Final Destination (2000)

Episode 159 (May 16, 2025)

Laci and Matt are hunkered down in a cabin in the woods, eating canned cat food with oven mitts, trying to dodge that pesky Grim Reaper. But the rats need their cheese, so here’s a new episode about Final Destination (2000). (You’re the rat.)

It’s the movie that launched one of the great horror franchises. A franchise that Matt posits is Friday the 13th for the decade of the 2000s. This series has it all: Primitive cell phones! Internet research on big ole computers! And nu-metal, nu-metal, nu-metal.

And it all started here, with this movie that began life as an X-Files spec script and, even in its final form, has forgotten to take the X-Files out. That’s not a bad thing.

Final Destination Podcast

Time stamps:

1:28 — Our personal histories with the FInal Destination franchise
13:00 — History segment: How Final Destination began as an X-Files spec script by Jeffrey Reddick, and instead was turned into a feature film helmed by X-Files writers James Wong and Glen Morgan
28:52 — In-depth movie discussion
1:28:25 — Final thoughts and star ratings

Sources:

“Final Destination: the definitive oral history by the people who made it” by Ian Sandwell | Digital Spy (2022) – https://bit.ly/43cBq4w
“How Final Destination Went From Real-Life Premonition to Horror Phenomenon” by Jack Beresford | Den of Geek (2021) – https://bit.ly/4jPo0T4
Final Destination press kit (2000) – https://bit.ly/4kfcTmg
“Devon Sawa: ‘I had to smoke pot in movies and be in a hip-hop video to get away from Casper’” by Rachel Brodsky | The Independent (2022) – https://bit.ly/3GQ3sLU

Artwork by Laci Roth.

Music by Rural Route Nine. Listen to their album The Joy of Averages on Spotify (https://bit.ly/48WBtUa), Apple Music (https://bit.ly/3Q6kOVC), or YouTube (https://bit.ly/3MbU6tC).

Songs by Rural Route Nine in this episode:
“Winston-Salem” – https://youtu.be/-acMutUf8IM
“Snake Drama” – https://youtu.be/xrzz8_2Mqkg
“The Bible Towers of Bluebonnet” – https://youtu.be/k7wlxTGGEIQ