Analysis of Final Destination

Whether or not this film comes under the genre of “Slasher” is arguable because the killer is not human and not visible, it is simply death itself. However, the opening of this film displays many codes and conventions which are interesting and useful to analyse.

The institution logos of the film come at the very beginning; they are accompanied by the opening music, which is slow and tense. When the text “New Line Cinema” comes onto the screen, there is a sound similar to swords being drawn, or knives being sharpened. This is the first hint at horror in the film.

The background of the credits is black, and the text is white, however it also glows, like light is shining on it, this could be hinting at the supernatural element of the film.

The black screen white text sequence ends with a view of clouds during a thunder and lighting storm, it seems the lightning illuminates the black. This is important because thunderstorms are widely associated with horror, they are often threatening and give an atmosphere of something impending.

The title of the film appears in the bottom right hand corner of the shot, which at this point has changed to looking at the storm through a rainy window. Another flash of lightning makes it impossible to read the title for a few seconds.

The music continues throughout this sequence, it is always slow, melodic and morbidly haunting.

The camera moves down the window with the dripping rain and comes to focus on a charm or toy hanging from the window pain. The angle then switches so that the shadow of this toy is being shown, and it looks like the body of a person hanging. This is a strong link with death.

From this point on, a lot of things in the sequence are viewed through an oscillating fan, the light catches on the metal frame of the fan, making it resemble light on blades. The constant interruption of the spinning blades of the fan obscures full vision of the scene and builds suspense.

A boarding pass is then placed on a bed by an unseen character, the camera zooms on the pass, allowing the viewer to read the information on it, this signifies that the information on the pass might be important. Then the fan blades obscure all of the pass except for the number “180” making the viewer wonder if this is of particular importance. It builds suspense and creates confusion, making the viewer want to watch more.

There is then a shot of a stack of books. The front book (later known to be a travel guide of some sort) is removed straight away, revealing the book behind: Death of a Salesman. This is once again a strong hint of death later in the film, and gives the viewer a sense that death is everywhere in the room.

The first book, the travel guide is on the bed, and the fan blows the pages open, the pages stop flicking open on a picture of a public execution, which is then zoomed in on, all the way through this there has been occasional sounds of knives being drawn, like at the very start of the sequence. The fan is constantly moving objects, obscuring objects and bringing objects into focus, possibly symbolising via the rotation of the fan that everything moves and changes.

There is then a shot of a character (presumably the same one who has moved the other objects in the sequence) thumbing through the pages of another book, the only words legible in this process are “evil”, “devil” and “damnation”.

There is then an unusual shot where the camera once again zooms in of a picture in a book, it is of a man on the ground in pain, however the cage of the fan obscures this man from full view, it is similar to looking at him through bars. At this point a screaming sound can be heard, it is barely noticeable, it seems to be accepted by the viewer as a norm. This shows that the sequence is so engaging it almost hypnotises the viewer into watching the various codes and symbols being played out right before their eyes.

Finally, the fan stops obscuring the vision and you can clearly see a picture of some form of protest, with the words “this is the end” grafitied in red on a wall (red symbolising blood) The picture then fades away and only the writing is left, this then proceeds to look as though it has been blown away.

Everything in this sequence gives a strong connotation of death, with very obvious symbols. When the full film is viewed, it becomes clear that not only do these symbols represent death, but they represent events later on in the film.