Movie Review: Final Destination Bloodlines

You know all those horror movies I reviewed on this blog, usually 1-2 days after coming back from theaters? Well, every horror fan has either that one movie or that one franchise that brought them to the genre. Me? It's Final Destination. I had gotten the first three from my godfather who burned DVDs and- ...uh... ...I'll stop there before the FBI knocks. Once I started having disposable income, I started buying my own DVDs, so I've helped the Hollywood machine plenty. ANYWAY... 

This series was my introduction to horror, and with Death itself being the antagonist, more of a force than a defeatable entity, it felt a cut above having the bad guy be a serial killer or some monster. This allows the filmmakers to get really damn creative with the killings, doing things you could not reasonably see in other franchises. Everyday items acting together into deadly Rube Goldberg contraptions leading to gruesome ends. I'll spare you the details on the events of the first five films, you'd have to see some of those scenes to believe them. I just know I could write an entire essay about them. These movies will make you paranoid of everything for a little while.

Final Destination Bloodlines is the sixth film in the series, and released about fourteen years after the previous entry in 2011. That's a long-ass gap! The end result had to be worth the wait. And boy was it!

The story

This one begins, as tradition, with a massive disaster where lots of people die. This time, it's in the 60s. Iris (Brec Bassinger) is brought by her boyfriend Paul Campbell to a date at the Skyview, a restaurant/dancefloor at the top of a tall tower looking like Seattle's Space Needle. He intends to propose at the top. She has a secret of her own; she's pregnant with his child. These plans go to waste when the glass floor shatters under the dancers, an explosion sets the place on fire, and the whole thing falls down, with Iris being the apparent last to bite it.

You'd think it was a premonition, but when we cut back to reality, we're in an advanced math class. Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) had dozed off and had the same nightmare that's been plaguing her for weeks now, ending with her waking up screaming in terror. It's too real. All she does know is that the woman in the nightmare is her grandmother Iris, estranged from the rest of the family. Not the only woman to do so; Stefani's mother, who is Iris's daughter, also left when she and her younger brother Charlie (Teo Briones) were younger.

When visiting her uncle's side of the family, Stefani learns of her grandma's whereabouts, and meets her in a cabin as deathproofed as could be. Extremely paranoid about everything, and even about her own granddaughter's presence, Iris gives her descendant a large book with all the ways one could avoid death, and a large diagram putting together a timeline of obituaries. Iris did get the premonition all those years ago, and was able prevent the Skyview disaster from happening altogether, leading to hundreds of people surviving a night that they shouldn't have.

The woman kept track of every single person at Skyview, figuring out Death's design of killing people exactly in the order they died in the premonition. But Death took so long to get to the later survivors that they had time to start families and have children that shouldn't exist, which also puts them on its list. And because Death is obsessive-compulsive, it cuts each new family branch in full before moving on to the next. One survivor, then if applicable: Their first child, that child's kids, then any next child and their kids... And now? It's down to Iris, her two children, and five grandchildren.

Good luck getting the rest of the family to believe that! Or at least, they won't until there's proof that it's happening...

The review

Final Destination has had groups of survivors tied by a common element (same school or workplace) or complete strangers forced to work together before, but it's the first time that the survivors are part of the same family, and the plot revolves around that. It's a fresh concept with great potential, and the movie takes every single opportunity that comes from this. None of the characters is wholly unlikeable here; there's been some real nasty pieces of work in the previous films, the kind of folks we were happy to see die. Really, the worst the Reyes (Stefani's side of the family) or the Campbells (her cousins') do is be standoffish with Stefani, which is partly her fault as she was keeping her distances in the first place, and her theories about what's going on are understandably met with incredulity. I think everybody plays their role very well.

But what the series is most famous for isn't its characters, but how they die. In brutal, disgusting, explosive and/or gruesome ways. The very first film was a bit toned down, but every subsequent film ramped up the intensity. (You could argue that it does so to ridiculous heights, but your mileage might vary.) Bloodlines might just be the goriest of them all! The premonition disaster is more extreme than any previous, which is already no small task; some of those deaths are mentally scarring, and they happen in the first twenty minutes!

It only gets worse when Stefani's relatives start to bite it. There, too, the intensity factor is one cut above the rest. Without spoiling them, even the first is bloody. The rest are... well, you know the formula. Imagine everyday items interacting, leading to someone getting torn to bits, immolated, crushed or any other joyous happenings. It's hard to discuss the film without talking about these major scenes, but I can say this: Perhaps even more than previous entries, each death is horrible, but includes a significant serving of VERY dark comedy.

Hell, there's one example during the premonition where... well, I don't cheer often when a child dies in a movie, but damn, that one had it fucking coming. Every other death toes that line between being appropriately horrifying and a little funny in the grossest way possible. It's always the details that make it go from horror to tacking on just that little extra twist of the knife, that "Holy shit they really went there" feeling.

Without spoiling everything behind the context of his cameo, this film is notably the final on-screen appearance of Tony Todd, who has played mortician William Bludworth in three of the previous films and provided voices in another. Once more, his scene serves as a guide of sorts for the remaining survivors, pointing them to possible outs to their situation. Bludworth's speech was improvised by Todd and serves as both the character and the actor's final farewell to the audience. Todd filmed his scenes for Bloodlines while suffering from a stomach cancer diagnosed the previous year, and passed on November 6th, 2024.

This installment calls back to the other five in often subtle and very often not-so-subtle ways, so that you will get a lot more out of Bloodlines if you're already well-acquainted with the series. In particular, a lot of references to Final Destination 2. Really, this one could be seen as a culmination of everything seen in the previous entries. There isn't too much continuity lock-out if you didn't, though, so there's the right balance.

I guess one thing that did disappoint me with the ending is that, although it is perfectly in line with everything that had been set up for it, and appropriately intense, I thought the scene was going to end in a very different way before the credits. Things were headed towards a manner in which this franchise could have continued, in a "here we go again" kind of way. I can see why they went with the ending they used, but it feels abrupt compared to everything prior. There's also a plot hole involving someone targeted by Death, who is later revealed that they should not have been; it's a bit difficult to overlook, unless what happened really was a freak accident and not Death's design, but it's left unclear. Still, that doesn't detract too much from the action and the horror.

Great movie, possibly the best in the franchise. Worth a watch for all horror fans. It was worth the wait! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go and be paranoid of everything around me for two weeks.