“	I was meant to see this movie!	”
–Janet, right before she was going to die because of explosion in the cinema.

Janet Cunningham is a main character and a survivor of the McKinley Speedway crash in The Final Destination.

Biography

Janet lived in McKinley, Pennsylvania, where she attended college with her best friend, Lori Milligan, and her ex-boyfriend, Hunt Wynorski. Out of all the survivors, Janet is shown to be the most affected by the accident.

The Final Destination

Janet visits the McKinley Speedway with her friends for a study break, instead of going to the movies like she wanted to. While watching the race, Nick has a premonition of a deadly car crash. When he panics, a fight breaks out, and they leave just moments before the accident occurs. Once outside, the group witnesses Nadia Monroy's death.

After the accident, Janet goes to a café with Hunt, Lori, and Nick, still shocked over the accident. There, they see a news report on the memorial service being held at the speedway, but Janet refuses to go back. The next day, Janet watches a news report on Carter Daniels' death and contacts Lori to tell her what happened. After Samantha Lane's death, Nick and Lori try to warn Janet and Hunt that Death is still after them. Janet doesn't believe them and hysterically leaves.

The next day, Janet goes to the car wash and is nearly obliterated by a rotating brush when the car wash malfunctions, but Lori and George Lanter arrive just in time to save her.

Three days later, Janet goes shopping with Lori, and afterwards they go to the mall cinema. When Lori begins to see the same omens that Nick saw before the speedway accident, she tries to warn Janet, but Janet refuses to listen to her. Meanwhile, Nick has another premonition of a disastrous mall explosion that will kill dozens of people, including Lori and Janet, and races to the mall to stop it before it occurs.

Janet is the eighth survivor of McKinley Speedway to die.

Death

Two weeks later, Janet, Lori, and Nick meet up at Death by Caffeine.

While Janet and Lori talk, Nick starts to see several more clues foreshadowing their deaths and realizes that everything they've been through was only a feint, meant to lead them to where they needed to be for Death to strike. As he relays this information to Janet and Lori, a scaffold prop next to the coffee shop falls over and lands in the middle of the road. A truck swerves to avoid hitting it and crashes right into the coffee shop, running over Nick, Lori, and Janet, and then finally kills the three of them.

In x-ray format, Janet is crushed underneath the truck's tire, snapping her spine and ribcage.

Signs/Clues

• The tow truck towing her vehicle is the same one Carter was driving.
• The shop Janet is in is called DEATH BY CAFFEINE.
• Nick sees a sign on the table saying IT'S COMING, and underneath it says IT'S HERE. This is also seen throughout all of his visions.
• Nick sees a woman reading about the movie LOVE LAYS DYING.
• Nick notices the TV is turned on to a speedway racing match.
• Nick sees a photo of the pool where Hunt died.
• Janet has eluded Death four times. She almost drowned in her car, nearly had her face ripped apart by a car wash cleaner, almost had her head crushed by a falling pipe, and was nearly impaled by debris from a theater explosion. This is the reason for George's death, because she confused Death while she was saved.
• Before Janet almost dies at the car wash, Nick has an omen about a death that involved a spinning car wash cleaner, a malfunctioning circuit box, and a pipe bursting.
• In the car wash scene where Janet was supposed to die, she wore a pink shirt with the number 45 on the back of it, which is the same number as the car that started the crash at the racetrack.
• Death striking Janet and Hunt simultaneously can be seen as an allusion to the theme of a coin flip. Janet’s intended death involved injuries to the "head", while Hunt’s involved injuries near the "tail".
  • Janet’s initial survival, in contrast to Hunt's brutal demise, may reference the traditional belief that landing on “heads” brings good luck, while “tails” represents bad luck.
• The day of the car wash, a flock of pigeons poop on her windshield. The flock references Tim's death in Final Destination 2.
• Before entering the theaters, Janet was annoyed by the toy seller who controlled the helicopter as the helicopter blew her hair, the position she was later hit in the theater (premonition), and noticed the platform that crushes Lori and her in the alternate ending being lifted above the ceiling window of the mall. In amazement, Janet said, "Somebody could get killed with that."
• In the refrigerator on Death By Caffeine, there is a sticker of Hice Pale Ale, which is the brand of beer in Final Destination 2 & 3.
• In Final Destination, Alex and Clear are talking about Death while drinking coffee, and Alex sees a bus reflection on the window of the coffee store while Clear asks if they will choke to death. While Nick, Lori, and Janet are drinking coffee in a shop, a truck crushes them, and before Nick enters the coffee shop, a 180 bus crosses the street.
• Janet's outburst in the theater was, "Don't you see? This is where I was supposed to be in the first place, not that stupid race. I was meant to see this movie!" As it was, the movie's explosion immediately after that caused her death; she was right.
• During what would have been her death at the car wash, she is wearing a shirt with a "5". She was meant to be the 5th to die, at the same time as Hunt.
• The theater that Lori and Janet were in was Theater #13, and 13 in certain superstitious cultures is an unlucky number.
• Janet dies similarly to how she dies in the premonition; she is crushed.
• She says, "I'm gonna go into a diabetic coma, just looking at it," when she sees Nick's coffee cup.
• Just before she goes into the car wash that almost kills her, she gives change to a homeless man. The man then talks to his dog Browning, which is a reference to Alex Browning.

