Final Destination 3: It’s Better With Two

We arrive at Final Destination 3, fresh faced from our, maybe, success in Final Destination 2. The last group of survivors had nothing more in common than a similar vehicular route. FD3 takes us back to basics with a group of high school seniors. For the first time, the movie DOES NOT open in a teenager’s bedroom. I appreciate the change of pace. Instead, we get an exciting carnival theme! All the games that scroll by along with the names of our cast popped straight out of the 70’s or something. Old things are spooky.

This opening scene takes place an at amusement park. The real location is in Canada and was filmed in the offseason, so I assume everyone in the film is freezing their asses off. The kids are on one of those horrifying drop rides. They are one of the few I don’t go on. No idea why, when really I should watch out for the coasters. Suddenly Mary Elizabeth Winstead appears! She plays Wendy, our main character and vision haver. What are you doing here, girl? Did they not tell you this was a Final Destination movie? Her acting is too good for this film. Anyway, she is taking photos for the school yearbook. She takes one of the High Dive but the letter V is out in the picture, so it says Die. Spooky things are afoot.

Apparently, by this year of our lord 2005, when the movie takes place, fast passes had hit the scene, and the group has one for the roller coaster, so they need to book it. But we hadn’t reached the point when we couldn’t have a main character, Kevin (Ryan Merriman) who I think we are supposed to like, assault some poor, unassuming woman by taking an up skirt photo. Wendy takes back her camera and mentions that she is a control freak. This is the first time, but it will be mentioned 4,973 more times before the end of the movie. I’m only exaggerating the tiniest bit.

Wendy walks over to take a photo of Ashley (Chelan Simmons) and Ashlyn (Crystal Lowe) sigh, our resident token hot chicks and the group heads to the coaster. Along the way, Kevin reminds us that he hasn’t lost those dance skills he picked up on the set of Luck of the Irish. IYKYK. DCOMs were something back in the day.

They run into Wendy’s younger sister Julie (Amanda Crew). She is NOT supposed to be here because she isn’t a senior. I don’t know where the school got the cash to rent out the entire park just for the senior class, but this is a ritzy public high school. Julie flips her off, which she takes a photo of on the school camera, and storms off. Sister drama. They stop to grab a photo of football star Lewis (Texas Battle, yes really!) as he crushes one of those hit the weight into a bell games. Just full on beast mode. He’s a big-headed asshole for most of this movie, but maybe he owns it.

They finally reach the queue for Devil’s Flight, with a mascot voiced by Tony Todd. His voice acting is all we get in the movie and yes, it is far worse off for it. Enjoy this moment. Wendy is about to chicken out because the scary devil mascot is threatening her and yea, it’s Tony Todd. We all might need a moment. Instead, her boyfriend gives her a bizarre speech about fearing losing control on the ride. I don’t know. Maybe she is afraid of heights or being upside down, but we’ve got to hammer home that control freak thing. This works for some reason. I’d probably find it a little patronizing. And they all get in line.

Frankie Cheeks (Sam Easton) is being a disgusting predator with his video camera toward Ashley and Ashlyn. Someone needs to kick him out pronto. Also, he is supposed to be 17…18 but the moment the hat comes off; he looks 45. I don’t know if they did him dirty in the movie to up the creep factor or what. This dude is a menace. As everyone walks into the line, Wendy notices all the spooky signage suggesting the ride may be your last! She’s pretty freaked out, but this is less a sign of impending death omens and more a sign that this is a horror themed ride. Has she never been to a haunted house? They threaten you like every 2 feet.

We meet the goth couple, Ian (Kris Lemche) and Erin (Alexz Johnson). They try to calm Wendy down with some helpful facts. They tell her roller coasters are just experimental physics and that there’s like a very low chance of dying on them. Now I take some issue here. 1st, I don’t think the physics of roller coasters is experimental; I think it is kinematics, but okay. 2nd suggesting there is a risk of death of any kind, no matter how low, is unlikely to help someone like Wendy. As a nervous fact spouter myself, I have made this mistake.

Wendy’s bestie Carrie (Gina Holden) won’t sit in the back of the coaster with her because she is going to Berkley next year. I have no idea what the correlation is here. Apparently if you go to Berkley, you cannot ride anymore rollercoasters. Always read the fine print on those college applications. Instead, the two boyfriends flip a coin to decide who will sit with Wendy. Kevin loses. Jason (Jesse Moss), Wendy’s boyfriend, sits up front with Carrie. I do not understand why her boyfriend didn’t sit with her other than TRAUMA! I think someone getting off the ride before them is crying. What is happening with this ride?

