‘Final Destination 2’ Expanded Death’s Rules and Delivered a Standout Opening Disaster

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.

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