With final Destination 5 hitting UK cinema screens today. I give you some strange facts from the last ten years of Final Destination films.
Throughout the film series, many characters have been named after directors, producers or stars from genre films over the ages. Here’s a rundown of how they got their names:
Final Destination
| Character Name | Inspiration |
| Chaney | “Man of a Thousand Faces” Lon Chaney (The Wolfman) |
| Waggner | Director George Waggner (The Wolfman) |
| Browning | Tod Browning (Dracula, Freaks) |
| Larry Murnau | Director F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu) |
| Schreck | Max Schreck, star of Nosferatu |
| Valerie Lewton | Producer Val Lewton (The Body Snatcher) |
| Blake Dreyer | Director Carl Theodor Dreyer (Vampyr) |
| Howard Siegel | Director Don Siegel (Dirty Harry) |
| Billy Hitchcock | Director Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho) |
Final Destination 2
| Character Name | Inspiration |
| Kimberly Corman | Director/producer Roger Corman (Fall of the House of Usher, Little Shop of Horrors) |
Final Destination 3
| Character Name | Inspiration |
| Wendy and Julie Christensen | Director Benjamin Christensen (Häxan) |
| Erin Ulmer | Edgar G. Ulmer (Detour, Isle of Lost Souls) |
| Lewis Romero | Director George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead) |
| Jason Robert Wise | Director Robert Wise (The Haunting) |
| Carrie Dreyer | Director Carl Theodor Dreyer (Vampyr) |
| Ashley Freund | Cinematographer/director Karl Freund (Metropolis) |
| Ashlyn Halperin | Director Victor Halperin (White Zombie) |
The Final Destination
| Character Name | Inspiration |
| Nick O’Bannon | Writer/Director Dan O'Bannon (Alien) |
| Janet Cunningham | Director Sean Cunningham (Friday the 13th) |
| Lori Milligan | Director Andy Milligan (The Ghastly Ones) |
| Hunt Wynorski | Director Jim Wynorski (Chopping Mall) |
Final Destination 5
| Character Name | Inspiration |
| Peter Friedkin | Director William Friedkin (The Exorcist) |
| Candice Hooper | Director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) |
| Olivia Castle | Horror impresario William Castle (House on Haunted Hill) |
UNLUCKY NUMBERS
The first film, originally titled Flight 180, was based on a concept originally written as a unfilmed script for The X-Files. The title was changed but the number remained.
- In the first Final Destination, a bedside clock fades in from 1:00am to 180.
- In Final Destination 2, a police officer radios in an accident at mile marker 180. The number repeats again when a character is pulled out of the way of a truck, in a road work sign that says "next 180 feet."
- In Final Destination 3, a light rail train number is 081, which, reflected in the mirror is 180. In the hardware store scene, a tag that fatefully catches on a chain has UNIT 081 written on it.
- In the fourth film, The Final Destination, victims at the race track accident are seated in area 180 (as shown on a sign behind them). The number repeats in video camera footage and on the roof of a bus in the final scene.
In Final Destination, the ill-fated flight is scheduled to take off at 9:25, which is the same as the main character’s birthday (25th September). When he gets on the plane, he sits in seat I (the 9th letter of the alphabet) in row 25.
The number “666,” generally considered to be a bad omen, appears on a luggage cart in the first film and on the car that crashes at the speedway in the fourth film.
In The Final Destination, two characters go into auditorium 13 (considered an unlucky number) and to their doom.
MORE STRANGE TRIVIA
In the first film, the original plan was to have Death as a much more obvious entity, as illustrated when the character Tod sees a shadow in the mirror and the water running back into the toilet to “cover its tracks.” Subsequently, it was decided to have the deaths appear simply as accidents.
Death foreshadowed: During the opening credits of the first film, a hanging doll, a guillotine and a picture of a knife in someone's chest foreshadow what will soon befall the characters. One character is shadowed by a dagger in the first film, while in the second film, a character’s face fades into the outline of a skull, and yet another character unwisely ignores warnings about his eye. In Final Destination 3, two characters hear the song “Love Rollercoaster,” which refers to the rollercoaster that should have killed them.
In order to film the massive pileup sequence in Final Destination 2, several miles of highway had to be closed down for several days.
In Final Destination 3, the cast members on the rollercoaster had to ride the coaster 26 times on the same night in order to shoot the film's main premonition scene.
Tony Todd, who plays Bludworth in the first, second and fifth films, provides the voice of the devil above the entrance to the roller coaster in Final Destination 3. In that third film, he also provides the speaker's voice saying, “This is the end of the line” in the subway.
The opening titles of The Final Destination recreate death scenes from all three of the previous films. The fourth film holds the distinction of containing 11 “kills,” the most of any film in the series.
In The Final Destination, when he is hit by the bus, the character George is in the middle of stating, “My wife said that Deja Vu is like God's way of...” and then he's cut off by the impact. Some viewers wonder what the end of his sentence was going to be. The answer is that of a common expression “...telling you that you are in the right place at the right time,” hence the irony of the situation.
In “Final Destination 5,” Death is just as omnipresent as ever, and is unleashed after one man’s premonition saves a group of coworkers from a terrifying suspension bridge collapse. But this group of unsuspecting souls was never supposed to survive, and, in a terrifying race against time, the ill-fated group frantically tries to discover a way to escape Death’s sinister agenda.
The second of the Final Destination films to be shot in 3D, “Final Destination 5” is directed by Steven Quale, marking his major feature film directorial debut. The film brings together an ensemble cast led by Emma Bell (“Frozen,” TV’s “The Walking Dead”) and Nicholas D’Agosto (“Fired Up!,” TV’s “Heroes”), along with Miles Fisher (TV’s “Mad Men” and “Gossip Girl”), Arlen Escarpeta (“Friday the 13th”), Jacqueline MacInnes-Wood (TV’s “The Bold and the Beautiful”), P.J. Byrne (“Dinner for Schmucks”) and Ellen Wroe (TV’s “Huge”). Rounding out the rest of the cast are Courtney B. Vance (TV’s “Flash Forward,” “ER”), David Koechner (“The Office,” “Anchorman”) and “Final Destination” franchise icon Tony Todd (“Hatchet II”).
special edition of Silent Running to celebrate the film's 40th anniversary (Also available as a 
). Released on 14 November 2011.
