Textural Analysis

The film I will be analysing is ‘Final Destination’; it was directed by 'James Wong'. Final Destination is a psychological horror which was released on the 17^th March 2000 and is part of a 5 part series (Final destination, 2, 3, The Final Destination and Final Destination 5). The film is about one person who has a premonition and then after coming back to reality it comes to life, the people that she happens to save then begin to die in the order of her premonition, as they all come together on a various occasions trying to cheat death they die one by one.

Final Destination somewhat follows the model of Todorov, in the sense that the teens are out about to go on an exciting trip to France with the school (balance) then the premonition and plane crash where people die (disruption) 

And then it’s a new equilibrium where everyone dies except one which leaves a cliff-hanger. In relation to Levi-Strauss' theory of binary oppositions it can be applied to Final Destination as it uses premonition, as he is in a state of seeing the future and then jumps back to reality, this represents the view of dream → reality. He said that story elements which give meaning will usually appear in pairs. In critical theory a binary opposition is a pair of theoretical opposites EG. a story will usually be organised into binary opposites like hero/ villain or rich/ poor. In this case its dream/ reality.

The film is in a non-chronological order apart from the time she has a premonition. The narrative is closed because the ending is clear, it does not baffle or leave the audience wondering. Similar to this film is Jeepers Creepers as it follows the ways of Final Destination. The narration is omniscient as it does not focus on one character alone; it shows different point of views in contrast to restricted narrative.

The characters are typical to the genre as there’s is usually a group of teenagers going on a trip, in the film it’s a class group of teenagers going to France this happens in films such as Haunted Boat. In terms of behaviour they are rowdy and excited; there are different social

groups within them like the popular girls, jocks and others etc. The way of speaking is informal and the facial expressions are neutral, other than the boy who has the premonition which become frightened and scared after this occurs everyone becomes scared. The body language is slouched and relaxed until on the plane. Hair and makeup is typical of teens, brushed or straightened not over the top and make up on females is subtle. These are all typical school student stereotypes.

The costumes, props and behaviour, facial expressions and body language of the characters 

and they contribute to the representation of age because with the costumes they use stereotypical costumes, the 'jocks' have the varsity jackets, the girls that all the boys want look more made up than the others and the girl reading a book Is the 'geek'. Their behaviour represented age eg. The jocks didn’t want to talk to others and saw the boy who had a premonition as a 'freak' and fought him. The representation is stereotypic of age because it outlines different social groups and does what they are labelled as doing for example the girl reading the book on her own shows she is not part of any social group and when the families come to pick up their children after the incident she has no family for her, indicating a lonely person and also there's more to her than showed.

The film follows the genres conventions to an extent as it Is that the storyline focuses on “character fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot” (Wikipedia), Final destination is based on characters fears, beliefs and guilt to an extent. The relevant music is used to make it more dramatic and there is a lot of emotional instability between the characters that survived. The editing is fast in some places yet slow in others for example at the start of the plane crash its all fast then goes slow as everyone dies one by one and also the killings of the people who survive are fast, i think this is so the audience gets the full effect of what is happening. The combination of cross cuttings and jump shots allows the audience to see all the characters one by one. This is typical of the genre as it’s supposed to be character focused and the murders happen fast but in a slow way. The mise en scene is very typical, props like a knife was used which is associated with many films of this genre such as Childs Play. Use of props such as sharp objects is typical and water spills and wires, in Final Destination the sharp object cuts off the head of the person, this happens in a lot of horror films, it could be said to be a convention. The lighting is often dark to make the scene mysterious and make the audience jump.