For the most part, I can kind of tell how much I will like a movie within the first ten or twenty minutes. Just like they tell screenwriters or novelists, the most important thing is to grab the reader within the first ten pages. Otherwise, the reader will quickly become disinterested and from that point on, it becomes a grind to finish. For the horror film-going audience, especially when experiencing a movie for the first time in a movie theater, a good opening can work like gangbusters, and even if there are scattered performances and wonky storytelling from that point on, the audience is participating in the fun mostly because of the tone set early on with a great opening sequence. I’d say more than any other horror franchise, besides the Scream franchise, no franchise does opening sequences that set a tone quite as well as the Final Destination franchise…
The Final Destination franchise, conceived by Jeffrey Reddick in the 90s as an episode of The X-Files, was one of the most, if not actually the most consistently entertaining and quality horror franchises of the 2000s. A good concept leading to a ridiculously easy log line to understand is a staple in the horror genre, especially among the movies that led to franchises that exceeded five movies. But, out of all of those franchises, the Final Destination franchise had a blueprint that was easier to follow than any of the others both by the audience, the studio (New Line Cinema by way of Warner Bros.) and also the filmmakers themselves. Only issue with that was, in my opinion, that it just got tired after a while across the board. ‘A catastrophic event seen in a premonition by the main character can’t be avoided, but a certain few are saved. Death refuses to take the loss, and goes after those survivors one by one in the most gruesome ways possible’. That’s the entire franchise wrapped up in one log line. Each and every movie in the Final Destination franchise followed the same blueprint, with a few wrinkles here and there, from the original back in 2000 all the way to the fifth movie in the franchise that was released in 2011. Final Destination reigned supreme for a decade with a consistency that was very rare for horror franchises, especially throughout that very strange era for horror in the 2000s and early 2010s. The wheels almost came off with The Final Destination, the fourth in the franchise, which committed more cardinal sins than a Boston priest. Worst sin of all was removing the numerical installment of the franchise (4) and replacing it with ‘The’. This is a mind-numbing occurrence that is so frequent but actually just shouldn’t be a thing that’s allowed. Even though that movie wasn’t great, or good, or average, luckily for fans of the franchise, Final Destination 5 was a rebound and then some, in my opinion, the best movie in the franchise with one of the better endings to any horror movie in the 2010s. Now, fourteen years later, Final Destination is back with Final Destination Bloodlines. Final Destination Bloodlines is a movie that loosely follows the franchise blueprint, but more so subverts into something much different with a modern look and less serious tone. All while ratcheting up the gruesomeness and violence to the max. So, let’s hash it out…
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Circling back to what I mentioned off the rip, regarding how crucial an opening scene is, Final Destination Bloodlines opening sequence is a crowd-pleasing thrill that had the packed screening I was in excited, and immediately invested. Bloodlines opens by transporting the audience back to the late 1960s, and we meet Iris Campbell, played by Brec Bassinger and her soon-to-be fiance, Paul, played by Max Lloyd-Jones. Paul takes Iris to the opening of a new restaurant called the Skyview Restaurant Tower. A restaurant that sits at the top of a tower, obviously, with the height of it being high enough to dizzy the audience just watching it on screen. An intimidating set piece to open the movie. Now, since this is Final Destination, we know where this is going. But, since we are so far in the past, we don’t exactly know where this is going, and why we are seeing a scene from what was fifty years prior to when the movie takes place. The deaths in this opening sequence were phenomenal. The kill count was in the hundreds and there was a wide array of differing types of deaths that were all visceral and perfectly covered. Conceptually this scene was bananas and the execution was off the charts. It wasn’t just a pig pile of people falling to their deaths. There was a real rhythm to the whole sequence that was very engaging. There was also a great moment where a little brat gets his comeuppance that was met with applause from the audience, which was hilarious. By the time it ended, the price of admission was already satisfied. After this opening sequence that lasted about fifteen to twenty minutes, the movie quickly downshifts and cuts to the present day, where we meet the main character of the movie, Stefani, played by Kaitlyn Santa Juana. Stefani is a college kid having this recurring dream of this catastrophe on the restaurant tower on a nightly basis. Because of this, her grades are slipping and she goes home to her family to re-calibrate and figure out what the hell is going on. Turns out, this dream is actually a premonition that her grandmother had, and Stefani’s family which includes her dad, brother, three cousins, aunt, uncle and her absent mother are actually in danger. Or so Stefani thinks. The grandmother, who is Iris from the dream, is out of the picture now due to being a seclusive and afraid-of-death freak who the family disowned because of her overbearing warnings of everyone in the family dying…
