David Farnor | On 23, May 2025

Director: Steven Quale
Cast: Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Elle Wroe, David Koechner
Certificate: 15

There’s nothing quite like waiting for a horrifically drawn-out death to unfold. The introduction of the key props – the gas cooker, The staple gun, the unfortunately misplaced meat cleaver. The unwitting victim walking into the middle of the death trap. The ironic comment as they slip on the unseen puddle of water…

Oh yes, there’s nothing like it. That’s why people love the long-running BBC series Casualty. And Final Destination 5? It’s like watching the opening of Casualty on repeat for 90 minutes. And then some.

Some facing the Final Destination franchise’s fourth sequel might be tired by the thought of the same-old formula, but the secret of Final Destination’s appeal has always been that its set-up is so simple (Death kills folks, even when they cheat him) that any time spent on exposition can be replaced with something more worthwhile – often, in the case of the sequels, more horrifically drawn-out deaths.

And boy does Death know how to dead people. From an awkward gymnastics accident to a carefully positioned boat under a bridge, director Steven Quale takes a disturbing amount of pleasure from building up to each blood-splattered dispatch – a blunt, messy full stop that still retains impact away from the novelty shots designed for its 3D cinema release.

The cast acquit thenselves well: Sam (Nicholas D’Agosto) has a premonition during a work outing, ultimately saving his selfish friend and ruthless boss, Peter (Miles Fisher), Peter’s girlfriend, Candice (Ellen Wroe), Sam’s ambitious but conflicted ex, Molly (Emma Bell), factory worker Nathan (Arlen Escarpeta), the insensitive Olivia (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood), and manager Dennis (David Koechner, providing inappropriate comic relief). The ensemble neatly fit into people you want to root for (including Courtney B Vance as Agent Jim Block) and people you want to root against (PJ Byrne as the loathsome, sexist Isaac).

What’s striking, though, is how clever Final Destination 5 is in finding new ways to play with the franchise’s rules. After The Final Destination’s post-modern set piece in an exploding cinema, the self-aware streak here leads to a refreshingly neat twist upon the original system. After Final Destination 2 proposed that life can beat death, here, we’re told that only death can only trump death – and Tony Todd even appears as William Bludworth, after being absent for two films, to make sure we take it seriously.

The result relies not only upon looming destruction for its suspense – one scene at an eye doctor’s is one of the franchise’s most excruciating – but also on the interaction between characters. By pitting people against each other, as well as against Death, Final Destination 5 evolves from a straight horror into a tense thriller – after two films of the premise becoming sillier and dumber, this has intelligence that recaptures some of the maturity of the opening two movies’ meditations on mortality. That’s not, however, at the expense of sheer entertainment value – the beginning bridge sequence is the best since Final Destination 2’s motorway pile-up – and an inspired ending that should please horror fans hoping for a more original form of popcorn fodder. Failing that, there’s always Casualty.

 

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