The early 200s was a mint period for launching horror franchises, and one of the signature horrors of the time was Final Destination. First released 25 years ago (!!!), the film established an absolutely goofy premise, that Death is petty and vengeful against those who disrupt its grand design. Death also has a really comical and ironic sense of humor, setting up elaborate ways for folks to bite the bullet. Each film had at least one centerpiece kill that was absolutely nutty and unforgettable. There’s an entire generation of folks who are forever scarred by the logging truck scene in Final Destination 2. Count me among them.
Fourteen years after Final Destination 5 “ended” the franchise, it’s reborn and back in top form with Final Destination Bloodlines. The trick of these movies is that they are both funny and grotesque enough to make you cringe. There’s a fine balance that the filmmakers of each chapter have learned to walk, as precise as Death’s many manipulations. It’s also obvious that audiences are fully aware of the formula and that is a huge part of the fun. The hard part is finding new ways to shock us, and Final Destination Bloodlines has enough twists to keep us on our toes.
The story begins in 1968, when Iris (Brec Bassinger) and her fiance Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones) are on a date at the top of a skytower restaurant’s grand opening. What begins as an awkward but beautiful evening and a marriage proposal ends in chaos. I mean, we all know from the moment we saw that Space Needle-esque structure that it wouldn’t be standing for long and that someone would get impaled, fried to a crisp, smooshed by a falling elevator, all of the things. Of course, it happens, but it’s all a premonition seen by Iris and she puts a stop to it. Death is pissed. That’s a lot of dead folks she let off the hook.
So now, many decades later, Death is coming for everyone in Iris’ bloodline because, well, they never should’ve been born in the first place. Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), Iris’ granddaughter, is having nightmares of that deadly night even though she hadn’t even been born. She has to figure out what’s going on and, is it possible Iris is still alive to help her untangle Death’s evil plan? Wait, but is it even really evil? These people were supposed to die and death is a natural part of life. It can be argue that what Iris (and many characters before her) did is what’s evil.
Final Destination doesn’t aim to be very deep, but it does allow you to think about such profound questions. It makes you consider your own mortality and what to do with the time you have on this Earth because it can be gone in an instant. Now, chances are you won’t meet your fate at the business end of an exploding vending machine, or a magnetized MRI, or a ceiling fan, but hey, one never really knows, right?
The casts of these movies don’t really matter much as long as they aren’t outrageously bad. And in the case of Final Destination Bloodlines, the ensemble of young actors is pretty decent. Stefani turns to her large, somewhat messy family including her kid brother Charlie (Teo Briones) cousins Julia (Anna Lore), Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) and Erik (Richard Harmon), her uncle Howard (Alex Zahara) and Aunt Brenda (April Telek). There’s also Stefani and Charlie’s estranged mother, Darlene (Rya Khilstedt), who ran off when they were younger and is considered the family Black Sheep.
Since most characters don’t survive to see multiple sequels, the main recurring character is morose mortician William Bludworth, played by the late great Tony Todd. His appearance here, his last before his death, brings his story to a bittersweet but fitting end. Fans of the Candyman actor, and there are many, will see this as a nice sign-off to his wonderful career. But it’s not just an isolated feel-good cameo, we learn things about Bludworth that make all of the sense in the world and move the story forward. I also like that the writers still find ways to pay homage to the many (MANY) dead characters who faced Death’s wrath before, like a throwaway reference to my all-time favorite character, Ali Larter’s Clear Rivers. She was mentioned as a gag in The Final Destination, as well.
Directors Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky (of Freaks and the Kim Possible movie) know what makes Final Destination tick. Each scene is an elaborate jumble of red herrings; a glass shard, an errant rake, an open gas line, a water leak…all things that individually are harmless but put together create the perfect scenario for mass death. But things rarely play out the way we expect, and when Death comes it’s usually quick and out of nowhere. That’s all part of the fun. When you learn that one character works in a tattoo parlor, for instance, your mind swims with all of the horrible ways that he’ll meet his demise.
Final Destination Bloodlines suffers from the same problems many of the previous films do, which is that the characters are so disposable that it’s tough to have much investment. There are only a couple of ways these movies can end and so far they all pretty much do in the same way, which makes the final scene a foregone conclusion. That said, fans of the franchise already know all of that and signed up for it, and Final Destination Bloodlines plays the fatalistic hits very well.
