Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein Deliver a PERFECT Final Destination film.
While Final Destination: Bloodlines may superficially appear to be Hollywood’s latest attempt at digging up another long dead horror franchise for an easy IP cash-in, there’s something to be said when you have not only a great idea, but the cast and crew to execute it flawlessly. With some of the writers from the recent Scream Reboot/Sequel, combined with a pair of fresh directors (Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein), we get just that with the sixth and easily best entry in the series. The film does all this, while also addressing some of the known issues and tired tropes these films were known for, delivering a refreshingly unique direct sequel to the pre-established canon, that is as savage and as engaging as this franchise has ever been.
Making its first big departure, the film begins with a rather spectacular period set piece in 1968 at the opening night of the Sky View restaurant — think Seattle’s Space Needle. Here we meet the bright and beautiful Iris Campbell (Brec Bassinger) and her doting fiance Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones) who take us through 15 gorific minutes that deliver everything you would expect from a Final Destination opening, but oddly more. Brec Bassinger infuses this massive blood drenched spectacle with some unexpected heart, as her character immediately locks the audience in with her empathetic and courageous actions when disaster strikes and the glass dancefloor begins cracking. In another thankful departure, they’ve pulled back the focus a bit from expendable teens and insufferable college kids, by having Iris and Paul taking the first steps into an adult life together as we then witness everyone – including them die.
While that turns out to be a recurring nightmare haunting Iris’ now granddaughter Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) in the present day, we learn it was in fact the premonition her grandmother had, before saving hundreds of people that night. Since then however, Death has been meticulously following its pre-existing plan and working its way through the now three generations of families of everyone who walked away that night. It’s something that doesn’t fully click into our family until at least the halfway point, as the series is infused with actual lore this time around, since Iris is shockingly not only still around, but has since authored a tome on how to cheat Death in the FDCU. She bestowes this book on Stefani before her own gnarly death, which somehow manages to be even harder to watch the second time around. It’s literally that gnarly someone in post was like, ‘let’s run this again!’ The other big break with the franchise that really drew me in was the family dynamic at the heart of the film, that elevates the stakes to a whole new level .
While there is some estrangement and melodrama as you’d expect, there’s still an unbreakable bond and a love that you really haven’t seen in this series until now, which really locked me into these characters. Made up mostly of first timers and TV actors, the cast here fully invests in this family and their lives, really bringing them to life on screen in a way that will definitely catch you off guard. Also the fact that we have entire families, with fathers, sons and daughters, allows Bloodlines to go multigenerational and broader than its teenager to twentysomething demographic, which helps to not alienate the older horror fans that grew up with these films. There’s even a few fun twists along the way, character-wise that will only endure these characters even more. The hook here is these are for the most part good people you genuinely care about, rather than simply waiting with bated breath to watch them get what they deserve.
While the original films ebbed and flowed in quality, I caught this in IMAX and the film for the most part held up on the big screen. There was obviously some heavy use of CGI for the flashback period beginning on the giant mid-air structure, but once it got to the kills and time jumped, the film felt much more grounded and practical in its approach compared to other entries. I also found it refreshing that we didn’t keep cutting back to the opening as you would in the previous films, which allowed some mystery to the latter half of the film and also made it a lot less repetitive in that respect. The Rube Goldberg-esque kills here still feature that level of creativity you’d expect with a Final Destination film, along with some truly nightmarish imagery that kept surprising me with just how far they would go each time. For you gore hounds out there this is honestly the closest you’re going to see Terrifier level kills in a mainstream, rated R flick.
Final Destination: Bloodlines is easily the best film to come out of the franchise and that’s not an easy statement from a longtime fan, but it’s well deserved. They’ve managed to update the series, while not trying to outsmart the original films, but instead really hone in on what made the films as fun as they were – crazy, spectacularly insane kills. This all while offering up as a bonus a cast that genuinely makes us vested in these characters who feel a bit more nuanced than previous iterations and keep us caring about whether they will make it the full 90 minutes. It’s honestly not something I thought I would be writing a few days later after viewing the film, but it’s even got some interesting musing on generational trauma hidden under the hood as well, that probably could be its own write-up. But horror fans are eating very well in 2025 and Bloodlines is just that, a blood splattered thrill ride that is viscerally unrelenting as it is engaging, with its story of a family forced to confront the choices of their matriarch.