Appearances

• The Final Destination (portrayed by Haley Webb)
• Final Destination 5 (archive footage in ending credits) (portrayed by Haley Webb)

Trivia

• In the script, she is described as: JANET CUNNINGHAM, 23.
• Janet's death in the theater in Nick's Premonition is referenced in the opening credits of Final Destination 5 with the screen exploding alongside the nails and her 3D sunglasses flying into the screen.
• In the alternate ending, Nick finds Lori and Janet in the mall. He tells them it's not over, but he can fix it, and runs off with Lori and Janet chasing him, but they get caught in the crowd. He enters the theater construction site where the fire is, and grabs a propane tank. He decides to sacrifice himself and jump off the building from stories above, creating an explosion that sets off the mall alarm. Everyone in the mall has to evacuate, and they are all saved from the disaster. Lori is then seen with Janet, crying and mourning, where Janet convinces her that he's a hero for saving everyone. They think they have beaten death just like Clear Rivers and Alex Browning. However, just as Lori says, "the chain is broken," a broken metal chain falls from the sky, where Lori picks it up out of curiosity. A moment later, they are crushed by an air conditioning unit, leaving Lori's hand behind, holding the metal chain.
• She has the most "directed-to-the-death" quotes. "Yes, I own you, machine," before nearly dying in the car wash, and "I was meant to see this movie" before dying in the theater (premonition).
• Janet and Julie Christensen from Final Destination 3 share a very similar character:
  • They are the third to last to die.
  • They both die along with the other two remaining survivors in the same disaster.
  • Janet died from a truck wheel, and Julie by a train wheel.
  • Their deaths were intervened, Janet was saved from drowning in a car wash, and Julie was saved from impaling in a harrow.
  • Both were saved by deuteragonists. Julie was saved by Kevin, and Janet was saved by Lori.
• In an early draft of the script of The Final Destination, Janet was going to die in the car wash. Her head would have gotten stuck in the sunroof, and the brushes would wipe at her face, eventually ripping the skin off her face and exposing her skull. This was changed in the final version so that she lived towards the end.
• Janet's death is the first death shown in the death montage in Final Destination 5, along with Lori and Nick's deaths.
• Janet used to own a 2004 Scion xB with an automatic transmission.
• Given the series' tradition of naming characters after horror directors, Janet shares her surname with Sean S. Cunningham, director and producer of the Friday the 13th franchise.

Navigation

The Final Destination
Disaster(s)
McKinley Speedway | Tagert Theatres 13
Survivors
Nick O'Bannon | Lori Milligan | George Lanter | Hunt Wynorski | Janet Cunningham | Jonathan Groves | Andy Kewzer | Samantha Lane | Carter Daniels | Nadia Monroy
Casualties
Cynthia Daniels | Nadia Monroy | 51 unnamed people
Others
Edward Lane | Ryan Lane | Luke Lane | Danny Wall | Cheyenne | Richard | Dee Dee | Pedicurist | Pam Smith | Officer Craig Perry | Girl on Top | Homeless Man | Browning | Mrs. Lanter | Ms. Lanter | Larry | Usher | Mr. Suby | Scaffolder | Jackie Bissley | Jason Koffeman
Locations
Indianapolis, Indiana | McKinley Speedway | Death by Caffeine | Salon Dante | Grandstate Customs | Forest Lawn Country Club | Springfield Centre Mall | Tagert Theatres