Final Destination 5's gymnastics death might not top the list of the franchise's most creature setpieces, but it's easily the most underrated. Final Destination started life as "Flight 180," a spec script written by Jeffrey Reddick as an episode of The X-Files. This would have seen Scully's younger brother having a premonition that the plane he was about to board would explode, which it does soon after he refuses to board. The spec eventually evolved into Final Destination, where Death itself comes to haunt a group of teenagers who are escorted off a plane that explodes in midair.
Final Destination kicked off a great horror franchise, which focused on creative setpieces where characters would have to escape Death engineering gruesome ends for them. While some entries are better than others, even the lesser Final Destination movies have their moments. Final Destination 5 arrived in 2011 and is considered one of the best of the series, and ends with the shocking revelation the movie was really a prequel and that the "survivors" are killed when Flight 180 from the first movie explodes.
Despite receiving positive reviews, Final Destination 5 proved to be something of a box-office disappointment. While Final Destination 6 is in development, it's unknown when it will hit screens. The upcoming sequel has a big legacy to live up to, with Final Destination setpieces such as the second movie's car pile-up or the surprise bus kill from the 2000 original ranking high on fan lists. Possibly the most underrated is Final Destination 5's gymnastics death, where the character of Candice (Ellen Wroe) meets a bloody end during gym practice.
Final Destination 5 understood its premonitions and deaths are what audiences are coming to see. There's a playful, dark comedy edge to Final Destination 5's gymnastics death sequence, which plants several red herrings throughout. Viewers are expecting that at any moment she will stand on that loose nail or slip off a shaky bar, but ultimately, it's a chain reaction of all the above that causes her to fall and basically snap into pieces when she lands.
It's hilarious and stunning in equal parts and is all the better for how intricately it's designed. Final Destination 5's gymnastics death is a great example of what the series does best, which is to bring audiences into the scene and ask them to play detective as it unfolds. It's almost meta in how gleefully it exploits and subverts expectation, which makes the payoff all the sweeter.