Directors: Adam B. Stein, Zach Lipovsky
Stars: Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Richard Harmon, Brec Bassinger
Legacy horror sequels are really no surprise in the modern cinematic landscape. Our nightmares never really go away. So the return of Final Destination is no big shocker, particularly as the pendulum of taste seems to have swung back toward the schlocky once more. It might be surprising to consider that it’s been away longer than it ever existed; five films made between 2000 and 2011 and now, 14 years later, this belated continuance. But it’s really a perfect IP to perpetuate, featuring nearly no continuing characters beyond the amorphous spectre of death, and that’s not going anywhere.
As it’s been a minute, here’s the deal. Someone has a premonition that they’re about to die and intervenes in death’s ‘plan’, allowing themselves and usually a scattering of friends and strangers to live. Death then works overtime to balance the ledger, usually with the aid of spilled flammable liquids or weathered electrical equipment. Our heroes catch on and try to cheat fate again. But death always catches up.
It’s as fool-proof as it is comfortingly predictable. Every iteration thus far has foregrounded a bunch of late teens, picking at the unfairness of discovering mortality and dying young, and appealing to these movies’ core demographic. Final Destination Bloodlines changes up the formula slightly, revealing greater potential in moving away from the norm. Here we have a family suddenly thrown into danger thanks to an event some 70 years earlier that death’s still mopping up.
The extensive cold-open for Bloodlines takes the gauntlet thrown down by all five predecessors and runs with it. Taking place on opening night at a new Space Needle-like novelty restaurant called The SkyView, we meet Iris (Brec Bassinger) and Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones) on a date from hell. While they both have big, life-changing secrets to spill, their night is upstaged by the perilous collapse of the building. From the get-go directors Adam B. Stein and Zach Lipovsky push hard for us to associate with feelings of claustrophobia and vertigo, and the theme park ride element of a Final Destination movie seems assured in their hands. The sequence is among the most elaborate (and ridiculous) of the series, but in a pleasing and indulgent way. It also tips that Bloodlines is going to be more interested in present expectations for comic splatter gore effects than it’s predecessors.
Flash to present day and Iris’ granddaughter Stefanie (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) is suffering night terrors of Iris’ fateful ’50s premonition. Ditching school to return home to the family she’s all-but estranged from, Stefanie seeks out the reclusive Iris (Gabrielle Rose) to get to the bottom of her disturbing dreams. Rose’s performance as a crackpot Final Destination lifer is an all-too-brief hoot that sets the rest of the picture in motion. Death is playing catch-up and their lineage is next. Stefanie is going to have to work with the family she’s so loathe to spend time with; to save them and to save herself.
Switching from pals to kin is a savvy move for the series, engendering a level of connection that it’s not fully dabbled in before. This is also the longest Final Destination movie to date, and part of that is bedding in these characters for us to appreciate their dynamics and care about them a little more than usual. Standouts include dopey but amiable Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) and acerbic comic relief Erik (Richard Harmon).
But enhancing the interconnectivity has a knock-on effect that clashes a bit with the casual anarchy of Final Destination. It’s always been fuelled by a detached gallows humour but, more than before, Bloodlines has to battle with the emotional fallout of its Rube Goldberg death-traps. Its a tonal contradiction that Bloodlines struggles to reconcile. The more a death means, the more callous and mean-spirited it feels eking so much fun out of it. There are plenty of elaborate set pieces here, all in the spirit of the series (maybe too much in the spirit of the series). But that this is all happening to one family starts stacking up. The inevitable coda feels tacky and cruel.
The cheaper fourth and fifth movies in the series had a tendency to show their workings in the effects department, and look particularly dated today. Bloodlines arrives at a time of more sophisticated digital effects, but the keenness to CG-up the splatter also means it often looks shiny and inauthentic. The movie is dedicated to the late Tony Todd, who makes a farewell appearance here, but there are some uncanny-valley shots in there also that made this viewer fear some AI tinkering in lieu of impossible reshoots. Maybe that’s paranoia on my part, but its a distraction to be questioning authenticity in a fine actor’s final scenes. And its indicative of the broader sense across the picture of slightly rushed digital manipulation. This is the most cartoonish entry in the series, and often not to its benefit.
There’s a lot of fun to be had here, and its a small shame that overlong trailers have spoiled two of the movie’s sequences already. Still, the true highlights (the cold open and some misadventures in a hospital) unfold with the appropriate verve. But as with most of these movies, it’s all in the moment. A chance to laugh at death, loosen up a little, then get back to the grinding horrors of 2025. Only this time, because we’ve been asked to care, it somehow doesn’t feel so funny.
The Lost Highway Hotel 