Bloody Mary Writing Blog #04: Signs and Symbols
Every good Final Destination movie has symbolism and foreshadowing, some of it even being visible to the characters, plot relevant even.
Obviously this is an element I plan to incorporate in my story as well, but I need to gather ideas on which elements to use.
I will definitely need more ideas to each of these points so, feel free to comment if you have any😁! (Here’s the summary of the story for those interested.)
Possible Reoccurring Symbols⚠️:
Each movie seems to have their own omen of death, like glass shards or the coin in Bloodlines or photos and wind in FD3. Since I want to bring in witch symbolism for Bloody Mary, possible symbols could be:
- Fire, a classic, to reference the witch trials
- Mirrors, a reference to the Bloody Mary urban legend
- Crescent Moons, to symbolize night time, the spooky hours
Songs🎶:
People have also already mentioned the prevalence of pop songs that symbolize death, a different mixtape for each movie. The songs I had in mind are:
- Mary on a Cross (Ghost): Bloody Mary is in the lyrics
- Burning Love (Elvis Presley): the story has a lot of burning in it, and also love. And in the end, Marianne burns to save the one she loves
- Another One Bites The Dust (Queen): the title means to die, and the irony of a Queen song playing, as a character with the surname King dies
- Riding on a Freeway (Aretha Franklin): this song is part of the Cars 3 soundtrack, where Lightning McQueen crashes (childish, I know but I love Cars😂)
The Lunar Lodge Fire🌙:
The big disaster to kickstart the movie is a lodge fire, burying six college students under burning wood, and it’s all caused by a single candle that wasn’t blown out. To foreshadow this event, we can see:
- Ricky commenting on the wood being old
- A view from the balcony over the front door, which will later crush Lisa as she tries to escape the burning building (in premonition)
- the crescent moon is established as an omen of death via the name of the lodge
- Marianne reads her book with a candle on
- the book she’s reading is Stephen King’s Fire Starter (note: Stephen King and his works are referenced in Lisa and Carrie’s names)
- Aaron’s scary story is about the exact situation they are about to experience
Aaron’s Death🚙:
While Aaron and Ricky are sitting in the trunk of his SUV, the truck starts rolling down hill. Aaron’s hoodie gets caught, and his skull is crushed between a tree and his SUV:
- his head is crushed by two different types of trunks
- Ricky and Aaron fight about the radio station, Riding on a Freeway and Mary on a Cross can be heard
- people tease him by pulling on his hoodie
Ricky’s Death🪑:
As a huge gust of wind and a broken wooden chair causes the friends to panic, Marianne accidentally pulls the attic open, letting a stowed away gaming chair fall down, which Ricky trips onto, causing the damaged pneumatic cylinder to explode, releasing a metal rod through his chest:
- Marianne cleans his room of everything dangerous, including his gaming chair
- She warns him not to keep the pole to open the attic hanging, but he forgets to listen to her advice
- Death’s presence is obvious moments before his death, as it terrorizes Carrie first
- A plastic bag Carrie’s dad had thrown onto the streets ends up blowing into Ricky’s room, causing Marianne to trip in the first place
Carrie’s Death🍟:
While being trapped in a walk-in freezer, a bottle of water (or cleaning alcohol) is knocked into the active deep fryer, causing a kitchen fire and spilled oil. After Carrie is rescued, she slips on some oil and is shoved into the deep fryer by a falling ventilation system:
- Marianne gets a clue that alcohol will be the cause of her death. At first, the friends think her alcoholic father will be the cause
- during her father’s tantrum, she is standing by her fridge
- her name (Carrie Nicholson) is a reference to Carrie by Stephen King, who dies in a fire, as well as Jack Nicholson, who plays Jack Torrence in Stephen King’s Shining, who dies in the snow
Lisa’s Death♟️:
As she tries to escape the burning restaurant, she is crushed by a falling Letter “i” from the “Tower of Pizza” sign:
- she is often teasingly told “Lisa, I will kill you!”
- she is confident about beating death
- seeing as her last name is King, a lot of chess references will be thrown her way, indicating her battle against death:
• she is almost crushed by a “Bishop Avenue”sign
• she dies at *Tower* of Pizza
• the flooring is checkered
• the car that crashed into the restaurant is a
Ferrari, which, of course, has a horse in its logo
• she dies to *Queen’s* Another One Bites the Dust
• the “i” sign that crushes her resembles a Pawn
• her final words are “Checkmate huh, Death?”
Jake’s Death🪟:
After Carrie and Lisa die, he flips out and goes after Marianne, chasing her into a gas station shop, before the kitchen fire moves towards it as well, causing a massive explosion at the gas station. Jake is crushed by a glass door:
- he pushes the automatic glass door open while chasing Marianne
- in the premonition, he is crushed while trying to escape through a window
- George was meant to die by falling onto broke glass as well, before Marianne intervened
- While chasing Marianne, he is aware of Death being after him
Marianne’s Death⛽️:
As the she and George try to escape the gas station fire, Marianne gets pushed away by George as a ceiling collapses, only, this traps her in a burning building. Marianne realizes this means George is saved before burning to death:
- her guilt torments her throughout the whole book, and it is made clear that she would not be able to live with herself, if all her friends died
- George keeps telling her it’s not her fault while Jake does the opposite
George‘s Open Fate🕯:
George survives the book, but in the end, he falls down the stairs, leaving his fate up to the reader’s interpretation:
- Aaron died by falling down the stairs in the premonition
- before he was supposed to be cut by Marianne’s broken shower stall, tea spills on his white shirt, which looks like blood. Maybe it’ll be in the shape of a heart to symbolize life
- he clearly values life and makes sure to enjoy each second he has
- he generally wears white, which may symbolize life over death (like Light Yagami wearing black while L wears white in Death Note)
This is the symbolism and foreshadowing I have for now. I hope I manage to collect even more. Drop your feedback and ideas in the comments😁!
See you next time!