Frankie sits right behind the Ashes and continues to try to film them while on the ride. Gross. Police? Security? We see oil start to drip from the bottom of the ride. And Kevin sticks his hand in some gum. So far, so good. As the train approaches the top of the hill, we get a beautiful view of the park. But so far, Wendy is refusing to have any fun. Actually, she seems really unfun in general. They crest the peak and everyone is screaming and having fun and Wendy might be crying.

Frankie predictably loses control of his camera. It wraps around the track and as the train passes, jacks up the already dripping line and pops off a few of the coasters wheels. Everyone’s harnesses pop up, no longer held in place by the hydraulics. Everyone tries to hold them down, but this kind of defeats the point of them. I wish them luck. Now cars are just popping off the rails, harness or no, that isn’t going to go well. We are down to just the goths and Wendy and Kevin. The train stops at them upside down at the top of a loop. Perfect. Ian and Erin fall out of thier seats and dangle from thier harnesses. Very temporarialy. They fall to thier deaths.

Wendy and Kevin manage to use the harness to press themselves into the seat, so they wiggle it to get some momentum and send the car speeding back down. Kevin is standing in his seat, which we all know you shouldn’t do, and gets bisected. Finally Wendy, still, impressively in the car, gets tossed off. Just before she splatters on the pavement below her we zoom back to before the coaster takes off. IT WAS A PREMONISION! Who could have guessed!?

She is tripping out and seeing the panic attack in progress the ride operator lets just the back half of the coaster out. They kind of think Wendy is on drugs, which is a fair assessment in the heat of the moment with the available information. So obviously they are not taking this seriously. Lewis decides she is just an attention seeking…woman, but to his credit Kevin defends her and the standard issue Final Destination fight sequence, trademarked, occurs. Wendy’s boyfriend tries to get off the train because he recognizes that she’s in a bad place and might need some help, but the other riders chant ‘Hey, ho, let’s go’ and what is a ride operator to do? He hits the start button and off they ride. Cars fly off the tracks and everyone is dead.

Cut to graduation day (oh damn, I’m the same age as these kids? This movie is not new…), Wendy clears out her locker and a strange breeze blows by. We know what that means. Wendy is not going to graduation because she sees nothing to celebrate. I think it’s probable that she’s depressed, but we weren’t quite as good about dealing with mental health in 2005. Kevin tries to find some comaraderie with her. They both lost the love of their lives tragically. Wendy’s kinda mean to him. I feel bad.

The Ashes see Wendy, for some reason, walking all alone in the rain. Slowly. Painfully. They decide to invite her to go tanning with them. So they can look their best at graduation. In honor of all the kids who died and can’t look like anything. Ashley gives Wendy her number, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for a call. These ladies are vain and have some priority issues, but this was a nice gesture.

Kevin stops Wendy at her car to let her know he has been Googling. Never a good sign. He found out about Flight 180. Notably mentioned to bring us some connection to the first movie because this will be it. He tells her about how everyone just. kept. dying. After the accident. She is not a fan of this. I get that he is scared and concerned, but this would never convince her. You always have to at least let one person die. Sorry I don’t make the rules.

The Ashes show up to the tanning salon with enormous 72 ounce slushies. Wendy starts downloading all of her grad night pics. She should have grabbed a slushie too. In 2005, we had to plug things in and download the photos one at a time. It was difficult.

The tanning salon employee is incredibly unhelpful so the Ashes get themselves all setup. He reminds them not to bring the drinks into the room as he heads out the back. They ignore him. He props the automatically locking door open with a bottle of lotion. I’m sure this won’t be a problem. Wendy feels a gush of wind as she starts looking through the photos. I think the Ashes are toast.

The girls set their tanning time to 15 min, which is absurd to me. My translucent Irish skin could never. Sometimes sitting by windows is too much. Someone more versed in tanning will have to let me know. Wendy is looking at the photo of Jason. It has the coaster behind him and it sort of looks like the coaster is going through his head. But it’s behind him? I’m not convinced here. Wendy takes a lot of meaning from it.

Ashlyn turns the temp up in the tanning room. Girly, you are about to baking. This is not needed. They pop in one of the CDs because they forgot their iPod. They play Love Rollercoaster. Really. This is also where the gratuitous nudity scene happens. Horror franchises usually hit this one at some point. They have that R rating anyway so…

Wendy finds the photo of the Ashes and they are holding a blow up palm tree, but the image is badly framed and the whole bottom is orange and red from the surrounding lights. The slushie that Ashley brought into the room had a little condensation dripping onto an electronic box, making both the temperature in the room and of the tanning beds rise. Both girls are clearly getting pretty uncomfortable, but they are toughing it out. I am confused that neither has gotten up yet.