To avoid spoilers, the rest of Final Destination Bloodlines plays out like a typical Final Destination movie, only this time the death count from the original premonition was much larger than usual, that being hundreds of people surviving that should have died. So, death is taking a little longer to catch up to getting its revenge. Essentially, every single relative of those who survived shouldn’t actually have been born, so death is coming for all of them, including Stefani’s family of course. Although, since Iris was last to die, she’s the end of the original line, and her immediate family is the end of the extended bloodline…
The reason the last ⅔ of the movie works so well is the comical dynamic between the family, and the surprisingly light-hearted tone to go with the vicious deaths. I won’t say who dies, obviously, but after each death, there is only a quick mourning and we move on each time, which I thought was a fantastic touch, albeit extremely unrealistic. A movie like Final Destination, that requires a lot of deaths, can get bogged down by sorrow and mourning. Final Destination Bloodlines completely removes that from the equation, smartly so considering these are all family members, and that would become exhausting every ten or so minutes between deaths. By doing this, I had a much more fun time with the characters when if done incorrectly, and each character carries the weight of these deaths, the movie would be much more depressing and the whole fun of it would be absent, and then I don’t know how it would have looked. The filmmakers also wisely gave the characters a good amount of humor that always led to some laughs and lightened the load on the audience, just letting them enjoy the comedy and violence. Final Destination Bloodlines isn’t a comedy-horror by any means, but it erred on the side of fun way more than the previous movies had. Final Destination 5 was pretty close in tone to Bloodlines, but wasn’t quite the same…
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The family dynamic was also pretty interesting to me. They were all close, but clearly had their issues which were mostly caused by the patriarch of the family, Iris, with the falling out after her break from reality being devastating to all of them. The only piece of this that I just didn’t understand at all was the dynamic with the estranged mom of Stefani and Charlie (Stefani’s younger brother), Darlene, played by Rya Kihlstedt. This piece of the story just didn’t make that much sense to me, “psychotic grandmother” withstanding. The reason for her reappearance ended up making sense, due to a death in the family that I won’t say, but from them on she was just kind of there with them, and there was no real attempt at a reconciliation. There was a sort of redemption but not really that either. I just thought there was some meat on the bone there with the mom character, and there could have been an alternative route with her that led to twists and turns in the story. The only real “twists” were for comedic purposes, and in my opinion, the mom character was a swing and a miss for what could have been with her. Just a little more involvement, or backstory, would have worked too, but for a franchise that is laden with self-referential nods (one in particular in Bloodlines that was a ton of fun, involving a truck full of logs), there was plenty of opportunity to do something interesting with that character like a tie-in to a previous movie or plot twist or something. Anything…
Other than that, I had really no issues with Final Destination Bloodlines whatsoever. I thought it knew exactly what it was and where it wanted to go and it delivered. By the end of the roller coaster ride, all I could do was tip the cap…
