‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ – Film Review: Bloody, Over-The-Top, and Might Be The Franchise’s Best Entry

Fourteen years after the last installment hit theaters, it was a surprise to see New Line Cinema wanting us to fear the invisible slasher of Death once more with the sixth entry, Final Destination: Bloodlines. Since its beginnings 25 years ago, only these supernatural movies can make everybody paranoid about flying on airplanes, driving behind a log truck on a wet freeway, or even high, fast rollercoasters, only to have the strangest yet creative deaths imaginable when Death is cheated. Truth be told, the Final Destination franchise hasn’t been one of my favorites in the horror genre nor do I think it’s one of the best ever. It follows a simple formula we’ve come to expect with each movie, which can get repetitive. However, I’m more knowledgeable about them now than before. The first, third, and fifth are on the lines of guilty pleasures, while 2009’s The Final Destination is utterly unwatchable. Just the thought of another one didn’t pique any amount of interest in a period of cashing in on franchises we thought were done. But when I thought the latest sequel would be more rinse and repeat, I’m pretty shocked to say Bloodlines might be the best of the series. Imagine that.

What’s the Story: Over the last couple of months, college student Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) has been suffering from this recurring nightmare involving her maternal grandmother, Iris Campbell, whom she has never met. She returns home hoping to find the answers she’s been looking for, but the rest of the family has been estranged from her for years, and she worries about Death coming for them. Once Stefani tracks her down and tells her about this nightmare, she discovers Iris, back in 1968, had a premonition of everybody dying from the grand opening of the Skyview Restaurant Tower, only to save them all from the disaster that awaited them. Now, knowing what it all means, Stefani knows she and the rest of her surviving extended family are next on Death’s list.

You can tell directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein and writers Guy Busick (Ready or Not, Scream ’22/ Scream VI) and Lori Evans Taylor had a good time filming and crafting this, knowing how ridiculous it would be without taking it all seriously. But I came out of Final Destination: Bloodlines positive because it changes the formula based on what we’ve learned from the last five movies. If the main character has a realistic vision of a horrific catastrophe, they manage to save survivors, only to be picked off one by one in some order. Here, it was clever how it cuts to Stefani waking up in her class after experiencing the premonition from decades ago. Hearing how the original idea for the sequel was to focus on first responders sounded pretty interesting. But with the concept of death coming after a family rather than a select group of strangers, avoiding getting killed in freak accidents made it more personal for Stefani and the rest of her family once she explained how none of them were meant to be alive. There’s an order to who will die, but it’s not a complete rehash as I expected when it takes time for these people to talk to each other to figure out the next plan, causing the stakes to be higher than ever. Walking out of this and thinking back to the previous installments, it’ll have you think about the ripple effects of if we know how to die and are willing to take the chance to change it. In the Reyes-Campbell case, the chain of events is unlikely once it’s revealed about this generational trauma.

Of course, everybody who’s a franchise fan goes into these, hoping to experience the kind of morbid and gruesome Rube Goldberg-type deaths the characters will suffer. Even after the opening with the previous sequels, some try too hard to be more over-the-top with the deaths. Thankfully, they deliver here. Sometimes, they can be either darkly hilarious or flat-out anticlimactic in how the story attempts to match our expectations while building a lot of tension. Bloodlines probably does a better job at subverting what we thought would happen to somebody, and it makes the sequences more fun for the viewers who know how it always goes and injects the thrills one would hope for throughout. Just the extended prologue premonition young Iris has inside the tower sets it up well, putting it up there with the plane explosion from the original and the bridge collapse sequence in the fifth. Think of it as a more violent Towering Inferno, but quickly. And we shall add fear of heights to the list now. None of them will shy away from the blood, and as predicted, it will leave me second-guessing certain places shortly that had me laughing, which came from the shock of it. Without spoiling, the scene in the hospital might be one of my favorites of the entire series.

Realistically, nobody goes into these movies wanting the most outstanding performances one hopes to get in the genre. You can look at the previous characters from the others and probably not have any strong attachment to them, especially those written to be total creeps. A few here and there can be bland to pay attention to. Not all of the emotional connection to them pulls through, especially in wanting more of the relationship with Stefani and her estranged mother, Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt). Still, the acting and the family dynamic aren’t half bad. As the lead, Santa Juana does a good job of making Stenfani the most sympathetic of anyone in attempting to fix this generational trauma coming towards them, feeling bad when those around her think she’s going crazy with this theory. If anything, Stefani is one of the more memorable protagonists after Devon Sawa’s Alex Browning and Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Wendy Christensen. The standout has to be Richard Harmon as Stefani’s cousin Erik, who brought the laughs and more to him than the emo a-hole brother.

And it isn’t a Final Destination movie without the appearance of Tony Todd’s mortician, William Bludworth, and his one-scene monologue with the survivors. We all know Bludworth as the one character who connects through all the installments, telling those who are in danger about death coming for them and at least giving them the eerie advice to stop it from happening. It’s quite sad to know that this is Todd’s final screen performance since he passed away last fall from stomach cancer. But even though he’s in one scene, it surprisingly works in how Bludworth knows these tragic accidents happen and how he mentions how time should be precious to all of us. It’s a rare sweet moment to emerge from the franchise that I don’t think the writers knew would paint a reality that didn’t make me emotional, but felt respectful.

This year has no shortage of horror movies and upcoming sequels that I hope are good, but to say Final Destination: Bloodlines is legit good was not what I thought at the start of the year. And it can be attributed to not believing it’s as good as everyone’s saying, especially when it currently has a pretty high rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But though this is stupid, it’s the fun kind of stupid that made me enjoy this sequel more than the others. If the same team is signed up for a potential seventh movie, I’ll be down for it.

Overall, Final Destination: Bloodlines is the surprising boost the franchise always needed. It’s clear Lipovsky and Stein aren’t trying to make a horror masterpiece, but they can make this familiar concept feel fresh and fast-paced enough with the franchise’s stable of gory deaths and all-around crowd-pleasing. Basically, if you’re a fan, it’s worth seeking one of the biggest surprises of the summer thus far.

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