Final Destination 3 (2006)

April 20, 2022 4:25 PM

A student's premonition of a deadly rollercoaster ride saves her life and a lucky few, but not from death itself... which seeks out those who escaped their fate.

Currently streaming in the US on Netflix and for digital rental in most of the usual places.

posted by DirtyOldTown (10 comments total)

FD3 has my favorite opening scene for the franchise. Just solid cheesy and sleazy teen horror.
posted by Beholder at 4:32 PM on April 20, 2022

Extra points for having Tony Todd, who played the undertaker in FD 1 and 2, as the voice of the roller coaster.
posted by SPrintF at 4:39 PM on April 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

There is just one thing that really bugs me about this installment. The accident is caused when Frankie, who’s on the roller coaster, loses his grip on his video camera and it gets wedged in the track, causing the coaster to derail. Thanks to the premonition, Frankie doesn’t get on the roller coaster. SO WHAT CAUSED THE ACCIDENT???!?!

Otherwise it is *chef’s kiss*
posted by ejs at 5:43 PM on April 20, 2022

My complaint is that they broke from the 80's rules - this should have been Final Destination 3-D. (They didn't go 3-D until FD5)
posted by bartleby at 8:31 PM on April 20, 2022

That roller coaster scene would have been bonkers in 3-D.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:36 AM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

One thing that's wild about this series, is that the several of the sequels get similar or better Rotten Tomatoes ratings than their predecessors, even as the reviews complain the series is rapidly going downhill. It will be like 35% fresh, this is trash; sequel: 48% fresh, nowhere near as good as the clever original; 62% fresh, doesn't measure up to the earlier films...

It's like watching the critical consensus on the series evolve on a time delay. Heck, maybe it's the critical consensus on horror in general evolving.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:41 AM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]

The first time I heard about these movies I wondered why Death needed Rube Goldberg set-ups when aneurysms are a thing. Or why people got premonitions at all?

I may be overthinking it
posted by emjaybee at 7:57 AM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

Worth pointing out that the DVD release of this one had a "choose your own adventure" mode where (if I'm remembering correctly) you could actually spare at least one of the characters who are killed in the theatrical version.

Also worth noting that for some reason, this version is only available on DVD. As far as I know, it has not been released with this feature on Blu-ray, which seems really odd.
posted by tomorrowromance at 2:27 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

I recently watched all of these movies in a row (my husband and I have a tradition of watching horror movie marathons on NYE), and I think this one was my favorite out of all of them (but I also enjoyed every single one a lot more than I anticipated)!
posted by quatsch at 11:37 AM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

True story: last year, our kid got into roller coasters. As we reached the top of his first high speed steel coaster, just before the drop, I looked at him and asked, cheerfully:

"So what's your favorite Final Destination movie? I think mine is the third one. Remember the third one?"
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:04 PM on June 26, 2023