Directed By Zach Lipovsky

Starring – Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Richard Harmon, Tony Todd

The Plot – Teenage girl Stefani (Juana) has recurring nightmares of a tower collapse in the 1960s. She discovers that these nightmares are a premonition she inherited from her grandmother. The grandmother predicted the collapse of the building and saved a group of people from death. Decades later, the granddaughter begins to have visions of her family members dying. She realizes that there is a sequence and must fight to prevent Death from reclaiming her family’s bloodline.

Rated R for strong violent/grisly accidents, and adult language.

Final Destination Bloodlines | Official Trailer

POSITIVES

After five films of varying quality and a fourteen year hiatus, death strikes once more for the Final Destination franchise, but this time with a familial link that inscribes refreshing originality in metaphorical symbolism to a concept otherwise rooted in repetition. While this is first and foremost a series of films that you watch for the deaths, it’s nice to have substance to concepts and characters that somewhat reinvent the wheel when it comes to the idea of this unforeseen essence sent to end your life abruptly, and considering the many enticing directions that the script takes in outlining not only familial trauma being passed down from generations, but also dysfunction in how many family trees grow unnaturally as a result of selfish actions that complex lineage, giving the story quite a bit of twists and turns in the aforementioned formula that attempt to continuously keep its audience guessing, even if the end result is typically the same for those unfortunately involved. The script goes a long way towards inscribing meaningful merit to these relationships and dynamics, but it would be nothing without Lipovsky’s accuracy in direction, particularly towards the film’s tonal capacities, which finally openly embrace the dark depravity of its audience towards underlining so many of these deaths with comedic underlining. This helps keep the engagement fun in the depths of these elaborately layered Rube Goldberg kind of death traps that emphatically desecrate those involved in ways that you can’t help but laugh at, all without sacrificing the integrity of Zach’s anxiety-driven direction, which preheats the expectations of the audience with environmental elements of the various settings that ratchet boldly detailed sound mixing and imposing cinematography featuring IMAX cameras, in order to inspire panic and paranoia to the overwhelming vulnerability factor that plague these characters. Just when the tension feels like it’s about to dissipate, the materializing of this grisly gruesome carnage candy takes shape, and though these sequences are enacted with an abundance of artificiality in C.G blood and violent concepts, the bizarreness of the visuals here actually work in the favor of the movie’s tone, with bloody blow-offs so exaggerated and climatic that you can’t help but laugh at them, regardless if it’s morally the right thing to do or not. Gore is one thing when it comes to impactful kills, but creativity is a whole other, especially considering this movie has as many as three of the best death sequences of the entire franchise, and though a few of them were revealed a bit unapologetically in the movie’s marketing trailers, the pay-offs are so much more epically extensive and of course riveting than you could ever expect, with one involving a magnetic machine inside of a hospital bringing me to standing levels of audible applause that took my energy and excitement in the exhilaration rush a few minutes to capably come down from. It’s also a sequel that has a lot of appreciation and sentimentality for the installments that came before it, both with the meticulously inserted Easter Eggs of past set pieces that are cleverly inserted without feeling derivative, as well as the tastefully sincere opportunity to say goodbye to horror icon Tony Todd, who has brought legitimacy and unrelenting ominous mystique as the knowledgeable coroner, William Bludworth. While I will refrain from spoilers, in order for horror hounds like me to experience it first hand, I will say that Todd’s words here feel profoundly prophetic, as a result of his real-life battle with stomach cancer, which he unfortunately lost last November, granting us not only a fitting opportunity to say goodbye to the franchise’s caretaker, but also that rare opportunity of art imitating life, allowing Tony the freedom to bow out on his own terms that sadly so few ever get. Todd is joined by an eclectic ensemble of young and older actors alike, who make up the movie’s various protagonists, and while characterization is still an unfortunate problem with this franchise, the performances of those involved articulate all of the energy and personality that make them so fun to be around, particularly Richard Harmon’s breakthrough turn as Erik, a piercing and tattoo artist with the sarcastic wit to convey the magnitude of the surreal carnage surrounding him. In a weaker written movie, Erik would come across as a douchebag who is constantly downgrading the magnitude of what’s taking shape, and though his initial doubt is met with a shifting urgency into the film’s second half, Harmon’s razor sharp observational commentary conjured the biggest laughs of the entire script, cementing the rare supporting role that overshadows the lead in every way imaginable.

NEGATIVES

While this is a fitting return to form for this once prestigious franchise, it isn’t without peril in the depths of its execution, primarily with script issues that contain many of the creative gaps of its predecessors. Once again, this is another cast of characters whom I couldn’t care less about dying, made all the more apparent with there being little to no time of palpable grieving amongst them, once one of them shuffles off unceremoniously in the most gruesome ways imaginable, and while part of the movie’s fun factor is celebrating the surreal ways that each of them bite it, my honest feelings are that the deaths would entail a far greater significance and impact if their value was established further, instead of their existence being there to only further a body count. This is especially the case with our lead protagonist, Stefani, who outside of this surmising gift to outline death before it materializes, a fact that the movie uses once and then never again, I learned very little about her to summon concern about her essentially inescapable predicament, and though Kaitlyn Santa Juana’s performance is as good as can ask towards a role that doesn’t push her emotionally, Stefani is among the most boring protagonists of the franchise, feeling all the more obvious in a film with so much going for it outside of the characters. On top of this, Stefani’s gift isn’t the only thing lightly followed through upon, as this book of evading death from her grandmother is established early on in the film, and then never seen again. This is especially disappointing because I look for any ways for an installment in this franchise to distance or enhance itself from its predecessors, and sadly in the case of this lifetime of knowledge established from this elderly character, it’s all for nothing, as it never feels like the script even scratches the surface of its endless potential, and soon enough this deviation towards originality works back to a far more conventional outline that it should’ve evaded at all costs. Finally, there are two characters who disappear midway through the film, and while the reasoning is firmly established in their bond to the rest of the family members, it’s difficult to believe that they wouldn’t remain so close to their family members, especially considering their dancing with death. It makes me wish that the script found better ways to utilize these characters, even if just to further inflate the abundance of stacked bodies in death’s execution, and even if their importance to the proceedings isn’t as defined as the others constantly remaining in frame, it’s all the more distracting the longer they go without being seen, making it feel like a deleted scene or two exists on the cutting room floor, in order to explain this sudden mystery.

OVERALL
“Final Destination: Bloodlines” is a fresh take on the franchise’s mythology, both with a fully-fledged welcoming approach towards over-the-top hysterics in its tonal personality, but also in the family lineage of its characters, which helps establish a greater meaning than simply just characters in the wrong place at the wrong time. While the script is far from perfect, particularly in the inconsistent usage and exploration of its blandly forgettable characters, the vicarious indulgence towards visceral brutality on the grandest stage delivers a killer good time for all audiences, enacting an experience that not only demands to be seen on the biggest screen conceivable, but also a jam-packed auditorium of horror hounds coming together to celebrate the unraveling of this victimized family.

My Grade: 7.9 or B