I thought the writing as a whole was incredibly well done, especially for a horror movie like this. There were tons of laughs, the plot made sense, it was never stupid and the deaths were all extremely well conceived and predictable while also being unpredictable. Which doesn’t make sense, but the best way I can explain it is the tension is built by all these surrounding things happening, and then just when you forget about that particular thing, boom, it’s back and kills the character. It wasn’t just a piano falling off a roof and splattering someone on the ground. There was a real build up to each and every kill that paid off and kept you on your toes because there were so many options. But, as it pertains to the writing, in particular, just like Scream 5 did with the “For Wes” moment, Final Destination Bloodlines gets in its touch of class with the inclusion of Tony Todd, delivering a really emotional scene that also led to an applause from the audience. What I love about horror movies is that these moments feel so genuine, like the audience to actor connection is so much deeper and there’s so much love there that these moments, which would usually nauseate me because of how it takes me right out of the movie when that movie tips the cap to the audience, is so tastefully done in most horror movies because the writers and filmmakers are not only fans of these people, but also most of the time friends. It’s a weird thing that is mostly just a thing in horror movies, but I found this one to be just as tastefully done as some of the others in recent memory. In a packed theater full of fans, I find those moments to be so satisfying…
Technically speaking, Final Destination Bloodlines took full advantage of the technology available at their fingertips and utilized it in a way that made each death excruciating and seemingly realistic. Made me think of the original back in 2000 and how the filmmakers would be foaming at the mouth for the technology and means to execute the death scenes like they would have probably wanted. Each movie in the franchise has at least one spectacular set piece, but Bloodlines was consistently exciting with where each set piece was occurring, and then the blood was absolutely everywhere. In a movie like Final Destination, it’s also hard to avoid getting bogged down in exposition. Since the killer is a faceless entity, you have to explain it ad nauseam because the other characters need much more convincing than if it was just Jason Vorhees chasing them. The filmmakers did a good job of weaving the exposition into the action itself, so we weren’t bogged down with too many scenes in between deaths of characters sitting around with each other and hashing stuff out. I’m actually a big exposition guy, and I love a good sit-down, full fledged explanation of things that are happening, and figuring stuff out with the characters, but Bloodlines gets in and out of those scenes quickly and cranks along, making a nearly two hour movie feel like it’s an hour and a half long, instead of the dreaded vice versa…
With all of that said, I can’t keep giving out flowers. I thought the third act climax before the actual climax was incredibly dull, frustrating and a total let down. I was thinking about this though, and that is actually usually the case with these Final Destination movies. The climax is always pretty unsatisfying until the actual climax comes along, and each of these movies go out with a bang because of that. Bloodlines has a pretty great actual climax to go with a very poor pre-climax. Par for the course considering it is a Final Destination movie after all. The actual climax didn’t quite reach the heights that Final Destination 5 did, but I did think it was better than any of the others in the franchise…
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Overall, Final Destination Bloodlines completely delivered for me. I thought it was extremely fun, engaging and should play outstanding with audiences. In my opinion, this is exactly how you should make one of these movies. No bullshit, plenty of great kills and most importantly, tons of fun. To rank it amongst the other films in the franchise, I would go in this order.
- Final Destination 5
- Final Destination Bloodlines
- Final Destination 3
- Final Destination 2
- Final Destination
- The Final Destination (4)
The best kill in Bloodlines was one involving a garbage truck, the best set-up to a kill was one involving a backyard cookout and the high point of the movie itself was the opening sequence. Like I said, I had so much fun with this movie. I’d imagine the movie is going to make $50 million plus at the domestic box office, which would shatter the franchise record for an opening weekend, and I could totally see it making up to $150 million by the time it’s all said and done globally. Each film in the franchise has grossed over $90 million in total, so I’d be absolutely floored if it didn’t reach that, the 2025 box office being volatile as hell notwithstanding. The high mark was set by The Final Destination (4), which hit almost $190 million by the time it left theaters. Hoping to Christ this movie earns more than the fourth movie. Anyone who saw that one in theaters was probably wishing they were going to get Final Destination’d by the time it ended. All in all, go see Final Destination Bloodlines. It’s fun to watch people die, as sadistic as that sounds, and Final Destination Bloodlines delivers that, with plenty of laughs, in spades…
Wicked Horror Rating: 7.5/10
From Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema, Final Destination Bloodlines is playing exclusively in theaters as of May 16th, 2025.
