Final Destination is one of those franchises. You know what you’re getting going into it: blood, gore, psychotic death contraptions that Rube Goldberg would be proud of, and a bunch of cannon fodder to take those kills right in the kisser. And I love them. Not in the way where I think they’re good films or cinematic masterpieces, but I love them for what they are.
Final Destination: Bloodlines, a film that feels like both an origin story and a finale, is no different to its predecessors. It’s a fun, gruesome romp with our favourite looming and all-powerful antagonist, Death. Starring Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Brec Bassinger and, posthumously, the iconic Tony Todd, Bloodlines somehow does the unthinkable.
It brings the overarching narrative of the Final Destination universe to a close by telling the most compelling story yet.
Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) is plagued with nightmares about her grandmother, Iris. She dreams that a twenty-something Iris (Brec Bassinger), on the day of her engagement, died in the collapse of Sky View, a high-rise restaurant similar to something like the Space Needle. Obviously, none of this happened because Stef is alive, as is her grandmother and the whole generation or two that spawned from her.
Or did it?
After tracking down a now paranoid and reclusive Iris, Stef finds out that what she has been seeing is the premonition her grandmother experienced before the Sky View collapsed. The night she saved EVERYONE from dying. But Death doesn’t forget the debts it is owed, and it’s about to come calling for the family.
I loved the lore implications of Bloodlines. The idea that perhaps all the disasters leading up to this point were because of the original Sky View collapse was such a good idea, giving the previous instalments connections to each other aside from just existing in the same world. The fact Death got p*ssed because Iris circumvented its plans all that time ago and has been trying to get even ever since is really cool.
The only other connection (except for small crossovers in Final Destination 2 and Final Destination 5) is the late, great Tony Todd, once again returning as William Bludworth, the creepy funeral director and morgue attendant. His appearance had all the gravitas that you’d expect from this powerhouse, and his last words were his own. The directors allowed Todd to create his own final words in the franchise because they knew it would be his final appearance, and he did not waste those words.
Other than that, I gotta mention the awesome deaths and fake-outs. These movies have this effect on me where I try to foresee the method of mayhem before it happens, and this movie didn’t disappoint in that regard. There is some freaky crap in this film, maybe including an MRI machine and a garbage truck, maybe not. Who’s to say? The best thing about this is that Stef and Iris are all of us. They’re the ones trying to predict how Death is going to get people, and they’re eerily talented at it. That mirror to the audience is something different, and I really enjoyed it.
For all of the good in this film, the nature of Final Destination means that you have to have a ton of expendable people for Death to play with. It’s a necessity, but it also means that the characters are pretty surface-level. I can’t tell you without Googling any character’s name aside from Iris and Stef (and I had to look up the latter before I began writing). I remember their deaths and how they sort of relate to Stef, but not their names.
My only other negative is that this story basically closes out the narrative of Final Destination. Dropping perhaps my favorite film in the franchise, there doesn’t seem to be a way to reverse and expand on the lore anymore. Did they think that this was the end? That it had no more legs? Because the gate receipts beg to differ. I hope that the writers haven’t dug themselves into a hole they can’t climb out of.
To be honest, I wasn’t that excited for another Final Destination film in the year 2025. We’ve been there and done that five times already! But Final Destination: Bloodlines not only reinvigorated my love for this franchise, it made me appreciate the ones that came before it even more.
Yes, you can say that the deaths are over-the-top and you can see them coming a mile away, but this movie makes that a plot point and shoves it back in your ungrateful face. It still doesn’t make a lot of sense, but Stef Reyes became every member of the audience, and I freaking loved it.
Bloodlines gives you exactly what you’re expecting, twists it into something new and fresh, and actually has me anticipating the next entry. Because, for all this seems to be the chilling conclusion of the series, it probably won’t be. It became the most successful movie in Final Destination history. There’s life in the Grim Reaper yet.
