beginning Death’s new game.
The carnage is all captured in graphic detail, with director David R. Ellis often slowing down the camera to let every single gruesome moment soak in. This intense sequence effectively transformed the logging truck into a real-life boogeyman, in no small part because of its plausibility. Accidents involving a logging truck have happened before and could happen again, anywhere.
Flight 180 came with a much higher death toll, but the freak accident on Route 23 is so elaborate and grounded that it easily holds its own.
The Standout Kills
1) Death by Escape Ladder
Lottery winner Evan Lewis (David Paetkau) thinks his lucky streak continued when Kimberly’s premonition prevented him from entering the highway moments before the pile-up, but his luck runs out when he’s among the very first to fall at Death’s design. As such, Evan gets an appropriately complex sequence filled with ominous clues in his apartment.
As Evan cooks, the camera pans past his fridge with magnets that spell “Eye,” clear foreshadowing reinforcing his premonition fate. As Final Destination previously revealed, kitchens are a hazard in this franchise. As the dominoes of doom line up, Evan is eventually forced to flee a burning apartment. His early carelessness with spaghetti comes back to haunt him, culminating in the fire escape ladder crashing down right into his eye socket.
2) Elevator of Death
Nora Carpenter (Lynda Boyd) isn’t interested in playing Death’s game, but it’s too bad for her that she doesn’t have a choice. As the survivors are gathered together to formulate a plan against Death, Nora has had enough and leaves. Death becomes imminent when Nora heads to the elevator, which is playing “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver.
After built-up tension, the pressure release comes in a gnarly sequence that sees Nora’s braid get caught in a hook, causing her to panic and fall into the elevator’s closing doors, where her head is crushed over and over until it’s removed from her body. All while the remaining survivors look on in helpless horror.
It reinforces the franchise’s ability to exploit everyday fears, from elevators to road disasters. For even more kills from Final Destination 2 and beyond, read our full ranking here.
Death’s Expert
“Hello, Clear. I’ve been expecting you.”
Thanks to Clear’s return and her helpful interactions with the franchise’s resident mortician, she brings the newcomers to Bludworth (Tony Todd) as he’s preparing the body of Evan Lewis. As with the previous installment, it’s Bludworth who provides critical intel: Death can only be defeated with new life. For every life there’s a death, for every death, there is a life.
It’s invaluable advice that helps this new batch formulate a plan to cheat Death a second time. It’s also a scene that crystallized Bludworth as a core element of the franchise, thanks to Tony Todd’s engimatic and powerful performance.
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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