LOS ANGELES, May 13 (UPI) -- After five entries released between 2000 to 2011, Final Destination has returned with its first new movie in nearly 14 years. Final Destination: Bloodlines, in theaters Friday, expands the franchise's mythology while delivering its signature satisfyingly gratuitous death scenes.
Each Final Destination movie begins with a character having a premonition that leads them to escape a deadly disaster, and Bloodlines is no different. The film begins in the 1960s with the character Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones) taking his fiancée, Iris (Brec Bassinger), to the opening of the Sky View Restaurant Tower.
Directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein focus on all the potential death traps, from the overcrowded elevator to a loose chandelier. Many of those pay off, and gleeful chain reactions mean a woman won't just be set on fire, she'll run into a gas leak too.
It is Iris' granddaughter, Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), who awakens in the present day after having a nightmare of the Skyview incident. She returns home to try to meet her estranged grandmother and find out how she could be dreaming of someone she never met.
The script by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor, from their story with Jon Watts, adds many new elements to the franchise. The very idea of a Final Destination premonition spanning generations makes the danger exponentially more relentless.
Like previous Final Destination characters, Iris did survive at Skyview, but death still came for many of the people who were supposed to die in that accident. Iris, however, has survived for decades and avoided death's repeated attempts to take her life.
Since Iris had kids and those children had kids of their own, it means her whole family is on death's list because she was supposed to die and those generations never be born. The familial link makes this the most vicious Final Destination yet, compared to the ones that followed a group of random people.
Focusing on a family also makes the characters more invested in each other's survival... and their inevitable Final Destination demises hit even harder.
Bloodlines contains some of the most memorable death set pieces in the entire franchise, with a tattoo parlor, a hospital and a suburban sidewalk among the deadly locations.
The death scenes unfold in elaborate chain reactions, but invent some new surprises and misdirects. Several potential implements of doom are established to keep the audience guessing which one will ultimately pay off.
Will it be the falling piano or the chandelier that kills the people clinging to the edge of the Skyview? Meanwhile, in the present day, a family barbecue sets up a blender, tub of ice cubes, propane tank, broken glass and oversized Jenga game. The scene continues to fake out and misdirect potential deaths, and yet still other elements established in previous scenes become factors.
The way innocuous actions set up chain reactions is well crafted. Not to spoil any, but it's not just the obvious sharp objects or heavy machinery.
Bloodlines has an irreverent heart. This is a family sincerely trying to heal after breaking contact with Iris over her extreme paranoia, and after Stefani's mother (Rya Kihlstedt) left her father (Andrew Tinpo Lee). They are also coping with trauma after the first two outrageous deaths they witness, and Stefani's theory that death is coming for them does sound like a trauma response.
And yet, being in a Final Destination movie, the heartfelt tributes characters pay to the departed only add to the macabre inevitability that they're all next.
Bloodlines also has a poignant subtext about anxiety. Overprotection and helicopter parenting are real issues, but in Final Destination, Iris and Stephanie are correct that anything around them can kill them.
The ultimate truth is that as much as you can worry about loved ones, you can't force people to accept your protection. Everyone is free to take their own risks, and hopefully they're not actually living in a Final Destination movie.
As the first Final Destination movie in over a decade, Bloodlines does pay homage to highlights from previous films. The windchimes from the original film indicate trouble brewing, and Iris' notes have tracked incidents from the other films. Some other fun tributes won't be spoiled in this review.
The Final Destination franchise could go on forever because each entry can begin with new characters. As long as there are creative disasters and death scenes, the sequels will still be fun.
Adding the generational element to Final Destination: Bloodlines gives the movie a distinct energy from the rest. It's great to have Final Destination back.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
