Parents' Guide to

Final Destination 3

By Cynthia Fuchs, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 18+

More blood, less invention. Not for kids.

Movie R 2006 115 minutes
Final Destination 3 Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 14+

Based on 15 parent reviews

Schmoopy15
Schmoopy15 Adult
July 2, 2020
age 10+

What is up with people on this website?

Everybody including kids are terrified of these movies but the reviews for Joker which is like 200x worse than these movies make it seem like Dora the Explorer when Joker stabs a guy in the eye and slams his head into the wall several times people think it’s great directing and acting but when someone dies an ironically funny but horrible death you people make it seem like all this movie is, is blood, guts, and sex. Which if y’all had any sense would see that this is like Barney compared to Joker. Like I’m 18 and I was horrified and disgusted after watching Joker but I was cracking up watching these movies. Call me desensitized to death but these are things that would never happen in real life and the language and nudity most teens and kids are familiar with all of it.
1 person found this helpful.
JustinC 1
JustinC 1 Adult
February 2, 2016
age 18+

AT LEAST age 18. Horrific, disturbing torture scene.

There's a very horrific, disturbing torture scene in this movie (see slight spoiler below if you like) that very much disturbed me even in my late 20s watching the edited-for-TV version. And I've seen MANY horror movies with no ill effects. "Saw" 1 and 2 didn't bother me at all, for example. Warning, slight spoiler: People get burned alive during a lengthy scene while screaming in agony, and we see close-up details of their flesh and faces bubbling and burning away

This title has:

Too much violence
1 person found this helpful.
See all 15 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Like its predecessors, FINAL DESTINATION 3 delivers plenty of yucky death scenes and occasionally startling violence. As per the formula, death stalks a group of teens who somehow elude it in the opening catastrophe -- a roller coaster ride that goes terribly wrong. They're saved by Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who sees a vision of the disaster before it happens. Wendy's boyfriend stays on the ride, to meet his demise. Wendy discovers death's plan, and tries to warn her fellow survivors. Her photos from that fateful night hold clues about each victim's death. Violent and gross, these deaths mostly take place in front of Wendy and her confidant Kevin (Ryan Merriman), despite their warnings. Only the first death scene takes place without witnesses: The interchangeable Ashley (Chelan Simmons) and Ashlynn (Crystal Lowe) who strip to get inside tanning beds, then essentially cook to death when the units overheat and they're accidentally locked in.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (15):
Kids say (28):

As death stalks the victims, Final Destination 3 encourages viewers to take pleasure in the mechanisms and the lunacy of the means. Heads are smashed and nail-gunned, bodies are cut in half and crushed. Because the victims behave badly -- ignoring Wendy's warning or being rude or stupid -- you're not asked to invest in them emotionally.

But you do invest, if only because of formula, in Wendy, who tries so hard to save her classmates. "Can you feel how vicious it was?" she asks following one death, suggesting that death is being sadistic. The film asks you to take her perspective, but because it's the third time with all the gory tricks and tensions, the effects aren't so unexpected. So there's the question: When does pleasure in death effects become routine?

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the absence of parents in this movie: Only two even appear, at a funeral and in the background another shot, waiting at school. Why are these kids so alone as they deal with their friends' deaths? They could also talk about why horror movies are so popular, especially with teens.

Movie Details

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