Carter Horton

Final Destination (Main)

Alternative ending

Carter Horton
Full Name	Carter Horton
AKA	Dick (by Billy)
Gender	Male
Hair Color	Black
Eye Color	Blue
Place of Origin	Mt. Abraham, New York
Born	March 11th, 1984
Age	18
Status	Deceased
Died	December 30, 2000
Cause of Death	Crushed by a falling neon sign
Occupation	High School Student (Formerly)
Relations	Terry Chaney - Ex-Girlfriend
Actor	Kerr Smith
First Appearance	Final Destination
Last Appearance	Final Destination 5

Wait, whoa! We get thrown off the plane, we blow what? A half a day in Paris? All because Browning has a bad fucking dream? Carter complaining about Alex.

Carter Horton is a main character in Final Destination and is a survivor of the Volée Airlines Flight 180 explosion. He was a senior jock at Mt. Abraham High School and the rival of Alex Browning.

Biography

Carter was born in Mt. Abraham, New York. He is very arrogant and hot-tempered, and often fights with Alex, whom he bullies whenever they're together. He is also dating Terry Chaney, and the two go on the school's annual field trip to Paris together.

Final Destination

Carter, with Terry after the plane explosion

Carter boarded Flight 180 with his girlfriend, Terry. When Alex attempts to warn the other passengers about the plane exploding, Carter believes he is making the whole thing up as a joke and tries to fight him. As a result, both of them are removed from the plane, along with Terry and five others. After the plane departs, Carter begins to criticize and mock Alex, who fights with him at the terminal. While the guards manage to separate them, the plane explodes shortly after, as Alex predicted.

In the aftermath, Carter continues to show hostility towards Alex, refusing to admit that he saved him. At the memorial service, he tells Alex that he doesn't owe him anything and that he is in charge of his own life. Carter probably didn't get the news at first that Alex's best friend, Tod Waggner, was strangled in his bathtub later that evening. Later, Carter is driving with Terry when he sees Alex and Clear Rivers talking at a café. When he confronts Alex and begins to mock him again, Terry snaps, frustrated with Carter's obsession with Alex. She then storms away in frustration, reprimanding Carter and breaking up with him. But as Terry steps into the intersection, she is suddenly killed by a speeding bus, leaving Carter devastated. Later on, he attempts to carve Terry's name into the memorial plaque for the students who died on Flight 180.

Carter confronts Alex at the café.

When the remaining survivors reunite, Alex explains that Death is claiming the lives of those who were meant to die on the plane. Carter asks Alex if he predicted the death of their teacher, Valerie Lewton, and then asks Alex who's next. After learning that he is next on Death's list, Carter, frustrated over having no control over his life, begins to drive recklessly through the streets despite the others trying to stop him. He finally stalls his car on a railroad track, wanting to die on his own terms. Carter changes his mind at the last minute. Initially, Carter happily attempts to start up his car but is quickly horrified as it stalls. Carter starts to panic as he tries to open the car door, which refuses to open. He then attempts to unbuckle his seatbelt, but it also refuses to do so. After Carter yells that he can't get out, Alex rushes over and manages to pull Carter out just as the train smashes into the car, allowing Death to skip Carter. Seconds later, one of the survivors, Billy Hitchcock, dies in front of Carter, Alex, and Clear when a flying piece of scrap metal is shot out from underneath the train, decapitating Billy and leaving Carter in shock. After Alex realizes how to beat Death's design, Carter stays behind with Billy's remains as Alex and Clear flee the scene. Afterwards, Carter isn't seen for a while, only after Clear is saved by Alex.

Carter is the fifth survivor of Flight 180 to die.

Carter standing in the foreground, having urinated himself from his near-death experience, as Alex figures out Death's design.

Death

For all I know it could circle back and get us all again, but I am the safest fucker in the world, because you're still next. Carter, just a few minutes before his death.

"So who's next?" Carter, immediately before he is crushed by the neon sign.

Six months later, Carter, Alex, and Clear travel to Paris to celebrate their survival. While relaxing outside a French restaurant, Alex starts to see more omens foreshadowing his death, and Carter playfully taunts Alex, claiming that he is next. After Alex leaves the table, he is almost hit by a bus, but it swerves and crashes into a pole, which flies into the air and knocks a sign off its hinges. The sign comes swinging down towards Alex, but Carter shoves Alex out of the way at the last second, claiming that he was right, to which Alex responds that means Death just skipped him. Just as Carter questions who is next, the sign swings back down towards Carter as he realizes that he himself is next, and he's crushed instantly.

