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Why Final Destination star now sees death everywhere
Bobby Campo, the star of the upcoming 3-D sequel film The Final Destination, told SCI FI Wire that being exposed to the complicated and connected incidents leading up to each character's death bled into a real-life awareness of accidents waiting to happen.
What sets the Final Destination movies apart from other horror films is the "mousetrap" device, in which characters find themselves in environments that ought to be safe—but where death lurks behind a cascade of seemingly minor events. The Final Destination is the fourth film in the franchise.
"I can't go anywhere without seeing the mousetrap," Campo said in a group interview last month on the film's New Orleans set. Campo plays Nick, whose vision of a stock car race disaster at the film's start saves himself and his friends from a horrible death at first, but which sets them up for a gruesome demise later on.
"It's something I've been working on so much, trying to get it right for the movie, that it's become second nature," Campo added about his newfound awareness of death's close presence. "The movie's definitely made me understand how fragile we are, because you don't think about it day to day. You're caught up in monotony—going to work, getting coffee. You don't think about how close you are to death until you have a near-death experience. I think that changes your perception."
Campo spoke with a group of reporters in a massive white tent outside a former truck warehouse transformed into a movie studio. The wind kicked up from the Gulf of Mexico, rocking the seemingly flimsy tent poles. Whenever the poles groaned, everyone sitting inside the tent looked up nervously, probably thinking the same thing: Will the tent hold up, or will it come crashing down, threatening to suffocate the people underneath? Like everyone else, Campo glanced up nervously when the tent's metal structure creaked with a sudden shift in the wind. After all, the Final Destination series is about death's efforts to claim anyone who first escapes its grasp.
Unlike the first three movies in the series, Nick has a series of premonitions, not just one. "David and I have worked really hard on making Nick into someone who is almost a servant," Campo said. "Someone who is willing to do anything for his friends, and that's something that's never been done before in this movie. There's a sense of good vs. evil in this movie that the other ones didn't have—it was all just running from evil. This one is going to do what the others couldn't do."
The Final Destination is scheduled for release on Aug. 28.
By AngryJonny at 8:18 AM ON 06/17/09
THE Final Destination? That's the best they could come up with to distinguish it from the previous three films?
And that still is incredibly lame. Maybe not in context of the actual scene, but as a still: Ooo! STAIRS! Definitely life-threatening. In order to escape that particular deathtrap, the girl would have to STAND UP!
I'm sorry; maybe I'm being too harsh -- I forgot the stairs will be in 3-D. Okay, NOW I totally want to see the thrill-a-minute escalator death scene.
By sighfighguy at 10:36 AM ON 06/17/09
Why Final Destination star now sees death everywhere...cause his career is over...that's why.
By Death at 12:21 PM ON 06/17/09
I was bored after the first one. Hollywood at its finest.
By spaceage whizkid at 3:35 PM ON 06/17/09
"The movie's definitely made me understand how fragile we are, because you don't think about it day to day. You're caught up in monotony—
(going to work, getting coffee).
You don't think about how close you are to death until you have a near-death experience. I think that changes your perception."
actually, he's right. monotonous things are forgotten about but are deadly. people die in traffic accidents every day going off to work. one bad set of brakes, a bad tire, bird poop on your windshield at the stoplight, drunk drivers, and then the coffee thing, so many people drink coffee without thinking about how hot it is, how bitter it can be or who hates them at work that might add something to the office coffee supply.
of course, cause of death could be so simple as being run over walking to the bus stop or burning your tongue and getting getting distracted while the tip of your shoe is caught on the edge of a desk where a letter opener is standing upright.
We are fragile and simple daily things can kill you, ask parents who lost children because they walked behind their cars while they thought they were still in the house. oh well, you can always trip and break your neck falling down stairs.
By Rogue at 4:22 PM ON 06/17/09
1 & 2 were okay. I actually enjoy watching them, however, the third movie was stupid and this 4th movie looks like it might be even more stupid.
By Leis at 5:56 PM ON 06/17/09
Those aren't "stairs" in the screenshot, the characters are on an escalator. And, yes, people actually have died on escalators. There was a fairly infamous case where a teen died because she stumbled, and her necklace got pulled into the moving track, strangling her to death before the escalator could be stopped.
By Death at 11:12 AM ON 06/18/09
@Leis: True, true. That was a good one. However, I never used fire. That's all Hollywood. ;-)
By IsoTek at 4:05 PM ON 06/18/09
Having nearly died once (surgery gone bad) I can empathize with the actor. Just recently we had a news story about a woman that missed being on the doomed Air France flight that broke up over the coast of Brazil, only to die a few days later in a car crash in Austria. Now this doesn't mean Final Destination is a good or realistic film but life does indeed hide many dangers that I think we all somehow miss noticing.
@Leis...You are certainly right about escalators being deadly. If you were to fall through the steps of an escalator you would be forced to keep yourself from being ground up in the many gears and chains underneath that create the moving stairways. Most of us that use them never think of that.
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IsoTek:
Having nearly died once (surgery gone bad) I can empathize with the actor. Just recently we had a news story about ...More »