This year feels like a banner year for revitalizing horror franchises. Final Destination Bloodlines came out swinging, quickly becoming the most critically acclaimed film and the highest-grossing at the box office. Next we'll see new entries in the worlds of 28 Days Later and I Know What You Did Last Summer, along with sequels to potential fledgling franchises like M3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy's.
All of the films listed above have already been filmed and are due to release within months, so they can't exactly return to the drawing board and incorporate some of the smart moves made by the Final Destination filmmakers, but there is one critical element employed by Bloodlines that would behoove others to mimic in the future.
Namely, this is a movie that fully understands its identity and what draws people to Final Destination in the first place. Bloodlines leans into its silly concepts and has enough meta moments to create the sense of an inside joke shared between characters and audience.
The idea of Death coming for people because they outsmart its plan and then using wildly complicated domino effect methods of murder (will it be the water in the electrical outlet that does them in? Or maybe the glass in the pile of ice?) is nonsensical in the best way. The series is full of memorable death sequences, from the log truck in Final Destination 2 to the tanning beds in Final Destination 3.
But Bloodlines succeeds where others didn't quite hit the mark. It doesn't take itself too seriously. The introduction of the character Iris, played by Brec Bassinger in the past and Gabrielle Rose in the present, allows for someone who understands Death's design and therefore gives the stars of this movie, led by Kaitlyn Santa Juana as college student Stefani Reyes, a fighting chance.
Bloodlines doesn't fully rely on nostalgia bait or past movies to make the deaths stand out. The best moments in this film are when Stefani and her family members are trying to outwit Death, thinking of all the wild ways it could finish them off, like when she predicts Julia's (Anna Lore) gory garbage truck death by predicting a chain reaction set off by a falling tree trimmer.
Horror fans are very familiar with the experience of yelling at the screen when characters do something stupid, and there are multiple moments in Bloodlines where it feels like the people on-screen are heeding those warnings. Like when Erik (Richard Harmon) checks the RV for any potential nut allergens to protect his brother, Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner).
Ultimately, none of this is enough to combat Death, but it's more engaging to watch characters work within established universe rules than wander along aimlessly doing incredibly stupid stuff. Bloodlines ability to incorporate a mix of meta elements without going too far and give us a lovable batch of characters to root for has certainly helped this film stand out from the rest and it's something future horror franchise reboots should look to for reference.