It’s been 14 years since the last Final Destination movie and I, for one, thought the franchise was dead and buried. Thankfully, Final Destination Bloodlines, the sixth instalment in the series, brings some fresh blood to the lineage.
I have a fondness for the Final Destination films, particularly the first three. As a kid, I spent a handful of summers at a cottage near Otter Lake. There was a small convenience store nearby that rented out DVDs. Our cottages came equipped with a DVD player, so us kids would trek over to the store and peruse the shelf and bring back the latest horror movies they had. This is how I watched most of the Saw franchise and the first three Final Destination movies.
I was definitely too young to be watching these movies, and the gruesome mass accidents stayed with me. For the longest time, I couldn’t pass by a log truck on the highway without flashing back to the opening sequence of Final Destination 2. The idea that you could die horrifically in a freak accident tapped into some primal fear that I, and probably many others, had about the arbitrariness of death.
Don’t get me wrong, these are not “good” movies. There’s nothing elevated about the horror in the Final Destination films, but that’s what makes them so fun. If you’ve seen one, you know exactly what you’re going to get with the rest. Someone gets a premonition of a gnarly freak accident with mass casualties and then stops it, narrowly evading Death, who subsequently comes knocking to claim the lives of those who escaped him one by one in increasingly elaborate and unlikely Rube Goldberg-like machinations involving everyday objects and scenarios.
Bloodlines doesn’t reinvent the formula, but it doesn’t have to. After 14 years, something as silly and fun as this is a welcome change in the horror landscape. It scratches a similar itch as The Monkey did, which I aptly compared to Final Destination in the over-the-top silliness and gore of its deaths.
If anything, Bloodlines feels right at home in the 2000s sensibility of the early Final Destination movies. It lacks any sense of specificity, and I say that as something that works in its favour. If the movie mentioned a specific city in which it was set, I can’t remember it. Aside from modern-looking cell phones and cars, there’s little sense that it takes place in a specific time, either. But it all works, because no one is coming to Final Destination for astute socio-cultural commentary—we’re here to see a bunch of people we don’t really care about die in creatively gruesome ways.
The biggest compliment I can give Bloodlines is that it understands the assignment. The opening sequence is excellent, right up there with the best of the franchise, with a cheeky knowingness and humour that sets the tone right off the bat.
While I said there’s nothing revolutionary here, what Bloodlines does bring is a sense of self-awareness that brings the franchise into a new era and makes it fit for horror audiences who have seen it all. The movie plays with expectations in a way that feels satisfying for both fans and newcomers, with a number of great pay-offs and subversions.
The cast is also refreshingly made up largely of unknown or little-known actors, who all do a solid job. Among them, Richard Harmon’s Erik stands out as the snarky piercing-laden, tattoo-clad comic relief character. The late, legendary Tony Todd (Candyman, Final Destination), in his final film role, also brings some gravitas in his brief but memorable appearance.
If I have one gripe, it’s that the movie could have benefitted from a slightly tighter runtime and a less rushed finale, but it never felt like it dragged too much.
Ultimately, this is just a very fun movie. It’s not too serious, it’s clever and funny and gory, if a little too reliant on CGI blood. While it tries to make us care a little about the characters and their dramatic backstories, it undercuts those moments of seriousness in just the right ways.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any of the other films in the franchise, but if anything, Bloodlines might even be the most polished movie in the series to date.
Verdict
Go see Final Destination Bloodlines with a group of friends in the most packed theatre you can find, and I guarantee you’ll have at least a fun time. For a largely dead franchise’s sixth entry, Bloodlines is surprisingly on the ball, with a fresh take on the formula, a great sense of humour and of audience expectations, and a game cast that gets to die in ridiculous(ly fun) ways.
Shea Angus