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"But I LOVE/HATE Spoilers!" Final Destination and the Spoiler Paradox

By. "Wise Up" Katie Weiss

                                                                                    

 

Everybody has a comfort movie. You know, your go-to film to watch while you clean the house or fold your laundry. The film you fall asleep to. The film that, no matter what anybody else says, is “the best movie ever!” But what is it about these films that make us feel so comforted? Many people turn to comedy films and sitcom TV shows to find this level of comfort. But what about those of us who put something else on the TV to lull us to sleep? What if we watch something else to soothe our minds after a long day’s work? There is one genre that is not always associated with comfort media, and that genre, of course, is horror.

Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt gave us movie nerds of all genres the idea of the “spoiler paradox.” This paradox demonstrates that many of us do not go out of our way to avoid spoilers. In fact, many movie-watchers like spoilers! Some will politely (or not-so-politely) ask their partners, friends, or family right in the middle of a movie night how that film is going to end. Even worse, maybe they secretly google spoilers on their phone as their friends slowly lose the chance to laugh at their shock at the twist ending. Both kinds of spoiler-enjoyers – those who enjoy spoilers as they re-watch the same movies over and over again, and those who enjoy getting spoiled on the first watch – have something in common. They find comfort in knowing what comes next.

While I hate to be spoiled on a film on the first watch, I love to watch the same media on repeat! The Final Destination franchise is no exception. Much like many of the younger millennial/ older Gen Z crowd, I was absolutely thrilled when Final Destination Bloodlines came out to the point that I was practically counting down the days until I got to see it. Finally, the day arrived. I sat in my favorite seat at the theater (C6 at Cinemark – if you know, you know) and anxiously waited out the previews. The film opens in the late 1960s as music artists like Johnny Cash and Connie Francis play in the background of a romantic date at the new Sky View restaurant with a foreshadowing that is so charmingly obvious that I immediately felt comforted by the entirety of these opening scenes. Then, right in the middle of this enchanting date, it happens – Iris, one of our latest Final Destination clairvoyants, has a vision similar to those from premonitions past. Immediately, the viewer is comforted by this familiarity as Iris brings everyone at the Sky View to safety before the brand-new tower the restaurant rests upon topples to the ground. And, of course, the faithful Final Destination viewer knows what is coming next. Somehow, some way, the personified Death will come after anyone and everyone who cheated its original plan.

                                                                

Iris’s premonition was incredibly gruesome just as the others have been. Even more gruesome were all the deaths that followed throughout the film, including the death of one of Iris’s granddaughters, Julia, who got crushed in a trash compactor after ignoring the warnings from her cousin Stefani that everyone in Iris’s direct line of relatives is right in the middle of Death’s path.

                                

At first glance, some might think it’s bizarre that I view Final Destination as a comfort movie. However, I gladly watched the film two more times in theaters, and several more times as soon as it came out on HBO Max just a couple months later. Perhaps I am just a really big fan of the 1960s retro vibe paired with the present-day relatability. Or maybe, something else is going on entirely. It could be that the horrors of the world are so helplessly unpredictable that the only thing that gives some of us solace is knowing exactly what is going to happen. After all, the more I watch Final Destination Bloodlines, the more familiar I become with exactly when and how the multiple gruesome deaths occur. I cannot predict when the next horribly depressing headline will appear on my phone or TV. But I can absolutely predict the next death in a Final Destination film.

                                                

As much as I love Final Destination Bloodlines more than ANY of the other films in the franchise, there is no way I would appreciate this sequel nearly as much without the context of the other Final Destination films. In fact, perhaps the very premise of this franchise is a comforting spoiler! As my brother said after his viewing of the most recent Final Destination film: “Every time, I’m rooting for someone to survive, and every time, I’m wrong.” And this is what we love. The predictable nature of the Final Destination world gives us a comfort that the outside world could never provide. We get to know when and, upon a rewatch, how a death occurs, all in the comfort of our own homes. We watch these characters attempt to avoid the unavoidable, and we eat it up every time.