The Final Destination

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This article is about the fourth installment of the series. For the first installment, see Final Destination. For general information, see Final Destination (film series).
The Final Destination (Final Destination 4)
Final destination 09.jpg
Theatrical poster
Directed by David R. Ellis
Produced by Craig Perry
Warren Zide
Written by Eric Bress
Based on characters created 
by Jeffrey Reddick
Starring Bobby Campo
Shantel VanSanten
Mykelti Williamson
Music by Brian Tyler
Cinematography Glen MacPherson
Editing by Mark Stevens
Studio Zide/Perry Productions
Distributed by New Line Cinema[1][2]
Release date(s)
  • August 28, 2009 (2009-08-28)
Running time 82 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $40 million[3]
Box office $186,167,139[4]

The Final Destination (also known as Final Destination 4) is a 2009 American supernatural horror film written by Eric Bress and directed by David R. Ellis, both of whom also worked on Final Destination 2. Released on August 28, 2009, it is the fourth installment in the Final Destination film series, and the first to be shot in HD 3D. It is currently the highest grossing Final Destination film, earning $186 million worldwide but also received the worst critical reception of the franchise. It is followed by Final Destination 5.

This is also the last New Line Cinema solo film before being teamed up with Warner Bros.

Contents

Plot [edit]

The movie starts by showing (In x-rays) the past deaths of the other three movies in a random order. Nick O'Bannon, a college student, watches a race at McKinley Speedway for a study break and while watching the speedway race Nick suddenly has a premonition in which a number of people die when the Speedway collapses following a crash. Nick panics, persuading his girlfriend, Lori Milligan, their friends, Janet Cunningham and Hunt Wynorski, security guard George Lanter, mechanic Andy Kewzer, mother Samantha Lane, racist tow truck driver Carter Daniels, and Andy's girlfriend Nadia Monroy to leave, escaping seconds before Nick's vision becomes a reality. As Nick is explaining what he saw to the survivors, a stray tire flies off the stadium and obliterates Nadia in front of the others.

Days after the disaster Carter tries to burn a cross on George's lawn, blaming him for the death of his wife at the race track. But his truck is inadvertently shifted into gear and he is unable to board it. As he chases it he is caught on the tow chain and dragged down the street, sparks from the cable catch the truck and himself on fire and the truck explodes, his head finally landing on the lawn. George, who came out to see the commotion, witnesses this. The next day Samantha dies after a rock propelled by a lawn mower is shot through her eye. Lori and Nick learn of the deaths and research the premonitions from the previous films and realize that Death is coming after them. Hunt and Janet refuse to believe, but they convince George to help them save Andy. But they are too late and Andy is launched through a chain link fence by a CO2 tank fired off by a broken wench at the garage. Nick receives new visions of water and a coin hinting that Janet and Hunt are in danger.

Janet goes to a car wash after a bird poops on her windshield, her cell phone reception goes out as Lori tries to warn her and the wash begins to malfunction. Meanwhile, after impulsively having sex with a girl at the pool Hunt goes into the pool after a stray golf ball knocks his lucky coin into the water. Lori and George manage to save Janet, but Nick fails to find Hunt who is disemboweled by the pool's drain. Afterward, George tries to commit suicide due to a tragedy in his family that happened years before but fails after several attempts, leading the group to believe that saving Janet stopped Death's plans, to celebrate Janet and Lori go to the mall to watch a movie. But Nick remembers another victim from the speedway and he and George arrive in time to see Jonathan Groves crushed by an unattended bathtub that comes through the ceiling. George is killed unexpectedly by an ambulance as they leave.

At the movies, Lori begins to see signs and suspects they aren't out of danger while Nick rushes to save them. A chain of events sets a fire behind the theater, and Nick manages to convince Lori to leave, but Janet refuses to believe and is killed by shrapnel impaling her when the fire sets off an explosion at the theater. A series of explosions that chase Nick and Lori out knocks out an escalator and Lori is pulled into its gears as Nick wakens and realizes that too was all a vision. Unable to save George from his death, Nick rushes to the theater and barely manages to stop the fire before it causes the resulting explosions.

Months later, Nick notices a loose pylon outside of their hangout "Death by Caffeine" and warns the workers about it before meeting Lori and Janet inside. He deduces that the visions were red herrings meant to lead them to where they needed to be for Death to strike. As he realizes this, the pylon Nick noticed collapses, causing a semi truck to swerve and crash into the restaurant. In a skeletal point of view it's shown that Janet is crushed under the tires while Lori's neck is snapped backwards, while Nick is thrown into a wall and killed. After his fallen teeth fall to the ground, and the credits begin.

