Final Destination Bloodlines
Since its inception in 2000, the team behind Final Destination has been conjuring up increasingly outlandish means of massacring its young cast. From Dario Argento-esque eye injuries to sun beds that burn would-be tanners alive, one has to applaud the franchise’s filmmakers for their devilish ingenuity. While Saw revels in blood-splattered sadism, Final Destination has always been the more farcical cousin of torture porn. Accordingly, Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein’s Final Destination Bloodlines, the sixth chapter of the horror series, does not disappoint.
14 years after Final Destination 5, the film follows the familiar tried and tested formula of its predecessors, opening with a disastrous event. In previous movies, we’ve had a plane crash and a roller coaster; this time, a flashback to the 1960s sees a couple’s romantic trip to the grand opening of an observation tower catalysing the horror to come. It’s foreseen by Iris (played by Brec Bassinger in flashbacks and Gabrielle Rose in the present), whose premonition spells chaos for her ancestors. In the present day, her granddaughter, Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), is haunted by visions of Iris’s traumatic escape from certain death over half a century earlier. She begins to suspect that death is coming for her family – the bloodline that never should have been.
If fans thought that the minds behind Final Destination had exhausted the most elaborate chains of deadly calamity, think again. There’s much for horror aficionados to relish here, from – as Spinal Tap would say – a bizarre gardening accident to an unfortunate case of taking out the trash. There’s also a heart-warming cameo from a horror legend that will raise a smile.
Juana is a strong lead, capturing the seemingly absurd neuroses born from quite literal generational trauma, as she desperately tries to stave off fate. Meanwhile, Richard Harmon offers some needed comic relief as Stefani’s cousin, a tattoo artist whose penchant for body modifications may just be his downfall.
The movie falters slightly in its third act. Following the imaginative slayings, this section ends up feeling a tad anticlimactic. However, this being Final Destination, the horror doesn’t stop where we think it will, and the filmmakers have a few more traps up their sleeve.
Final Destination Bloodlines excels as a gory popcorn movie that disgusts as well as delights. This is horror with its tongue firmly in its cheek (well, what’s left of it after an inspired impalement).
Antonia Georgiou
Final Destination Bloodlines is released nationwide on 14th May 2025.
Watch the trailer for Final Destination Bloodlines here:
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