Final Destination: Bloodlines

This is a franchise that has a super simple premise that has been cleverly handled all the way from the first movie in 2000 till the current entry. It didn’t occur to me that I had actually seen all of the previous films, but I quickly fell back into the accepted way of enjoying these movies. You wait for the clues to the next gruesome kill then sit back in expectation of gory goodness. The simple idea is that you don’t cheat death. If you do, expect to kiss your butt goodbye. Sometimes, with the bendy ways death works, quite literally.

Nightmares plague Stephanie, even during class, when her waking screams annoy everyone in the lecture hall. She becomes convinced she is reliving the deaths of her grandparents, even though in her dream it happened long before her mother was born. During her search for the truth she discovers her entire family is in danger of death, as he was cheated by the grandmother years before.

The simple premise of don’t cheat death or he’ll come back on you worse than ever is again beautifully portrayed in this installment. My favorite of the previous five movies was the second one with the infamous logging truck on the freeway sequence that has been revisited and referenced many times since, as well it should. It’s a classic bit of horror film. There are also simple tropes that define all the films, like tons of foreshadowing for each death. Songs with very suggestive, and often predictive, lyrics underscore visual clues that truly awful things are about to happen to the people in the films. The deaths are super creative, though it’s not unusual to see a particularly good death reenacted from time to time. One of the things that sets this franchise apart is the filmmakers’ gleeful killing off of very sympathetic characters. No one – and I mean no one – is safe in these films. There isn’t a rending of someone’s guts followed by them running down the street five minutes later. (*cough*Scream*cough*)

This time around there is a lot of bloody, squirty squishing and not as much slow and bloody crunchiness. One of the best parts of the always carefully set up deaths is the Rube Goldberg butterfly effect. This time around the theme is “even a lowly penny is dangerous”. Now that we’re about to lose pennies, I find that extra poignant. The very last moments of the film startled me in its audacity, and I laughed so loudly the cat ran away for the rest of the night.

I was surprised to discover the film had only a 50 million dollar budget, because some of the death sequences were large and grand. You also might notice a cameo from the late Tony Todd (Candyman), long a master of horror film and voice acting. This is the last movie he appeared in, and he improv’d his last lines ever in a movie. “I intend to enjoy the time I have left. And I suggest you do the same. Life is precious. Enjoy every single second. You never know when…Good luck.” Again, another bit of foreshadowing, which is the Final Destination forte.

If you’ve seen even one of the other films and enjoyed it even a little bit, I absolutely recommend you watch this movie if you can. It’s nailbiting and gory and funny, and includes you the viewer in all the rude inside jokes death has in store for the people who have wronged him, no matter how nice they are. It’s beautifully made for such a small budget and the acting isn’t bad at all. Maybe next time I’ll go to see people squished when it’s on the big screen.

Triggers: lots of REALLY GORY and surprising deaths

Available on: HBO/Max, Sling, Plex, prime video, Fandango at Home, Row8, DirecTv

LINKS:

• Final Destination: Bloodlines – Official Website
• Final Destination: Bloodlines – IMDB
• Final Destination: Bloodlines – Wikipedia

CFR: In Addition

So I saw the very first Final Destination in the movie theater. We loved seeing horror movies together.

Now hubby Scott really liked this movie. A lot. I did not. I thought it was ridiculous that death had a plan. Oh good grief. Also, if death, or rather Death, wanted you dead you would just be dead. It was too much for me.

So I’m glad that people like/love this series and I hope that there will find joy in it forever.