Production [edit]

Cast [edit]

  • Bobby Campo as Nick O'Bannon, a college student and Lori's boyfriend
  • Shantel VanSanten as Lori Milligan, a college student and Nick's girlfriend.
  • Mykelti Williamson as George Lanter, a security guard who aids Nick on conquering Death.
  • Nick Zano as Hunt Wynorski, Nick's best friend and Janet's ex-boyfriend
  • Haley Webb as Janet Cunningham, Lori's best friend and Hunt's ex-girlfriend.
  • Krista Allen as Samantha Lane a mother and a wife
  • Andrew Fiscella as Andy Kewzer a mechanic and Nadia's boyfriend
  • Justin Welborn as Carter Daniels a racist man
  • Jackson Walker as Jonathan Groves a cowboy
  • Stephanie Honore as Nadia Monroy and Andy's girlfriend

The Final Destination marks as the only film in the film series in which Tony Todd doesn't make an appearance as William Bludworth, nor physically or voiceover.

Development [edit]

After the success of Final Destination 3, which was initially planned to be in 3-D,[5] Eric Bress wrote a script, which impressed producer Craig Perry and Warner Bros enough to green-light a fourth installment. James Wong was on board to direct, but because of scheduling conflicts with Dragonball Evolution, he decided to drop out. Consequently, the studio executives opted for David R. Ellis to return because of his work on Final Destination 2. He accepted because of the 3-D.[6] For the 3-D, Perry said that he wanted it to add depth to the film instead of just "something pop[ping] out at the audience every four minutes."[7]

Filming [edit]

A car on "McKinley Speedway" sequence as shown in film

Although shooting was to be done in Vancouver, which was where the previous three films were shot, David R. Ellis convinced the producers to shoot in New Orleans instead to bring business to the city, and because the budget was already large.[8] The opening crash sequence at "McKinley Speedway" was filmed at Mobile International Speedway in Irvington, Alabama. Filming began in March 2008 and ended late May in the same year.[7] Reshoots were done in April 2009 at Universal Studios Florida.[9]

Effects [edit]

Music [edit]

Soundtrack [edit]

The soundtrack album was released on the 25th of August in 2009, three days before the film's theatrical release, under public record label JVC/Sony Music Australia. The album consists of 23 cues composed and mixed by Brian Tyler. He took over scoring the series after the untimely death of the composer for the first three films, Shirley Walker.

Commercial songs from film, but not on soundtrack[10]

Score [edit]

The CD features the score composed by Brian Tyler, omitting commercially released songs that were featured in the film.

U.S. edition[11]
The Final Destination (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Film score by Brian Tyler
Released August 25, 2009
Label JVC, Sony Music Australia
  1. "The Final Destination" – 2:56
  2. "The Raceway" – 3:07
  3. "Memorial" – 2:46
  4. "Nailed" – 3:22
  5. "Nick's Google Theory" – 1:30
  6. "Revelations" – 2:28
  7. "Raceway Trespass" – 1:39
  8. "Stay Away from Water" – 2:38
  9. "Flame On" – 1:43
  10. "Moment of Joy" – 1:17
  11. "Signs and Signals" – 2:51
  12. "George Is Next" – 1:12
  13. "Car Washicide" – 3:05
  14. "Newspaper Clues" – 1:57
  15. "Premonition" – 1:50
  16. "The Salon" – 3:53
  17. "Questioning" – 1:04
  18. "Death of a Cowboy" – 2:08
  19. "Gearhead" – 1:56
  20. "Sushi for Everyone" – 2:53
  21. "The Movie Theater" – 3:03
  22. "You Can't Dodge Fate" – 1:28
  23. "The Final Destination Suite" – 13:29

The soundtrack attracted generally favorable reviews. Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks.com gave the score 3 out of 5 stars and said Tyler was "capable... to further explore new stylistic territory while making substantial use of the structures and tone of [predecessor composer] Shirley Walker's music." His approach to the scores were called "intelligent", and provides "adequate if not strikingly overachieving recordings is testimony to his immense talents."

The reviewers were also impressed with the extension of the sound used by Walker in Final Destination 3. "It relates to an affection for Walker's contribution to the industry," says an unnamed critic.[12]

A SoundNotes reviewer grades the film with an impressive score of 7.5 / 10, remarking "Brian Tyler slugs his way through the inadequacies of The Final Destination and produces a score with reasonable entertainment value and enough of an appeal to make it function well apart from the woeful film."[13]

Release [edit]

The film was released in 3-D as well as in conventional theaters on August 28, 2009. It was initially planned for an August 14 release.[14] It is also the first 3-D film to feature D-BOX motion feedback technology in select theaters.[15]

Box office [edit]

