FINAL DESTINATION: Juking Neglectful Care, Long Covid, and Imminent Death

Happy Aquarius szn! There's no way that I am only horror/astrology person who associates the Final Destination franchise with the frigid cyborg and metallic-refrigerator quality of January to early February; it's hard to describe why exactly an invisible and immortal slasher feels ethereally correct when assigned to a zodiac sign that's constantly described as an apocalyptic and desperate genius, searching for the horror-fueled, scientific cure to humanity from under their lab's Frankenstein-lightning, where electricity zips over their determined, yet aloofly empathic little mind, and clouds over the once concerned crescents in their eyes, and decides to pull down the doomsday lever anyway. The threat of death, growing into result.

And yet, if you think about it, and really ponder what exactly gives Final Destination its early 2000s edge, is not just the blue chrome filter of the time nor the low jeans or the amount of white highlighter, shining under someone's over-plucked and arching brows, but it's the total panic of an Aquarian, appearing to the five teenagers in the way one dances with a generalized anxiety disorder. The way one's personal responsibility supersedes the boundaries of your own actions and willingly swallowed into the experience of having everyone else's woes, all the time. Of course, there are Aquarians that use this body channeling ability for evil - but our main character? He's not one of them. In fact, he may be too good to even be on the Aquarian of The Year Poster. The permeant favorite model for the cover of Aquarius Monthly. Yeah sure.

When Alex (played by Devon Sawa), has not only a prophetic nightmare, prophesying his school and other fellow passenger's death via plane crash but beforehand also receives tingling clues that something in the air is amiss, instead of writing them off as first flight jitters, he immediately trusts his gut and springs into action, saving five others in the process. And instead of patting himself on the back for being heroic in some capacity, as well as dismissing the temptation to be in awe of his new, god-like power, throughout the entire movie, we watch Alex struggle heavily with the guilt of not being able to save everyone and commits the rest of his second-chance to figure out death's pattern, it's strategic plans for evening the score and getting its rightful licks it had been cheated out of, and saving the ones who's lives were spared the first time. Everyone, especially the parents of the tragically deceased, hated him! Why? because unfortunately, some people struggle to untangle the tragedy from the one person, screaming at how preventable the tragedy could be, and instead view them as the causer. Somehow psychologically associating and scapegoating them with avoidable disaster.

So why did people, especially grieving parents react this way with Alex, himself also a literal child, who tragically lost most of his peers and teachers? Why is there an adverse reaction to anyone warning people of some dangerous condition, waiting for them on the horizon? What's our society's fascination with calling people, who are undoubtedly right, Chicken Little, when the sky is very clearly falling all around them?

There are a lot of preventable disasters (i.e. climate crisis, the rise of anti-trans politics, the rise of fascist talking points being more normalized in our schools, etc.) that have already been through this cycle of being whistle-blown to be blamed and repeatedly continue to be dismissed by right-wing politicians and mundane centrists as overly anxious and Chicken Little-like panic from chronically online leftists, but there is another modern example that I find to be just as deadly when ignored; the way disabled and chronically ill people have been begging people to take Covid and Long Covid seriously has unfortunately (and predictively)their pleads have resulted in their vilification, much like Alex in Final Destination. Similarly, Alex and the disabled community are both people with have an intimate and banal relationship with death, in ways that others both dismiss, out of fear of their own inevitable mortality and their egotistical entitlement for maintaining a certain and selfish status quo, as well as treating a disabled existence as some dirty, taboo existence. Mirroring exactly how fatphobic people won't associate with fat people, for fears of them picking up fabricated (and likely self-practicing) bad health habits, non-disabled people, who don't take the threats of Covid seriously, have committed themselves to the eugenist idea that disabled and chronically ill people should take "personal responsibility" and just simply not live publicly. Meanwhile ignoring that their maskless ass is just one contact away from joining the rest of us "agoraphobic" worriers to a life that can only be safely lived inside. Harboring a massive misunderstanding of how close they truly are to disability and acquiring a disabled status.

It's baffling to me that fans of the Final Destination Franchise could sit there and ask themselves "Why is everyone getting mad at a child? He saved their lives!" but then immediately not apply that to their, unmasked choices. In truth, I want them to ask themselves if they are wearing a mask, every time they go out to eat or go romping around a bar. Being so honest with themselves when contemplating "Am I causing mayhem that benefits the other fun-loving gremlins around me or am I causing mayhem in the way an unredeemable villain would?" "Am I emulating a baddie from Euphoria or am I just the fruit bat, spreading the virus in the movie Contagion?" - THESE are the important questions that need to be asked!!!

But also, also if I'm being honest, I don't know who is currently thinking new thoughts about this 2000 relic of a movie - it's on ME that this was unfortunately my first watch and I hold myself accountable for that. I want to thank the DEPOP seller, whose nostalgic horror 2000s collectibles shop was closing and included a free Final Destination DVD with my purchase of two very loved, very decrypted Stephen King books. It was greatly appreciated.