Death: One Mack Daddy You Don't Want to F*ck With

I hope you get the reference in the title of this post. If not, it's okay, I forgive you, but you should really do yourself a favor and watch my favorite horror trilogy (soon to be a whatever-four-movies-is) of the past 10-ish years: Final Destination. Candyman says it to the girl with split personalities from Heroes and the dreamy Devon Sawa.

For those of you who haven't see these movies, there's a basic formula. 1. A high school student sees a highly complex, devastating and graphic accident and freaks out when events in the vision start happening. The student saves him/herself and others. 2. Even though they didn't die with the others, the survivors start dying in really crazy ways, usually involving seemingly natural events. 3. The main character comes upon the idea that death has a plan and death, as noted above, is not one to mess with. Even with that being said, apparently there's a formula to things which the main character tries to decipher. 4. The main character and someone of the opposite sex try to convince the surviving survivors what's going on to varying levels of belief and success. 5. Bad things happen (a lot). 6. It ends.

I'm sure a far more detailed map could be laid out for these movies, but I don't want to ruin too many aspects of the films. And, even though all three are very similar in structure, it doesn't really bother me because these movies aren't really about the characters. Yes, I do think they're fairly well-rounded and like/dis-likeable, but the real hook for these movies are the highly complex and usually gory death scenes that are amazing if you're a gore fan. Sometimes they do get a little mean (the strangulation in 1 and the tanning bed in 3), but overall, I'd say they're highly enjoyable in that way that you feel kind of bad about liking. I watched 2 and 3 on the train (1 was on Netflix instant, 2 I own and 3 I got as a disc from Netflix) and found myself being briefly exasperated, laughing, saying "Oh shit" and then looking around to see if my fellow commuters were looking at me funny. The knives in the first one, falling glass in the second and weights in the third are among my favorites, but they're really all fantastic. This series also showed me my first bus-hit and cut/slide movie moments (1 and 2 respectively).

I also have a history with these movies, well at least the first two. 1 came out in 2000 when I was still in high school and I distinctly remember watching it in a darkened living room at Steph Knisely's house and laughing hysterically when Tony Todd (Candyman), playing the older, vague guy explaining things to a small extent (he's even a mortician named Bludworth) said the above quote. Even though I hadn't seen the movie since that night, it made quite an impression, which is pretty impressive considering how many horror movies I'd seen up to that point and after. The second one (2003), I think a group of my high school friends and I went to see in the theater. I remember having the same kinds of reactions in the theater that I did on the train (something I didn't remember until I was actually on the train). I definitely got some funny looks. I would have sworn I saw 3 (2006) at some point, but I think I only watched a few of the kills.

Aside from the gore, I like how much these movies make me think. And I don't consider these things plot holes because we're dealing with human interpretations of supernatural events without anyone or thing coming in and explaining things absolutely. So, Bludworth may have his theories and the kids extrapolate from there, but we don't know if they're right (especially taking into account the ends of each movie). So, does death have some kind of plan? It would seem so. But why does it go through such complex motions to get back on schedule? Why not just stop a heart, especially considering death seems to be able to manipulate living things (birds, rats, maybe even people). So, what are death's rules?

Also, if death has a plan and is some kind of force of nature, what is the force acting against it? See, the visions have to come from somewhere right? And we're not just talking about the main visions in the beginning of the movies, our heroes see other signs all over the place, as if they're being given the information to help their friends or maybe just toyed with. In 1 Sawa a fan-chopped magazine spits out the name of his friend Tod, but by the time he gets to Tod's house, dude's dead. So, was Sawa just not fast enough or was he being messed with (like how Michael Myers toys with his prey)? I'm going to guess there's an opposing force to death, maybe it's as simple as being life, I don't know, but I like to think about this kind of stuff.

So, you really get the best of both worlds: the best kills in recent memory and a larger story that really makes you think (at least I think so, but I'm not a mack daddy above being f*ucked with). I'm really excited for The Final Destination (I appreciate the finality of a title that already includes the world "final" like "seriously, THIS is the FINAL destination") mostly for the ability to see this bad boy in 3D. I missed out on that with My Bloody Valentine 3D, but now my local theater has 3D capabilities thanks to some kids movie! I'll have to sneak away to see it sometime, but it'll totally be worth it.