In 2000, at a time when the horror genre was thriving in its teen slasher subsect, Final Destination dared to shake up the formula just enough to earn a prominent place in the annals of horror franchise fame. It took the at-the-time trend of casting prominent “teen” faces – largely off a successful television series – and brutally offing them, but instead of Scream‘s Ghostface, Halloween H20‘s Michael Myers, I Know What You Did Last Summer‘s fisherman or Urban Legend‘s parka-donned psycho, it was an unseen force causing even more carnage than a knife, a hook or an axe ever could. Literal death was coming for our pretties – and he was having a far too good a time doing so.
Whilst there was a morbid sense of humour to the original James Wong picture – off a story idea by Jeffrey Riddick (who co-wrote the original script with Wong and Glen Morgan) – it wasn’t until the 2003 sequel (Final Destination 2) that the true blackly comedic potential of the series’ set-up came to fruition. Yes, it was still grossly horrific – and it scarred many a generation into always avoiding logger trucks on open freeways – but it layered its sadistic nature with a comedic sensibility that the rest of the films very much adhered to as a sort of series staple; decapitations and impalements are no laughing matter, but, somehow, Riddick and co. made them so in a shocking, “Did they actually just do that?” capacity.
The films in the interim – 2006’s Final Destination 3, 2009’s The Final Destination and 2011’s Final Destination 5 – submitted to this temperament to varying degrees of success, and despite solid financial returns it’s taken 14 years for Death to come out and play once again, seemingly enjoying this new wave of revisited franchise enjoyment (Halloween, Scream, the forthcoming I Know What You Did Last Summer) that allows him to indulge in numerous wicked ways for the crowds wanting a break from elevated, sophisticated horror.
As much as Final Destination Bloodlines promises to take its audience back to the very beginning, Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor‘s script doesn’t quite incorporate the previous films directly (though there is a direct shout out regarding a Final Destination 2 character), more so just alluding to the fact that each of those films’ characters had a relative of some sort that survived Bloodlines‘ opening disaster – a nasty, gory set piece that continues the tradition of big, bloody set-ups that act as a premonition for our unlucky hero, who has to then avert the disaster and survive the following points of play, which is that Death intended you to die in said disaster, and if you escaped, he’s going to make up for it in as worse a way as possible.
Having dabbled with people’s fears of airplanes, freeways, roller coasters, motor speedways and bridge crossings across the previous five films, Bloodlines opens in the 1960s, where cutesy Iris Campbell (Brec Bassinger) and her beau, Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones), have a night of intended frivolity ahead, having secured a reservation at the opening of the prestigious Skyview Restaurant, which sits atop an impossibly tall tower and has opened 5 months ahead of schedule to rousing fanfare; “Is that a good thing?” we hear someone ask about its premature opening.
Between the overcrowding of its patrons, rigorous dancing on a glass-adorned dancefloor (where the guests party away to the rather ironic “Shout” by The Isley Brothers), and the ill-advised coin throwing of a snotty little child, a series of freak occurrences come together to turn Iris and Paul’s night of magic into one of mayhem, as the floor shatters and the building starts falling apart, sending everyone to their death in one violent capacity or another; the inclusion of the classic pop tune “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” being played on the radio by the valet at the building’s base and what it relates to very much playing into Busick and Taylor’s sick sense of humour. In classic Final Destination fashion, this turns out to be a premonition of Iris’s, and she manages to save everyone from their fates that night – an act that will have repercussions for the decades to come.
Someone it’s having a particular effect on is Iris’s granddaughter, Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), who has been having the same nightmare for the better part of 3 months, that of Iris’s premonition, which is understandably disturbing her. Threatening her college grades, her distraction has reached breaking point, so she returns to her hometown in a bid to find Iris (played in her latter years by Gabrielle Rose) and understand why she’s experiencing these visions. As we come to find, Iris has been shunned by her family, with her two children, Howard (Alex Zahara) and Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt), having disconnected from her after a childhood of disturbances and her “Death is coming for us” mentality.
Stefani learns that Iris has fortified herself behind a wall of precaution, living a life of solitude in the wilderness so that she can stay alive for the sake of her children and her grandchildren, because, as she explains, with Death’s order, once Iris is claimed – the supposed last of the Skyview victims – it’ll move on to her kin, Stefani included. It goes without saying that Iris fatally proves her theory, leading Death to take on Howard, Darlene, and their respective children – Howard’s moody, naysayer son Erik (Richard Harmon, one of the ensemble standouts), himbo-like Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) and snappy Julia (Anna Lore), and Darlene’s son, Charlie (Teo Briones), Stefani’s brother.
From hereon, across Bloodlines‘ 110 minutes, Busick and Taylor’s script indulges in all the violent possibilities that come with these films and their M.O., with directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein bringing such twisted, disgusting visions to life. Lawnmowers, ceiling fans, garbage collection trucks and vending machines all earn their spotlight into their deadly potential, but it’s a particular visit to a hospital that truly stands as the film’s bloodiest, most disturbing effort; it’s certainly saying something as to how comedically cruel this aforementioned moment is in not only a film that flexes its nastiness with glee, but the series overall.
As much as Bloodlines proves an awful lot of fun from its rising body count perspective, the potential to dive further into how it links itself to the previous films feels like a missed opportunity. Its narrative can’t help but submit to the type of standard beats we’ve come to expect, and even with the inclusion of the series’ staple player – Tony Todd‘s cryptic coroner, William Bludworth (the actor delivering his final performance here prior to his death last year) – it never rises above projection. In that though, there’s something enjoyable in the comfort of such a film honouring the notion that if something isn’t broke, why fix it, and despite a 14-year gap between killings, Bloodlines very much feels as if it’s a product ripped from the 2000s, for better or worse.
Likely to tickle the nostalgia bone for long-viewing fans of the series, and setting itself up as its own entity for the uninitiated to enjoy the gory goodness these films have made as their personalities, Final Destination Bloodlines is all too aware of its ridiculousness and it owns such.
THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Final Destination Bloodlines is screening in Australian theatres from May 15th, 2025, and in the United States from May 16th.
