section_path: Themes
section_name: Themes
paragraph_text: Themes
  
  Three critical theories about the Final Destination franchise have been discussed in scholarly works. It has been framed as a postmodern horror franchise that, like the Scream franchise, self-consciously refers to the history of horror cinema and rewards viewers for their knowledge. Second, the films—particularly The Final Destination (2009) and Final Destination 5 (2011)—have been examined for their visual effects. Third, the franchise has been criticized for being cynical and reductive. For example, film studies scholar Reynold Humphries dismisses the franchise as "obscurantist nonsense whose only 'idea' is that death is an agency that has a 'plan' for each of us".
  
  According to media studies scholar Eugenie Brinkema, Final Destination films are characterized by their move away from the typical horror antagonist and toward the certainty and inevitability of death. This makes them inconsistent with most other horror films, which require a monster. Final Destination films depart further from other horror films, even those aimed at teenagers, in that a family narrative is lacking, and there are no hauntings of any kind. As well, there is no sexuality—"neither the pursuit of pleasure in the slasher convention of easy bodily access nor the monstrosity of sexual difference". Brinkema argues the films are not about seeking pleasure like typical slasher films. Instead they are about the avoidance of pain and death; they are fundamentally "bitter... paranoid, and sad" and display the inability of characters to feel pleasure. In these films, death becomes its own cause. The premonition of the roller coaster derailment in Final Destination 3 is without context or cause. The avoidance of death by some characters grounds the necessity of their deaths, specifically the order in which they would have died on the roller coaster. Thus, "Death's list" or "Death's design" is realized. Final Destination 3 spends as much time interpreting deaths as displaying them. Wendy's close analysis of photographs allows her to understand the deaths, but is inevitably too late to save her friends. In the franchise's films, Brinkema says, "one must closely read to survive (for a spell), and yet reading changes absolutely nothing at all". Thus, the characters "might as well" have stayed on the roller coaster.
  
  Ian Conrich, a film studies scholar, argues the series marks a key departure from slasher norms in that death itself becomes the villain. Final Destination films draw influences from slasher cinema but the franchise's action sequences, including Final Destination 3 ' s roller coaster derailment, draw from action and disaster cinema. For Conrich, the franchise marks a new slasher film subgenre. Because the deaths are extremely violent and excessive, any number can happen at once, and all of them are inevitable, he calls the films "grand slashers". Other grand slashers include the films in the Saw and Cube franchises.
  
  A notable feature of the Final Destination films is the threshold or tipping-point logic of characters' deaths. Conrich frames the complex death sequences in Final Destination films as "death games, contraptions or puzzles in which there are only losers". He compares the sequences to Rube Goldberg machines, the Grand Guignol, and the Mouse Trap board game. Brinkema selects the deaths of Ashley and Ashlyn from Final Destination 3 as epitomizing the series' death sequences. The characters' deaths are brought about by "a series of neutral gestures, a set of constraints that will ultimately lead to their conflagratory ends"; these include the placing of a drink, looking through CDs, and an ill-chosen doorstop. The scene uses logics of temperature, color, and light to realize the characters' deaths, and to allow Wendy to recognize the threat they face. An example of the "literal tipping point" at which the characters can no longer escape occurs when a coat rack is knocked onto the tanning beds; it is blown by an air conditioning unit that is activated by the increasing heat. Conrich identifies the roller coaster derailment as an example of the franchise's focus on mobility in death sequences. He argues that theme park rides and horror cinema are mutually influential; the former draw from the frightening aspects of the latter, while the latter draw from the "theatrics and kinetics" of the former.
  
  Three critical theories about the Final Destination franchise have been discussed in scholarly works. It has been framed as a postmodern horror franchise that, like the Scream franchise, self-consciously refers to the history of horror cinema and rewards viewers for their knowledge. Second, the films—particularly The Final Destination (2009) and Final Destination 5 (2011)—have been examined for their visual effects. Third, the franchise has been criticized for being cynical and reductive. For example, film studies scholar Reynold Humphries dismisses the franchise as "obscurantist nonsense whose only 'idea' is that death is an agency that has a 'plan' for each of us".
  
  According to media studies scholar Eugenie Brinkema, Final Destination films are characterized by their move away from the typical horror antagonist and toward the certainty and inevitability of death. This makes them inconsistent with most other horror films, which require a monster. Final Destination films depart further from other horror films, even those aimed at teenagers, in that a family narrative is lacking, and there are no hauntings of any kind. As well, there is no sexuality—"neither the pursuit of pleasure in the slasher convention of easy bodily access nor the monstrosity of sexual difference". Brinkema argues the films are not about seeking pleasure like typical slasher films. Instead they are about the avoidance of pain and death; they are fundamentally "bitter... paranoid, and sad" and display the inability of characters to feel pleasure. In these films, death becomes its own cause. The premonition of the roller coaster derailment in Final Destination 3 is without context or cause. The avoidance of death by some characters grounds the necessity of their deaths, specifically the order in which they would have died on the roller coaster. Thus, "Death's list" or "Death's design" is realized. Final Destination 3 spends as much time interpreting deaths as displaying them. Wendy's close analysis of photographs allows her to understand the deaths, but is inevitably too late to save her friends. In the franchise's films, Brinkema says, "one must closely read to survive (for a spell), and yet reading changes absolutely nothing at all". Thus, the characters "might as well" have stayed on the roller coaster.
  
  Ian Conrich, a film studies scholar, argues the series marks a key departure from slasher norms in that death itself becomes the villain. Final Destination films draw influences from slasher cinema but the franchise's action sequences, including Final Destination 3 ' s roller coaster derailment, draw from action and disaster cinema. For Conrich, the franchise marks a new slasher film subgenre. Because the deaths are extremely violent and excessive, any number can happen at once, and all of them are inevitable, he calls the films "grand slashers". Other grand slashers include the films in the Saw and Cube franchises.
  
  A notable feature of the Final Destination films is the threshold or tipping-point logic of characters' deaths. Conrich frames the complex death sequences in Final Destination films as "death games, contraptions or puzzles in which there are only losers". He compares the sequences to Rube Goldberg machines, the Grand Guignol, and the Mouse Trap board game. Brinkema selects the deaths of Ashley and Ashlyn from Final Destination 3 as epitomizing the series' death sequences. The characters' deaths are brought about by "a series of neutral gestures, a set of constraints that will ultimately lead to their conflagratory ends"; these include the placing of a drink, looking through CDs, and an ill-chosen doorstop. The scene uses logics of temperature, color, and light to realize the characters' deaths, and to allow Wendy to recognize the threat they face. An example of the "literal tipping point" at which the characters can no longer escape occurs when a coat rack is knocked onto the tanning beds; it is blown by an air conditioning unit that is activated by the increasing heat. Conrich identifies the roller coaster derailment as an example of the franchise's focus on mobility in death sequences. He argues that theme park rides and horror cinema are mutually influential; the former draw from the frightening aspects of the latter, while the latter draw from the "theatrics and kinetics" of the former.