We’re all going to die—some of us violently. And most of those violent demises will most likely go down because of the most ludicrous of happenstance—stupid mistakes that could have been avoided had we just paid attention to our surroundings. Now, not even the sharpest of wits would be able to escape their designated fates in the FINAL DESTINATION films, but it’s the treachery of the everyday that fuels those movies, creating paranoia surrounding activities as mundane as taking a shower. They’re visceral, gory, blackly funny, hyper-suspenseful thrill rides that supply operatic shocks to their primarily teenage audiences—and with last year’s poorly reviewed but very successful THE FINAL DESTINATION, those frissons were rendered with guts-in-yer-lap 3D.

And in the latest addendum to the series—FINAL DESTINATION 5, opening this Friday—also shot in state-of-the-art 3D, audiences can look forward to having blood, bone and horror shot through the screen again. Except this time, the film was guided by one of the most sophisticated digital 3D designers working today. Not only that, but—as evidenced even in the trailer—there seems to be a depth to this latest entry that exemplifies character as much as it does Grand Guignol.

The filmmaker in question is James Cameron protégé Steven Quale, who helmed the 2nd unit on the immersive 3D epic AVATAR and directed the Cameron-produced IMAX film ALIENS OF THE DEEP. To accompnay our preview coverage in FANGORIA #306 (on stands this month), we chatted with the director a mere week before his bloodstained baby’s theatrical debut.

FANGORIA: The FINAL DESTINATION pictures sometimes get a sneer from mainstream critics. Fans love them, but some elitists can’t seem to get past the formula of the body count. But there’s more to them, isn’t there—an almost Hitchcockian attention to suspense sequences that are often brilliant.

STEVEN QUALE: Absolutely, you’re correct. There was a reason Hitch was known as the “Master of Suspense,” and one thing I learned from both studying his work and designing the sequences in FINAL DESTINATION 5 is that audience expectations are more important than the deaths themselves. Those misdirects—those MacGuffins, as Hitchcock would say—are key, and rendering them in a cinematic way that fully engages the audience is paramount. And that’s the fun part of the filmmaking process for me: to get the actors to give good performances while reacting to these bizarre, TWILIGHT ZONE-ish things unfolding that lead to their demises. There’s no self-reflexive, wink-wink, nudge-nudge moments in these sequences, either—the kind of moments that some of the other later FINAL DESTINATION films did. I purposely avoided camp, and any humor that shows up in the movie comes organically from the characters reactions to the situations.

FANG: This ties into our next question, and that is while the first FINAL DESTINATION was straight-faced and grim, the rest of them allowed the characters to be rendered as cardboard. But judging from the trailer alone, there is a much more serious tone and dynamic at play in your film.

QUALE: Yes. There were three things I said I was going to do with this movie. One was that the 3D would be a spectacular tour de force, and when you see that opening bridge sequence, you get that sense of vertigo. The other was, on a narrative level, to make a scary, ominous horror film, using the techniques to create tension, and three, to get good actors, great performances and real characters you care about, drowning the fantasy in a reality that makes the movie just…well, just a better movie period.

FANG: The greatest strength of the FINAL DESTINATION pictures is that you walk out of the theater paranoid…because they take wicked pleasure in making even the most mundane element of living a source of malevolence. Has this been retained?

QUALE: For me, when we were working on the script and developing the death scenes, it was my mission that the more mundane the setup, the better. You put someone in a kitchen, and you look all around you wondering how a kitchen can kill you; that’s much more effective than being in a factory at the mercy of a hydraulic press. That’s obvious, but a kitchen…

FANG: Are you afraid of death?

QUALE: I am not afraid of dying, no. I mean, I don’t want to. But we all are going to die, and every human has a basic self-preservation instinct. But at the moment, I am not afraid of death, because I am not thinking about it…but that fear is there waiting for me, I’m sure.

FANG: Warner Bros. was the first studio to do a theatrical 3D horror feature with 1953’s HOUSE OF WAX, and that’s still my favorite 3D genre film; give me a paddleball man and a can-can girl anyday. Do you have a favorite 3D movie?

QUALE: Wow, yeah, I remember seeing HOUSE OF WAX in film school. It was in 2D, unfortunately, but we all laughed because we knew that those two sequences and others like them were supposed to be in 3D, obviously. But favorite? That’s tough to say. I certainly credit Jim [Cameron] for doing what he did with AVATAR and making an environment out of 3D, using subtlety and making you forget about it, just immersing you in that world. FINAL DESTINATION 5 is a hybrid of that aesthetic and the in-your-face shock of stuff like in WAX. It’s not so much a gimmick, like, you don’t wonder why an inexplicable paddleball comes at you for the sake of coming at you—but if something flings at you, if it makes sense in the action, it comes at you, and we have lots of those great moments.

FANG: FINAL DESTINATION 5 will no doubt fare as well as its predecessors at the box office, and you’ll have the chance to have your pick of other projects. What’s next—do you know at this point? Another 3D film?

QUALE: My focus right now, as of this interview, is to just sit back and see how audiences react to this movie. Our preview screening was unbelievable, and that’s what it’s all about, making something the audience loves and has fun with. As a kid, I read Fango and had dreams about being a filmmaker and making these kinds of movies, so this is all a dream come true. I’m thrilled.

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MOVIES/TV - Fearful Features