Final Destination 2 is My Favorite Film in the Franchise

 

Credit to Final Destination 2 (2003) - IMDb

I have seen several horror movies when I was a child, that left me completely traumatized. One of them was Final Destination 2, that freaked me out from beginning to end. As a child, this movie scared the hell out of me, because of how brutal and unexpected all of the deaths were. I did watch the other Final Destination films years later once I was much older, and while I did like several of them, I think the sequel is my favorite one. 

It does hold a special place in my heart for being one of the first horror movies I saw when I was a kid, and now as an adult, I can appreciate so much of what the movie does. One of my favorite scenes in the entire film is that iconic opening shot. The main character has an insane vision of how she will die on the highway, along with other victims. It's amazing how the director was willing to film actual cars crashing into each other, along with a log shooting through a police officer's vehicle. 

Another reason why I love the sequel is that the opening shot isn't the only awesome death scene in the movie. The kills continue to get worse and worse, along with gore that is tough to watch. One of my favorite death scenes was one that completely caught me off guard. A mother's son is suddenly killed when they leave the dentist. Death is teasing the kid, and while we are left terrified on how he is going to die, he ends up getting killed in the most unexpected way. 

After the dentist visit, the kid sees a small group of pigeons, and charges after them, just for the hell of it. Construction workers accidentally drop a large piece of glass meant for a building, and it lands directly on the kid, squashing him like a bug. They show the entire scene, and I couldn't believe how violent his death was. This is one of the few horror films that showed no mercy to anyone, including children, and damn, they did not hold back on his death!

I felt so sorry for the mother, as she wails in agony after witnessing the death of her son. And if you think that's awful, she also gets a messed-up death too, that also left me a little shaken. 

The funny thing is that her death was the second one that got me so bad. While some creepy guy is sniffing her hair in an elevator, she is told by her comrades that a man with hooks is going to kill her. She panics when her hair is suddenly caught, by a box of hooks that the creepy man is holding. She goes into a complete panic, and gets her head caught by the elevator doors. Her head is slowly ripped off, as she pleads with her comrades that she doesn't want to die. Her head is chopped off, and her body is separated into two pieces, her head left inside of the elevator. 

That scene left me terrified of elevators for YEARS, and I was so mad that every time I stepped into an elevator, I would think of that lady that got killed from Final Destination 2. This is the only film in the entire franchise that left me feeling this way, and I applaud this movie for leaving me so paranoid. It's beyond rare for horror films to do this to me, and I think it's an impressive feat on the director's part!

Final Destination 2 was a violent and grisly film that 100% deserves its cult following!