Final Destination: Bloodlines Review: I’ve Been Waiting 14 Years For This, And It’s Just What I Wanted

“Formulaic” is typically not a word any movie-goers wants to find in a review thanks to a negative connotation, but allow me to argue for the Final Destination franchise as an exception: in the case of this series, there is a clear formula that brings success. At the top of the list is a massive disaster that arrives via a protagonist’s vision. Then there is the collection of conflicting personalities who deal with the news of their impending demise with variety. And finally, Death, an incorporeal villain, must abide by a certain design while also unfurling complicated, shocking, and creative executions.

It’s a specific simplicity that I can get behind, and it’s why I’ve now counted myself as a fan of the Final Destination films for a quarter-century now (my appreciation for the full totality of the series only interrupted by the unfortunately awful The Final Destination). If a new chapter can tick all of those boxes, I’m going to be satisfied – grinning ear to ear as pieces of delicate Rube Goldberg-esque machinations fall into place and result in blood flying and body parts being eviscerated. Thankfully, that’s the darkly joyful experience offered for genre fans with director Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein’s Final Destination: Bloodlines.

For reasons that aren’t immediately apparent, the series has been in hibernation for the last 14 years, with 2011’s Final Destination 5 (a box office success) being a superlative installment with a brilliant twist and serving up a “leave them wanting more” vibe. That movie had previously been the title that I deemed to be the best sequel, but it has now been usurped. It’s not often that this is something you can say about the sixth chapter of a franchise, but Final Destination: Bloodlines offers up some clever and sinister ideas that blend beautifully with the familiar, and it makes bold moves that enrich the canon. It’s a work that feels organically grown from decades of fan appreciation on behalf of the filmmakers and wholly worth the wait.

As is tradition, the film begins with a devastating, intense, and violent disaster – specifically a deadly incident at the opening of a ritzy restaurant at the top of a skyscraper in 1968 – but in a twist, the event is not just a vision of the sequence’s central figure (Brec Bassinger). It’s also revealed as the recurring nightmare of Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), a college student who has no idea what dream means but knows that it has something to do with her mysterious never-discussed grandmother.

Taking a break from school to reunite with her family and get some answers, Stefani learns that her mother’s mother Iris (Gabrielle Rose) successfully stopped the skyscraper collapse in the late 1960s, but she has spent the decades since then convinced that Death is targeting not only her and everyone she saved, but also the descendants who never should have been born. The protagonist finds herself properly convinced of the danger and Death’s design, and she tries to convince her uncle (Alex Zahara), her cousins (Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore), her brother (Teo Briones) and her estranged mother (Rya Kihlstedt) of the blood-soaked reality before it is too late.

Final Destination: Bloodlines finds an exciting and well-executed way into the franchise that fans will love.

The Final Destination movies have never really put a major emphasis on connecting threads between the sequels before (a side effect of each installment slaughtering its collection of characters), but it can be said that all of the right lessons were taken away from the surprise loop-back ending of Final Destination 5 in the making of the latest sequel. In Final Destination: Bloodlines, a specific effort is made by screenwriters Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor to connect dots in the franchise to create a bigger picture that was never really envisioned prior, and it’s a tremendous balancing act of both major revelation and maintaining mystery that works incredibly well. It adds dimensions to the “Death’s design” concept that are far more complex than what’s in the film’s predecessors, but it’s never so complicated that it sucks the fun out the endeavor.

There are easter eggs galore for fans to feast on – both in the story and in the props/production design, and it even manages to pull off what I would have previously thought would be impossible: it provides a satisfying backstory for the ever-mysterious William Bludworth, played by late genre legend Tony Todd, and it even packs some powerful emotion in the orchestration of a goodbye to the character. It answers a great number of big questions within the canon while also keeping the door open for the future.

Prepare to have everyday activities ruined with bloody chaos.

The new film’s “in” to Final Destination storytelling is rock solid, but what fans are inarguably looking for in Bloodlines are plenty of slow-building horror sequences, and once it lines up all of its potential victims, it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a hallmark of these movies to try and instill fear from every day activities (the ultimate example being that it’s impossible to drive behind/past a logging truck without thinking about the opening sequence of Final Destination 2), and it’s pulled off with disgusting aplomb again here. Backyard barbecues, tattoo parlors, MRI machines and more will all now inspire some subconscious wariness thanks to simple, ping-ponging circumstances that escalate to gnarly bloodshed on screen.

The practical special effects in Final Destination: Bloodlines are a gory delight.

Multiple sequences are downright disgusting, but Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein know that they are playing to a different breed of sick puppy than those who enjoy, for example, the Saw movies, and all of the horrific mayhem is properly pulled off with a funny flourish. The randomness of death in the real world is a cruel joke, but in the Final Destination universe, one is invited to be in tune with the devilish sense of humor, and Bloodlines perfectly gets that part of the assignment. It’s not an outright horror comedy, but it understands how these films wink at the audience.

Special effects are a perfect tool for getting this across, as there is a Raimi-esque understanding that a character getting a face full of blood splatter can be its own kind of hilarious. From the opening sequence where people are smashing through glass and being set on fire to sequences where characters are being impaled, cut to ribbons, and crushed, there is a lot of movie magic going on that is both disgusting and (for the right kind of audience member) enchanting.

I will never understand why the Final Destination franchise was kept on ice for as long as it was, but now that it’s back, I never want it to go away again. Bloodlines offers the precise blend of disgusting, fun, and clever that has made this series a favorite among horror fans, and while I still don’t love how long I had to wait, it can be said that it was worth it.