It’s like 80 + degrees with beds so hot both girls look like lobsters when Ashlyn finally says she thinks they should turn down the heat. Just as she goes to stand, the shelf they got the CD from falls pinning them into the beds. Wendy realizes they are in danger and tries to call. By now the beds are so hot they are cracking. The girls are blistering and yep. They’re on fire. Like 2 tiny crematories. The employee finally hears them but that lotion did not do its job and he is locked out. This is probably negligence. Like at least a little?

Jump cut to the dual funeral. This is pretty hilarious. From tanning beds on fire to twin coffins. Give that guy a raise. Ian does not appreciate the sermon. While I tend to agree that implying death is fair at the funeral of two teenagers is probably a poor choice, shouting at one is too. Ian goes off about Osama and serial killers and should probably shut up. Frankie finds a way to make all of this about himself and be a creepy sex predator. Perfection.

Wendy is on board with the death is out to get us thing, so she and Kevin sync up to make a plan. She tells him all about the photos and even shows him some of Lincoln and the twin towers. There’s a strange 9-11 thing happening in this movie. I don’t like it or need it. Don’t involve actual tragedies in your nonsense Final Destination. Wendy has the grad night photos on hand and Kevin’s pretty spooked. They decide Frankie is next. No harm no foul there, but they decide to try to save him, anyway.

They stop for some fast food and the screens a little glitchy, probs fine. A Hice Pale Ale truck backs up into their car, trapping them between the car in front and behind them. These trucks kill more people… The radio plays Turn Around, Look At Me, in the creepiest way and they do, seeing a moving truck barreling down the hill behind them. Unmanned. They honk but the car in front flips them off. The car behind them is having a strongly worded marital discussion and doesn’t notice. They’re trapped, so they break out the front window. Couple of the year notices just in time to pull away from the truck. Dude in front? The moving van hits Kevin’s truck, causing the motor to fly out, still spinning, hitting the guy in the head. And what!? It’s Frankie! Never saw it coming.

Lewis is up next. Kevin and Wendy head down to training camp for the state college. They see that in his photo it looks like a weight is crashing down on his head. And he’s at football training camp which I hear includes copius weight lifting. Lewis is working out with the other Sultans a name which is a choice. He doesn’t believe Kevin and Wendy. He has his life planned and he is a pretty motivated dude. Also my captions showed the f slur. What is happening in this movie? Lewis is doing reps on this lat pulldown thing and everyone is grunting and dropping weights and screaming. Wendy is overwhelmed. Probably by the smell.

Lewis is all FUCK DEATH. Which has never ended well for any Final Destination character ever. (Although it did take a while for it to get Clear.) The swords on the wall behind him, primo decor options, swing down but don’t take Lewis out. He takes this to mean he is master of his universe. He does one last victory rep but the swords had cut the cable on the weights. The fly down from both sides and smash his head in. He had such promise.

Quick cut over to Wendy and Kevin in a fresh set of Sultan clothes. They ruined theirs again. These two have seen a lot of people die. Brutally. And been covered in just so much brain matter. They know the Ian and Erin are up next so they figure best to hit them up at their job. The goth kids work at Lowes. It isn’t called Lowes, but it’s Lowes. They’re closing up the store for the night, which, for some reason, includes Ian shooting a bunch of pigeons with a nail gun. That seems incredibly cruel to me. Especially since I’m pretty sure Lowes are the pigeon’s natural habitat.

Wendy and Kevin give them the rundown on death’s fixation on murdering these kids, and neither Ian nor Erin is biting. They think it’s bullshit. They should be terrified because the arrival of our MCs usually leads to someone dying. I’m getting suspicious. Instead, Ian drives like asshat on his forklift, knocking over just all the things. Morning crew is gonna be pissed. (Side note: Kris Lemche took forklift training to be able to drive that thing around.) His poor driving skills end up dropping a bunch of products onto another forklift and sending it unmanned around the store. Wind chimes jangle, but there’s no wind. Only death.

Our rouge forklift is causing even more of mess and starts lifting a whole aisle but Wendy sees the signs just in time for Kevin to push Ian out of the way of a pile of wooden stakes. He’s really a vampire. They finally saved someone! But…before we get too excited, the ensuing chaos causes Erin to fall into the nail gun, which impales her with at least 30 nails. It doesn’t look super survivable.