According to USA Today and Newsday, Final Destination 4 debuted at the top of the North American box office, beating Rob Zombie's Halloween II, by earning $28.3 million during its first weekend.[16][17] It is also topped the box office in the UK.[18] The film remained #1 at the box office in North America for two weeks. On September 11, 2009, it gained a little more than a million dollars and dropped to No. 7.[19] The film grossed $66.4 million domestically and $119.3 million in foreign sales, with a total of $186.5 million worldwide.[4]

Home media [edit]

The Final Destination was initially scheduled for a DVD and Blu-ray Disc release on December 22, 2009. The film was pushed back to January 5, 2010 in the US. Both the DVD and Blu-ray Disc included two pairs of 3D glasses in each cover and had a 2D version included on the disc, along with additional scenes. Only the Blu-ray Disc version included two alternate endings, a "making of" featurette about the deaths, storyboard visualization and a preview of the new film, A Nightmare on Elm Street.[20] The Blu-ray Disc release, also a combo pack, includes a standard DVD of the film.

In Target stores, some of the DVDs included an exclusive Final Destination comic book.

Reception [edit]

The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 30% of 94 critics gave the film a positive review, with a rating average of 4.3 out of 10 and an audience rating of 52%.[21] The site's consensus is that "With little of the ingenuity of previous installments, The Final Destination is predictable, disposable horror fare." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 30 based on 14 reviews.[22]

The movie was released uncut in Australian theaters with an MA15+ (Strong horror violence, sex scene) rating. When the movie's DVD/Blu-ray Disc release was reviewed, ACB (Australian Classification Board) noted several scenes in the 2D version that exceeded the guidelines at "MA" category. There were two editions released in Australia. A DVD version which only contains a censored 2D version (most of the blood effects taken off and gore trimmed) and the one DVD/bd release with an R18+ rating (High impact violence) that came with uncensored 2D and 3D release. The covers for those versions vary.

References [edit]

  1. ^ http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=finaldestination4.htm
  2. ^ http://boxofficemojo.com/studio/chart/?studio=wb-newline.htm
  3. ^ "Movie projector: 'The Final Destination,' 'Halloween II' splitting horror audience". Los Angeles Times. August 27, 2009. Retrieved January 14, 2010. 
  4. ^ a b "The Final Destination". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved October 25, 2009. 
  5. ^ MrDisgusting (November 20, 2007). "http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/10485". Bloody-Disgusting. Retrieved May 3, 2009. 
  6. ^ B. Alan Orange (May 14, 2008). "SET VISIT PART I: FINAL DESTINATION 4: 3-D Explodes in Our Face!". MovieWeb.com. Retrieved May 3, 2009. 
  7. ^ a b MrDisgusting (February 1, 2008). "Final Destination 4 Opening REVEALED!". Bloody-Disgusting. Retrieved February 1, 2008. 
  8. ^ Edward Douglas (May 14, 2008). "Final Destination 4: The 3-D Set Visit!". ShockTillYouDrop.com. Retrieved May 3, 2009. 
  9. ^ MrDisgusting (April 22, 2009). "Behind-the-Scenes Footage of Final Destination 4 Reshoots". Bloody-Disgusting. Retrieved May 3, 2009. 
  10. ^ "All 11 Songs from The Final Destination Soundtrack". ReelSoundtrack. August 28, 2009. 
  11. ^ Amazon.com : The Final Destination : Brian Tyler : Music
  12. ^ "The Final Destination review". Filmtracks.com. August 31, 2009. 
  13. ^ "The Final Destination: Soundtrack Review". ScoreNotes.com. 
  14. ^ MrDisgusting (June 26, 2008). "Final Destination 4 Release Makes 2009 3-D Summer". Bloody-Disgusting. Retrieved May 3, 2009. 
  15. ^ "World Premiere Featuring 3-D Movie Combined with D-BOX Motion Code(TM)" (Press release). D-BOX Technologies. August 12, 2009. 
  16. ^ Bowles, Scott (August 30, 2009). "Final Destination knocks off stiff competition at box office". USA Today. Retrieved May 25, 2010. 
  17. ^ "Final Destination arrives at No. 1 with $28.3M". Newsday. August 30, 2009. 
  18. ^ "Final Destination heads UK box office". Digital Spy. September 3, 2009. 
  19. ^ BoxOfficeMojo, 2009
  20. ^ "The Final Destination Crashes onto Blu-ray and DVD". DreadCentral. November 15, 2009. 
  21. ^ "The Final Destination". Rotten Tomatoes. June 20, 2010. 
  22. ^ "The Final Destination: Reviews". Metacritic. January 14, 2009. 

External links [edit]
Films
Characters
Films directed by David R. Ellis
1990s
2000s
2010s
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