12.19.04
Final Destination
I think the message of these films is that Death has too much free time and something of a penchant for spy films. Once you escape ‘Death’s design’ it* will hunt you down and kill you with an overly-elaborate scheme. Which makes Death a bit like a mix of Heath Robinson, Rube Goldberg and a James Bond super-villain.
The first overly-elaborate death sequence in the second film involves a gust of wind knocking a plastic letter into a box of Chinese food. He threw what was left of last night’s meal out the window a few moments before. This will become important later. The victim doesn’t notice the letter drop in (as he is facing in the opposite direction at the time) and begins to heat the Chinese food in the microwave. He also starts frying some bits of frozen, breaded chicken in a frying pan.
Bored with this mundane task he looks at the goodies he brought into the apartment with him**. He puts on his new Rolex watch and picks up and looks at a nice, shiny ring. The plastic letter then explodes in the microwave, cracking the glass, startling the man and causing him to drop the ring down the sink. He shoves his hand down there***, grabs the ring, but (surprise, surprise) can’t get his hand back out. Oh no! To make matters worse the oil in the frying pan catches fire. He trys to put it out with a tea towel but, because one of his hands is still trapped, only manages to knock the pan off into a box full of papers. He begins to panic and starts really pulling on his hand. After some exertion he pulls it free, but the door is up in flames. How will he get out? He moves over to the windows but they slam down (presumably from Death’s intervention). He trys pulling them up but they’re stuck. He manages to break the glass with a chair, get out and go down the first level of the fire escape before the whole apartment explodes. Great timing on his part. He then goes down to the bottom of the fire escape and gets on the ladder but it doesn’t drop down. It’s stuck. He jumps up and down a few times causing it to drop halfway and him to slip off. He lands on his feet. He then tries to run away but slips on last night’s meal (see!) and falls on his back. It’s at this point that the fire escape ladder begins to fall (with the man’s face directly underneath, natch) but it jams inches from his face. How fortunate. The ladder unjams itself and impales him through the eye-socket. How unfortunate.
In real-life, Death (assuming such a anthropomorphic personification exists) would have killed the man by making him die from food poisoning caused by not properly cooking the frozen, breaded chicken****. This is why films should not accurately portray real-life.
*Please note the gender-unspecific pronoun. I’m all about equality, man.
**The man won the lottery yesterday apparently and he was also saved from dying in a pile-up by the heroine earlier and hence considers himself endowed with extraordinary luck. Cue the dramatic irony.
***Bad idea considering the prevalence of food processors in American horror films.
****Or just touched him on the shoulder.