Courtesy of Warner Bros.

The Final Destination franchise is a fan favorite for good reason. It’s consistently enjoyable, and each series installment delivers standout kills tied to elaborate setups that make the world feel like a scary and unsafe place. Although the deaths within feature endless imagination, the first five films in the series follow a fairly similar narrative outline, with little deviation from that template. While we get a couple of minor nuances that set each subsequent installment apart, the core setup of the main character experiencing a premonition, preventing a tragedy, and then paying the price is the same throughout the first through fifth films. That’s why Final Destination: Bloodlines is such a breath of fresh air. 

For the series’ long-gestured sixth installment, screenwriters Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor dare to do something different. Rather than repeat everything that worked previously, they take the core franchise tenants and play around with them in a fresh and interesting way.

Instead of a lead character experiencing a premonition foretelling their own death, we catch up with college student Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), the granddaughter of past survivor Iris (Brec Bassinger), whose premonition about the collapse of a trendy observation tower restaurant saved not just a handful of lives, but hundreds. In doing so, Iris complicated Death’s plan and created far-reaching consequences that spanned the course of multiple decades. Now, something has shifted, and Stefani is reliving the ordeal that Iris previously averted. That sets the stage for a refreshingly different approach that is both familiar and unexpected at the same time. 

Bloodlines would’ve, at the very least, been an enjoyable return to form if it had followed the same path as the past five films. However, it opts to break the cycle. Get it? That approach makes this a far more enjoyable series installment, thanks to the lack of predictability. As much as I genuinely enjoy the Final Destination franchise, even I can admit that it was high time for the series to try something fresh. And Bloodlines is all kinds of fresh.

It deviates from expectations in several ways. Aside from putting a unique spin on the premonition and the inciting event to which it is tied, this sequel also deviates by featuring an initial body count of zero. That’s a bold move for a franchise known first and foremost for its death toll, but the move pays off by creating a ripple effect with lasting consequences.

Iris’s unprecedented success in warning of the imminent tower collapse sets the stage for the film to branch out from typical franchise conventions in several different ways. Case in point: The absence of casualties ultimately creates a substantial backlog for Death to work through, slowing the process and allowing plenty of new life to emerge in the interim. Iris, like many of her fellow survivors, starts a family, creating more work for Death in the process, and delaying the inevitable, providing the illusion that the survivors have successfully cheated Death. 

See Also: The 13 Gnarliest Ways to Die According to the ‘Final Destination’ Series 

Zeroing in on a family is another aspect that sets this sequel apart and makes it stand out. Previous installments have followed a friend group or a collection of strangers brought together by tragedy, and that’s always worked well enough, but it hasn’t really carried much emotional weight. This time around, instead of the core characters watching a friend or a total stranger die, we look on as familial relations bear witness to their loved ones meeting with an untimely fate. That gives the picture far more emotional purchase than any of the preceding installments.

Watching a parent lose a child or a child lose a parent just hits differently. It stirs up inner turmoil. Sure, we seek these films out for the grisly death sequences, but with heavier emotional ties, I felt a little conflicted. On one hand, I was delighted at the grisly spectacle of it all, but on the other, I felt a tinge of sorrow for the bereft characters, helpless to save their loved ones. 

Added emotional depth aside, the film also stands out for the way it successfully catches the audience off guard. One disastrous sequence that plays out in a tattoo parlor really stood out to me as a cunning deviation from the expected. That scene had me fully convinced that the character involved in the ordeal was dead and gone, only to let the would-be victim live to die another day. I love being pleasantly surprised, and Final Destination: Bloodlines is full of pleasant surprises. Upsets in the order and a number of other well-played twists work to keep this sixth series outing as engaging as possible.    

Also Read: ‘Final Destination’ And Me

Despite numerous nuances that make this film feel distinct from the rest, directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein wisely choose to maintain the essence of the franchise. I’m referring to the grisly, Rube Goldberg-inspired setups integral to each death and the use of foreshadowing to keep the viewer in a near-constant state of panic, wondering when the other shoe will drop. The deaths in Bloodlines are as inventive and grisly as they’ve ever been, often featuring multiple moving parts that reliably culminate in horrifying results.  

Like its predecessors, Bloodlines teases out the demises, weaponizing discomfort through bouts of tension and release that lure the viewer into a false sense of security, only to blindside them with a grisly catastrophe at just the right moment. The backyard barbecue scene works well in that conceit. A piece of glass mixed in with the ice station at the outdoor bar leads to a number of frightening close calls, each more jarring than the one that came before it. When the glass shard finally finds its victim, I felt like someone had pulled the rug out from underneath me. That’s exactly the reaction I hope for when I watch one of these films. 

All in all, Final Destination: Bloodlines is just the right mix of fresh and familiar. This sequel feels very much like a Final Destination film, yet it doesn’t read like a carbon copy of every other Final Destination film. I hope this installment sets a new precedent, ensuring future sequels follow suit and continue to mix things up as much as possible. You can currently catch the entire series streaming on HBO Max. 

Categorized: Editorials