Plus side, we learned the lesson all FD protags must learn about how death will skip a person. Downside, the cops are getting a little suspicious about all the death following Kevin and Wendy. We see Ian spooking on the in the background. Turns out he kinda blames them for the whole dead girlfriend thing.

Wendy goes home to examine all the photos to figure out who is next because they don’t remember who was sitting in front of them. After a short nap, she recognizes her sister’s bracelet in the photo! Girl wasn’t even supposed to be at grad night. What’s odd is that Julie never once mentioned that she got off the coaster with Wendy. The lack of communication is astounding. And potentially deadly. Wendy runs to find Julie just in time to see her heading to the local fair. She calls up Kevin, who is very conveniently working security at that very fair. He’s gonna keep an eye out for Julie but as he is about to be up wants to know what his picture shows. Wendy says his photo looks like a flash just went off in his face. (Maybe fair fireworks!?) And hers just has her wearing her McKinley shirt. They decide this means that Ian (last name McKinely) will probably kill her. Awesome.

Wendy speeds off to the fair but Turn Around, Look At Me starts playing. She looks behind her to see Ian following her in his creeper van. She gets to the fair and looks around for Julie, who is actively avoiding both her and Kevin. I guess she’s heard all their death talk and is not in the mood. She hides amongst all the revelers as the firework show begins. We already know it won’t be going as planned because some re-enactors were less than careful with their equipment and knocked the barges of explosives off just a bit.

We see a group of asshole teens use crackers to terrify a horse and he takes off running. Should have kicked them in the face on the way. Just as Wendy and Kevin find Julie, the rope tie on the horse loops around her neck and starts dragging her around. Julie’s choking and Wendy and Kevin race after her. But she probably believes them now. Kevin snags a cutlass and cuts the rope just before Julie gets impaled by some decor. I’m impressed with his swordsmanship. One wrong move and this just became a beheading and the cops would 100% think he killed all these people.

With Julie safe, they frantically ask her who was sitting next to her. The thing is, she was just almost choked to death and can’t really talk yet. This all becomes unnecessary because moments later, the same panicked horse flings a spearlike flag through the air and through one of her friends. So I guess we know who it was.

It’s Kevin’s turn and we have all of 2 seconds to mourn the death of…that girl…who was in like 2 scenes when he falls on to a BBQ. The propane tank is punctured, but Wendy pulls him out of the way as it explodes. So he doesn’t die! They are getting better at this. No one has recovered from anything, and the trio is limping along when Ian walks up to them. Wendy panics. Ian, realizing she thinks he kills her, won’t let her walk forward. She tries, and he stops her. Suddenly the trailer of fireworks pitches forward and shoots them toward a giant McKinley sign. It falls and smashes Ian into a flat entrail laden paste.

So how did Wendy get skipped? I don’t love the explanation but the best I or the interwebs can figure, Ian saved her when he prevented her from continuing to walk forward where she would have been standing under the sign. Anyway, we have our three survivors safe in the knowledge that if you skip death twice, it gives up.

It’s 5 months later and Wendy is on the subway with her cool college buddies. Why 5 months? I don’t know. Death needs a break now and then. Everything is going great until a guitarist plays Turn Around, Look At Me. Wendy gets a chill. She sits down and looks at the ads on the bus. All for businesses where her classmates tragically died! They probably need all the good press they can get after a bunch of teens ended up looking like over the top horror decor in them. Then she sees the subway is number 180. The evilist number! She’s ready to get off a stop early. Her friends aren’t thrilled with the idea, but they agree.

As they go to get off the subway, Julie steps on distracting our whole crew. They don’t get off. Instead, the friends find seats further down the train and Wendy tells Julie she has the spookies. Julie is casually like we are all good. We were saved. Wendy accepts this and goes to introduce Julie to her friends but spots Kevin on the train. Now we don’t have such coincidences in these movies. One look at her face and Kevin knows shit is about to go down. The subway barrels down the wrong track, shifting and rattling. Cars split apart, bodies are everywhere. Julie is pummeled by a wheel, Kevin is ripped out a window. Finally, Wendy is alone, surrounded by so. many. bodies. on the tracks with a broken leg. A train speeds toward her.

And…Back to the moment they saw Kevin on the train. It was all another premonition!! But it is too late for them to do anything. We fade to black and hear the wheels squeal.

I love the second premotion in this one. It was entirely unexpected. (Of course they’d reuse it.) Winstead is incredible in this and boy, can she cry on demand! You feel so bad for her. Stay tuned next week for Final Destination 4, or the one that Tony Todd wouldn’t deign to be in and we all should have known what that meant.