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Devon Sawa is reminding Final Destination fans they can’t cheat death.
“Driving behind this log truck carrying Christmas trees and thought I’d wish you all a Happy Holidays!” Sawa, 45, wrote via Instagram on Thursday, November 30, alongside a photo of a log truck on the highway.
Sawa starred as Alex in the first Final Destination film, which premiered in 2000. Based on an unproduced spec script by Jeffrey Reddick — and initially meant for the X-Files TV series — the movie follows a group of acquaintances who try to escape their impending deaths after Alex has a premonition warning them about a major disaster. The initial horror flick sparked four sequels, two comic books and nine novels.
Fans of the franchise will remember the opening scene in 2003’s Final Destination 2, in which the entire cast dies in a multi-car pileup during one of protagonist Kimberly’s (Andrea Joy Cook) premonitions. It’s the first death, however, that has become an infamous moment in horror movie history: a state trooper, who is driving behind a semi-truck filled with giant logs, is killed instantly when one log snaps free and flies through his windshield.
Following Sawa’s post on Friday, fans immediately fled to the comments section to joke about how the terrifying scene has stuck with them for decades. “You singlehandedly traumatized an entire generation with some logs 😩,” one person wrote. Another added, “Still to this day I will not drive behind a log truck. IYKYK.”
“Anyone who drives directly behind that has clearly never seen final destination … can’t do it,” a third person wrote, while a fourth person confessed, “It’s never not a thought.”
Final Destination 2 premiered in 2003 and featured a brand-new cast. It was directed by David R. Ellis, who helmed every installment of the series until his 2013 death. Cook, 45, who starred in the sequel, opened up to IGN at the time about why she thinks the death sequences resonate so deeply.
“I definitely think it messed with people on another level because so many people that I talked to tell me that they’re still afraid to get on an elevator, or they’re tripped out whenever they’re driving on a freeway,” she explained. “So I think it affects you on a psychological level and just sticks in the back of your head.”
Sawa, meanwhile, echoed that sentiment when he recalled reading the opening scene of the first movie — in which sees his character dying in a plane crash — while on a flight from Vancouver to Los Angeles.
“I do most of my reading [on the plane],” he told E4 in 2000, calling it a “spooky” experience. “I found myself looking out the window every five minutes and every time we hit a little turbulence.”
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When it was revealed in January 2022 that John Watts was set to direct a rebooted Final Destination 6, Sawa shared he would be tuning in.
“I’ve seen every one of the movie’s sequels opening weekend,” he wrote via X. “This one will be the same. Can’t wait.”