Film Review - Final Destination: Bloodlines
Images courtesy of Warner Bros.
For a quarter of a century now, the Final Destination film series has played on and exacerbated our collective fears of logging trucks, ceiling fans, and even the humble shower. After a 14 year-long hiatus since the last (and arguably best) entry in 5, is it possible that the series could be at its creative end? Its final destination, as it were? The latest - and maybe even greatest - sequel arrives this year in the form of Final Destination: Bloodlines, promising to bring the family together in a way that the Fast & Furious films could only dream of.
Taking the franchise to new heights both figuratively and literally, Bloodlines kicks off with a prolonged setup for the spectacular collapse of a Space Needle-esque Skyview restaurant, complete with many convoluted butterfly effect chain disasters, all of which we get to see play out twice, to many cheers and laughter. There's a shithead kid with a “lucky coin” (the franchise’s equivalent of a Chekov’s gun), who meets an exceptionally comical end that feels straight out of Looney Tunes, and anyone afraid of vertigo-inducing glass floors will get a couple of good groans out of this opening set piece.
From there we become acquainted with our *actual* protagonist, college student Stefani, who's plagued with nightmares of what happened to her grandmother, Iris, at the Skyview tower. We are introduced to a large swathe of family members both close and estranged: an angsty younger brother, cousins Erik, Bobby, and Julia, Stefani’s father, aunty and uncle, as well as the mother who walked out on her. At this point I was briefly worried that we'd spend too much time trying to ensure we were equally engaged in all of their familial connections, but then I realised the opportunities for many grandiose death scenes the stacked roster would allow for. Make no mistake, there is a bit more fluff than I would've liked, given this entry is a whole 20 minutes longer than any of the others, but damn, does it ever pay off.
Director duo Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein know exactly what the fans are here for, and have come to crave: bucketloads of needlessly elaborate deaths, played out with pitch-perfect comedic timing. Our many characters might be out to escape the reaper, but Death has other plans - and a multitude of Rube Goldberg machines to match. There are in-jokes with a log truck, the series favourite question “how can we try to cheat death this time?” answered with a pitch-black smirk, and a solid send off for our king Tony Todd, seeing as the Candyman actor passed shortly after Bloodlines wrapped filming. Considering my sister and I had binge watched Final Destination 2-5 that day, it brought a small tear to my eye. The scene involving Todd’s Mr. Bludworth doesn't outstay its welcome and calls back to an opening setup (albeit one I had predicted early on).
It's hard to sell the film to anyone who isn't already switched on to the goofy 1000 Ways to Die-like antics of the Final Destination films, a series that even at its worst is pretty damn entertaining in my books, but for anyone who has felt that hole in the cinematic landscape for the past 14 years, Bloodlines fills it in with a truckload of viscera, and a sledgehammer or two for good measure. Considering we got the much more overtly sarcastic, bizarre, and deadpan The Monkey earlier this year - a film many of my friends have taken the time out of their day to inform me they hated - it does feel right that we get a true-to-form Final Destination film not even six months later. For those looking for horror cinema that mostly leans on the goofy side while also delivering on some serious gore, Final Destination: Bloodlines is just what the coroner ordered.
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Final Destination: Bloodlines is screening in cinemas from Thursday 15th May. For tickets and more info, click here.