Death comes for us all, it’s the other certainty in life alongside taxes. Whether quietly, boldly, gradually, or abruptly, when it’s our time, it’s our time. In other words, death presumably has a date and time stamp for all of us, and if that plan is disrupted, well, “Death” can become an active participant. That is the premise of the Final Destination franchise, and with the first movie coming up on its official 25th anniversary in a few weeks leading into the sixth installment coming months later in Final Destination: Bloodlines, what better time to see where it all began?

THE STORY: What better way for some high school seniors to go out than by going to Paris? Alex Browning (Dewon Sawa) is all set to board Flight 180 from NYC to France. But before takeoff, he begins receiving peculiar feelings of dread all around him, and that dread culminates with a premonition that the flight he, his classmates, and school teachers are on will explode. In a manic state claiming that the plane will in fact go down, Alex is kicked off the plane, along with best friend Tod (Chad Donella), other classmates Clear (Ali Larter), Carter (Kerr Smith), his girlfriend Terry (Amanda Detmer), Billy (Sean William Scott), and teacher Ms. Lewton (Kristen Cloke). Mere minutes after being escorted off, they all watch as schoolmates perish.

The FBI has tagged Alex as a suspect in the deaths of those on Flight 180. Weeks later, the unscathed are still processing their grief but ready to move on with their lives. Death, however, seems to have other ideas, beginning with the mysterious passing of Tod. From here, Alex and co. must work to understand the Grim Reaper’s approach and how to cheat death once again, which is easier said than done when anything around you can be transformed into a tool of one’s demise.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR: There’s nothing really new under the sun, but there are always different angles to take. By the year 2000, the modern slasher movie had been around for a quarter-century, and save for something like Scream, it had settled into a standard rinse-wash-repeat setup. When the first Final Destination came along, it used the framework audiences were accustomed to but made Death the big bad, and in turn putting a unique twist into the formula that allowed it to stand out in a saturated market.

The highlight of these series is and will always be Death as an actual character. Created by director/co-writer James Wong with longtime partner Glen Morgan and Jeffrey Redick, death isn’t shown wearing a cloak or carrying a scythe, but its presence is consistently felt. Whether it be the puddle of water retreating (hilariously) upon itself in the bathroom, an eerie gust of cool wind coming out of nowhere, or a lightning strike violently touching down on the ground, it looms over every action the characters take.

Much like the first Saw, the first Final Destination is the tamest of the series when it comes to fatal exits. However, when compared with some of the later entries, Wong deploys equally lengthy fakeouts that eventually lead to characters’ demise with instantaneous ends, which sets Death the character as the true wild card we know it to be, in that you can go out swiftly or laboriously with no control over the method. Outside of the deaths, these movies are known for their opening catastrophes, and though the effects for this one are certainly dated in areas, there’s still a very unnerving element about a plane breaking apart and then going boom.

A GREAT MOMENT: The introduction of William Bludworth, played by the late horror icon Tony Todd. After the passing of Alex’s best friend Tod, he and Clear sneak into the mortuary to examine his body, as his death was ruled a suicide by hanging. Immediately, they’re greeted by Bludworth, a mortician who seems to have been expecting them, and even shares that Tod did not die by his own hands, for his own hands indicate he was struggling with the wire. He then cryptically reveals that on the day they cheated death by walking off Flight 180, “Death’s design” was thwarted, and it has now come back with a vengeance and new design to reclaim what it should have had.

It’s a masterful scene lasting less than 3 minutes, where we get the existential side of Final Destination, which asks us to consider whether cheating death is all it’s cracked up to be when the Grim Reaper is going to collect for all of us anyway. Why agitate it? But the brilliance of the scene is piloted by Todd, who gives everything and nothing to the teens in the way of information, all delivered with the controlled intensity and that unforgettably deep voice. Sawa and Larter sell their fear well, and the dialogue between the three is interspersed immaculately with the underrated score that crescendos and decrescendos at the perfect times, composed by Shirley Walker and Adam Hamilton. The scene ends with the menacing line—and finger raise—of “I’ll see you soon.” And just like that, a classic horror character was born.

THE TALLY: Funny that Final Destination was once slated to simply be an episode on the famous television series in The X-Files. It’s an interesting what if, but one that in all likelihood would have limited the creativity of the first film and the others that followed it. And sure, not every one in the series is great or even good, but the first never gets old and has left its mark on the genre. It’s What to Watch.

Photo credits go to screenrant.com, cinemablend.com, impawards.com, and bloody-disgusting.com.