The opening disaster scene has been shown in full! SPOILERS!
The first full day of Comic-Con was winding down when ShockTillYouDrop.com was invited to a special preview event for New Line and Warner Bros’ Final Destination 5.
They had taken over a good chunk of the Petco Park parking lot for the event, and as we walked in, there was a large trailer truck painted black, covered with the poster images from the new movie â you may have seen pictures of it in our gallery earlier. They had filled the rest of the parking lot with food trucks and all sorts of games and activities including an odd slalom track where people could ride around on tricycles made out of ice coolers.
Being super-fans of the series and having been on set, we couldn’t wait to check out the footage and we were escorted into the truck to find out that the inside was decked out like a real movie theater with stadium seating, cup holders and everything.
The titles read, “For ten years, one franchise has redefined death” and we watched what was essentially a “greatest kills” reel from the previous four movies in all their gory glory cut to the tune of AC/DC’s “If You Want Blood,” although they had embellished them with 3D FX that flew out of the screen at the viewers. It was pretty awesome seeing all of those fun deaths in rapid succession, but that was just the warm-up act for the exclusive look at the new movie, essentially showing the opening disaster which starts the whole ball rolling.
As you might guess, this has MAJOR SPOILERS! In fact, if you’re planning on seeing Final Destination 5 (and we know you were planning to), we’d rather you not read the section below because it really has some MAJOR SPOILERS! (Yes, you know that everyone dies in that opening “premonition” but how they die is always the biggest surprise and the most fun of these movies, so why ruin it for yourself?)
With that warning aside, the scene opens on what seems like a quiet and sunny day as the camera pans onto a long suspended bridge where a bus full of the film’s characters are sitting, waiting for traffic to move. We have to assume that there will be a little bit of time before this scene to introduce these characters, but this has to be in the first ten or fifteen minutes of the movie.
On the bus, we focus on Nick D’Agosto’s Sam who starts felling uneasy as he sees the television monitor starts flickering and as the driver changes radio stations, we hear Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” playing briefly. Outside, a wind has indeed started blowing and the suspended bridge starts swaying a bit. We hear the cables making noises from the added strain. There are construction workers on the bridge including a large cement cutter working on a section of the bridge, and we a hairline crack winding away from where they’re cutting quickly getting bigger as it goes along. A gust of wind blows so strong that a portion of the bridge falls into the water below right in front of the bus.
As the people on the bus get out, Miles Fischer’s character Peter â we know this because it’s one of the names shouted repeatedly in the footage â calls out to his young girlfriend Candace (played by Ellen Wroe) who has somehow ran out of the bus onto a chunk of the bridge that’s already started breaking away. Sure enough, the bridge underneath her falls away and she starts falling towards the water and DAMN! She gets spiked on the sail of the sailboat we saw earlier, but the vantage point is that the spike comes up towards the viewer with all sorts of her innards spiked on it.
The bus is on the very edge of the part of the bridge that fell away and we go inside, just as PJ Byrne’s character comes out of the bathroom at the back of the bus sees the bridge crumbling away in front of him and says “What the f*ck?” but before he can do anything the bus tumbles forward over the precipice and his body falls end over end through the seats to smash against the front window just as the bus slams down into the water.
Cables start snapping and swinging wildly and the bridge starts to give way with an entire section falling into the water, and at this point, everyone starts panicking and running towards the other side of the bridge away from the part that’s falling away. Jacqueline Wood’s character Olivia is trying to run through the madness when some guy slams into her, throwing her to the ground and knocking her glasses off, which she starts looking for.
Sam and Emma Bell’s character Molly (who we know as girlfriend-boyfriend from our set visit) run hand in hand away from the wreckage but then another portion of the bridge breaks away in front of them leaving a big gap and only a couple steel beams stretching between the sections. Sam tells her she can do it and she slowly walks across the beam and gets to the other side.
Olivia’s glasses are destroyed in the craziness but she gets to Sam who urges her to cross the same steel beam even though she can’t see sh*t, but she does slowly crawl on hands and knees across the beam as the bridge lurches one more time and she’s sent screaming down into the water. She resurfaces though and she seems fine until a car falls over the edge of the bridge and smashes down into her. (This shows you just how sick and twisted the filmmakers are this time around!)
Things are completely out of control at this point with giant cables swinging wildly with large chunks of concrete on their end and we briefly see Arlen Escarpeta’s character running away from danger when one of the cables slams into him turning him into a big bloody mess. David Koechner’s character is also running but he’s knocked over the edge but he grabs on and saves himself, and as he tries to pull himself up, a truck filled with tar tips over splashing searing hot tar all over his head, arms and upper torso which we see burning away at his skin as he slides off the edge of the bridge, leaving some of his skin behind.
Meanwhile, Sam is still on the far side of the gap, but he calls to Peter who runs and catches onto a railing that’s dangling from the other side. Sam follows suit and the two of them are now hanging from the railing that’s dangling precariously above the water as Molly shouts to them. We now see that there’s a construction truck above them that’s about to go over the edge and as it starts falling over, cones and other objects start sliding out including a number of poles that fall towards Peter spiking through him with the 3D used to full effect. That leaves just Sam and Molly, the latter seems safe and out of danger, but as Sam hang on a large corrugated steel panel slides out of the back of the truck severing the top half of Nick’s torso with his head and innards falling towards the camera as it zooms into his eye to let us know that we had been watching one of those visions that plays such a big part in the “Final Destination” premise. (Fans of the series will realize that this is the first time that we’ve seen the person who had the premonition actually killed on camera because normally, the vision ends just as they’re about to die. Could that possibly be a hint of how this film is different?) We’re back on the bus and Sam gets up and tells everyone they’re in danger and to get off the bus.
This was followed by a montage of quick scenes from the rest of the movie, many of which have been teased in the previous trailer already but not showing any of the actual deaths as much as teasing the lead-up to them, although it did end with someone’s severed hand and some gore flying towards the camera.
SPOILERS OVER!!!
So what did admitted “Final Destination” super-fan Edward Douglas think of the footage? Well, let’s just say that as someone disappointed by the previous movie, we think they’ve created an opening that finally surpasses the highway pile-up of Final Destination 2. From the opening shot of the suspended bridge, you can tell this is a bigger scale movie and how they pulled off some of what they did on the bridge using a combination of sets, models and CG is pretty fantastic for sure, considering how many moving parts are involved with creating such an impressive set piece. Credit for how great it looks and how it was put together has to go to director Steve Quale, best known as the second unit guy for James Cameron.
We will say that some of the CG concrete falling into the water below looks a little rough and fake, but the rest of it is convincing enough that this is an opening sequence that won’t be forgotten anytime soon. If the rest of the kills in the movie are as fantastic as the ones in the opening sequence than the movie is in good hands.
What’s really cool about this opening is that you only briefly meet these characters but as you watch them die, you kind of want to know more about them. PJ Byrne is so funny with the way he delivers ONE LINE that you want to see what leads up to that and obviously, Olivia has a story about why she’s the way she is. There also seems to be some sort of relationship between Sam and Peter that’s only hinted at. The acting and writing in past “Final Destination” movies is where they often fall apart but this seems like a better cast and obviously Tony Todd is back, so we’re thinking this is a good way to put some fresh energy into the franchise.
Final Destination 5 opens on August 12 in 3D and 2D theaters.
Source: Edward Douglas
