Final Destination (2000)
What if the killer was not a masked slasher with a grudge, not a monster from some shadowy mythology, but Death itself? That was the question Final Destination turned up with in 2000, and credit where it is due: nobody had really asked it quite like that before.
The setup is elegantly simple. A teenager has a premonition that his plane is about to explode, panics his way off it with a handful of others, and then watches, helpless, as an unseen force sets about picking off the survivors one by one, in the exact order they were meant to die. It sounds daft when you write it out like that, and honestly it is, but there is a real wit to the concept. The genius is in what it does to ordinary space. Suddenly a kitchen is a minefield. A bathroom is a trap. You find yourself flinching at leaking pipes, loose screws, an unattended gas hob, because the film has rewired your brain to see the everyday world as one long Rube Goldberg machine pointed squarely at the cast. That is a proper horror trick, and it works.
It mostly holds up, at least as a hook. The tension the film wrings from that conceit is genuine, and the set-pieces have a nasty inventiveness to them. But it has to be said: this thing is thoroughly of its era in ways that go beyond charm. The acting is broad, the dialogue is cheesy, and a good chunk of it plays as pure turn-of-the-millennium teen-horror ham. The legendary Tony Todd turns up as an ominous mortician to spell out the rules of Death's design, and the scene walks a razor-thin line between portentous and unintentionally funny. It lands on the right side, just about. Dated, then, but in a way that is at least half the fun. There is a particular pleasure in watching early-2000s horror take itself completely seriously while also being utterly ridiculous, and this film delivers that in spades.
Where I would push back slightly is on the question of whether this is the series at its best. For my money it is not. The second film sharpened everything this one does, opening with a motorway pile-up that remains the high point of the whole run, a genuinely extraordinary sequence that this first entry cannot quite match for sheer sustained spectacle. But then that is almost always the way with franchise starters: they are laying pipe rather than letting the gas run full. This film is doing the hard foundational work, setting up the mythology, establishing the tone, delivering enough memorably nasty moments to make you want to come back. It does all of that.
So yes, it is a little rough around the edges. Yes, you will cringe at some of the dialogue. Yes, the characterisation is thin enough that you are mostly just waiting to see how each person gets it rather than whether they do. But the central idea is so clean, so genuinely original for its moment, that none of that really matters. Horror cinema does not produce concepts this sustainable very often. The fact that the same engine is still running sequels well into the decades that followed tells you everything about how strong the idea at the heart of this one actually is.
As a slab of clever, gruesome, faintly silly fun, Final Destination more than earns its place. It was ahead of its time, and it has aged into something enjoyably of it.
Three stars.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2000 | Watched: 2026-09-04
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Netflix · Amazon Prime Video · HBO Max Amazon Channel · Now TV Cinema
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · HBO Max
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