Death's First Attempt

• When Carter was recklessly driving, Alex has a hallucination of his own seatbelt being ripped. He later realizes this was a foreshadowing of how he saved Carter from the train.
• Alex sees the reflection of the train on the left window of Carter's car.
• The train that hits Carter's car has a color palette of red, white, and blue. These were the colors featured on Flight 180.
• After Terry dies, the bloodstain on Carter's face looks similar to the number "4". He was originally the fourth survivor to die, but Alex saved him at the last second.

Death's Second Attempt

• The sign that hits Carter reads 180 backwards.
• The building behind Carter when he died has red, white, and blue featured on it.
• A man is singing 'Rocky Mountain High' in French.
• Before the accident, Alex sees a butchered piece of meat.
• A gust of wind blows when Alex starts seeing omens, hinting at Death's presence.
• Before Terry's death, she tells Carter to "drop fucking dead" for wanting to "beat the shit out of Alex every time he sees him". Soon, Carter died after his many attempts to beat Alex in terms of surviving.
• During a fight, Alex curses Carter by telling him that he "wished he was on the plane". Alludes to Death's displeasure at Carter surviving Flight 180, along with Alex playing an unintentional role in his death.
• The plate number of his car is RFK - 575. If accounting for the death order (Carter dying 5th, Clear dying 6th, and Alex dying 7th), it hints at the event. Carter (5) saves Alex (7), circling back to him (5).
• Carter mocks Alex, saying, "For all I know, it could circle back and get us all again, but I am the safest fucker in the world, because you're still next." Death circles back to him when he saves Alex.

Final Destination 2

Hey, do you guys remember that theatre in Paris that collapsed last year and killed everybody inside? Well, I had tickets to go. But one night, you know, I'm, heh, in Paris and I'm just tripping on acid and sipping lattes and such. And then all of a sudden, this dude out of nowhere just gets whacked by this falling sign. Rory, sharing his story to the survivors. Carter. Clear, when she recognizes the previous event.

The newspaper involving Carter's death.

Carter was briefly mentioned in Final Destination 2 by Rory Peters, a survivor of the Route 23 disaster. Rory reveals that he was supposed to go inside a theatre that collapsed on the guests, but decided not to go after witnessing Carter's death.

The Final Destination

Though Carter is not mentioned in The Final Destination, the character Carter Daniels is named as an allusion to him. Additionally, a car resembling Carter's is briefly seen.

Final Destination 5

Oh, excuse me. Um... those passengers who got off the plane earlier — what was that all about? A passenger to the flight attendant. A kid had a panic attack and wanted off the plane. Said he had some kind of vision. The flight attendant, in reply.

Carter as seen in Final Destination 5.

Carter is seen being thrown off of Flight 180 at the end of Final Destination 5. The group of arguing classmates passes by the seats of Sam Lawton and Molly Harper before the plane explodes.

Trivia

• He was the first survivor to die off-screen.
• Ironically, after Terry dies, he is the only one not showing clear shock.
• In the script for Final Destination, he is described as CARTER HORTON, the class dickhead who mix and matches his role models in the most superficial manner.   
• Carter was one of the people in Final Destination who wasn't named after someone. The other ones were Clear Rivers, Christa Marsh, and even victims of Flight 180 who weren't named after crew members.
• Carter is one of six characters who were not the visionary to intervene in someone's death.
  • The other five are Ian McKinley, Lori Milligan, Kevin Fischer, Thomas Burke, and Nathan Sears.
    • Out of these six, Carter is one of only three characters to save the visionary. The other two are Ian (Albeit inadvertently) and Thomas.
• Carter is the only character in the series who is not a visionary to save more than one person. He saved Alex from the falling sign, and his death inadvertently caused Rory Peters to miss his death.
• Carter, along with Nathan Sears, was the only survivor to be the fourth to die on the list and be saved.
• Carter is the first survivor whose death was intervened by somebody else, allowing his turn to be skipped.

Appearances

• Final Destination (first appearance) (portrayed by Kerr Smith)
• Final Destination (novel)
• Final Destination 2 (in a photo)
• Final Destination 2 (novel) (in a photo)
• Final Destination 5 (archive footage) (portrayed by Kerr Smith)