I remember being 11 or 12 and watching my very first Final Destination movie. My stomach was in knots watching Alex's premonition about Flight 180. I became so intrigued by this idea of an invisible fate that was coming to collect. It was nothing you could see, but it was inevitable. It mirrors death in reality. You know it is looming, and stopping it is above us all. It was what made the franchise so successful, playing off of the audience's most innocent fears and making them become reality.
Through the years, Final Destination has made people afraid of everything from car rides to roller coasters, and fascinated viewers with the Rube Goldberg-type deaths when Death comes to reclaim his trophies. It has been 14 years since we have seen a Final Destination film, and many new age horror fans may have never even heard of this storied and expansive franchise. Enter Final Destination Bloodlines.
This film, directed by the dynamic duo of Freaks directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, serves as a pseudo-origin story of the events of the previous five films, linking them in their own expansive universe. It follows a young Iris Campbell in 1968 as she and her beau Paul are able to land reservations at the esteemed and freshly opened Skyview Restaurant Tower, a massive Space Needle-esque dinner venue in the sky, complete with dance floors, lounges, and bars. Of course, disaster strikes in Iris's premonition, and she is able to save many from certain death.
In modern day, her estranged granddaughter and college student Stefani is having nightmares of this very same premonition, affecting her daily life and her academic performance greatly. Returning home for answers, she seeks out her forgotten grandmother to explain what these nightmares mean and the looming danger that Stefani and her family face.
This felt like returning back to somewhere you haven't been since childhood, a nostalgic glimpse into the past. The duo of directors did a great job of including just enough connective tissue to wink and nod at old fans without making the previous movies feel like necessary material for the new fans. That can be an extremely tough line to walk. The kills were dripping with creativity. They're layered and brutal with the perfect blend of fascination and fright mixed in. The opening scene is a tour de force and my favorite part of the film, setting expectations perfectly and keeping the viewers on their toes.
It's paced very well, giving time to breathe between each kill but not enough to let the audience grow restless. My favorite thing about this film is how often it throws curveballs. There have been five of these movies with a very specific format. The way they could still keep the viewer completely clueless as to what is next is monumentally impressive. This carries all the way until the final scene of the film. The set design, the camera work, and the sound were all perfectly in tandem, leading to some of the most horrifyingly beautiful kills in this storied franchise's history.
For everything it does well, there are certainly some things that could have been tidied up in Final Destination Bloodlines. The acting is rough at times, the emotional beats can come across a little cheesy, and the performances really are all across the board. This issue never really leaks too far into the death scenes themselves, but the dialogue and story-driven scenes are definitely impacted. It cheapens the characterization and makes it a bit of a struggle to connect with some of the characters here.
There's also a very interesting attempt at some heavy comedy in spots that really didn't work for me. I actually thought the attempts were funny and generally landed, but the balance between the stakes of gruesome death and the deaths of loved ones around them just didn't make sense with these erratic bursts of comedy throughout. This is a long-running horror film, at nearly two hours, and you definitely feel a little bit of that runtime towards the end. I would have liked to see them tighten it up just a bit to make that final act feel more punchy.
All in all, Final Destination Bloodlines transported me back to my early days of horror. It immersed me in one of my favorite horror concepts of all time, and it felt comforting. It has plenty of flaws, but it captures the energy of the original films and compounds on them with a fresh dose of modern effects and kill creativity. It also ties the entire franchise up in a traceable bow. I would recommend this to all fans of the original films and especially to the new era of horror fans who may have never gotten the chance to experience them before. Make sure you stay after the credits for a final nod to an absolute legend of horror cinema as well.
Final Destination Bloodlines is now in theaters everywhere.