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Review by E.C.McMullen Jr. |
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FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES- 2025USA Release: May 16, 2025 The Fusion Media, Québec Production Services Tax Credit, Inzide Media, Domain Entertainment, Freshman Year, Freshman Year, Practical Pictures, New Line Cinema, Wrner Bros. Rated: USA: R |
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6 movies deep into FINAL DESTINATION?
That calls for a Preamble.
FINAL DESTINATION was a great movie. One of the all time classics, and inspiring enough to be repeated, copied, and satirized countless times (think of all of the movies you've seen where someone abruptly gets hit by a bus) in movies from SCARY MOVIE to THE DEVIL'S REJECTS and way, way, more.
That's because any sequel must obey the rules of logic applied by the first to some degree and so can't be as exciting and original as... well, as the original! Yes, James Cameron can beat this meme while drunk and blindfolded but that's only because he is James Cameron.
Now the review
So who is playing in creator, Jeffrey Reddick's sandbox, this time?
FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES Directors Zach Lipovsky (TASMANIAN DEVILS, LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS, DEAD RISING: WATCH TOWER, MECH-X4 [TV], FREAKS) and Adam B. Stein (MECH-X4 [TV], FREAKS), that's who. These two direct with a fun verve that, within minutes, had me believing that they weren't clocking in as hired hands for a paycheck, but brought their love of this franchise.
Working off a story & screenplay by Jon Watts , Guy Busick, and Lori Evans Taylor, there's a "We know the audience" confidence that allowed for the hip humor that keeps the often cartoony and over the top gore harrowing without losing the drama of the point.
Despite all the death and mayhem, FINAL DESTINATION always ran with fun 1980s Horror like THE LOST BOYS, CRITTERS, and TREMORS, than the deadly serious and genuinely scary works of John Carpenter and David Cronenberg.
FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES begins in 1968 with a young gal named Iris Campbell (Brec Bassinger: THE HAUNTED HATHAWAYS, LIAR LIAR VAMPIRE, KILLER UNDER THE BED, 47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED, STARGIRL [TV], THE MAN IN THE WHITE VAN) riding blindfolded in a car. Her fiancee, Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones: STONE MARKERS, THE DORM, BOY IN THE ATTIC, WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, WOMAN OF THE HOUR) wants to surprise her and that surprise is the grand opening of the towering Sky View restaurant. A rotating saucer of a restaurant that sits upon a narrow tower with a single elevator.
We know from the movie trailer that the restaurant is going to explode. We know from the gonzo movie poster that the restaurant is going to explode. So when Paul and Iris walk past the Valets, and their radio plays Johnny Cash singing Ring Of Fire, someone like me chuckles in anticipation.
When the young Elevator operator welcomes more people into the elevator car than the posted capacity allows, I chuckle in anticipation.
When he has trouble getting the elevator car doors to shut properly and brushes concerns aside by saying this is a known problem.
When the spoiled brat of a kid who seems to belong to no one jumps up and down on the elevator car's glass floor, and all of the many minutia of winks that tell the audience that, yes this will be gruesome and horrific, but in a cartoonish Looney Tunes way, I'm along for the ride.
So yeah, there are laugh out loud moments in the opening horrific scene and it all culminates, like all past FINAL DESTINATIONS do, in being a premonition.
TRIVIA Cinema history is strewn with people who had no idea that their next film would be their last, or if they did, that their last would turn out so terrible. Actor Tony Todd (CANDYMAN, THE CROW, FINAL DESTINATION [all], HATCHET), who is the only actor to have a role throughout all six movies, was given a graceful scene and exit. I'm glad that his last movie is also an awesome one. |
Almost.
The person who wakes from this premonition is Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana: THE FRIENDSHIP GAME), who dozed off in her advanced math class in college.
Stefani has had this same dream every time she sleeps, which is affecting her grades and relationship with her dorm mate.
The only point of reference she has from her dream is that she's not herself, but her mysterious Grandmother Iris.
With a head full of questions, Stefani takes the long road trip home and finds herself, not entirely welcome. Her father, Marty (Tinpo Lee: THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA, THE MANOR), is happy to see her. Her brother Charlie (Tio Briones: RATCHED [TV], AGENT REVELATION, CHUCKY [TV]) is indifferent, which Stefani finds surprising. In fact, her whole family is unconcerned that their relative who has been gone away at college is back at all.
Desperate for help, Stefani tells everyone why she's there, which only makes matters worse. Grandma Iris is considered a Death obsessed psychopath by her family. They all live off the grid hoping that Iris never finds them, or she might kidnap them in some way for their own protection.
From, you know, death.
Eventually, Stefani is able to find old letters that Iris once sent her brood. Stefani is off on another road trip to visit Iris at her fortified cabin in the Woods.
Sure enough, old Iris (Gabrielle Rose: BLACKOUT, THE STEPFATHER, TIMECOP, MY MOTHER'S GHOST, BENEATH, STARGATE: THE ARK OF TRUTH, LOST BOYS: THE TRIBE, JENNIFER'S BODY, TIME OF DEATH, THRILLER, THE LOST DAUGHTER) appears to be as nuts as her family said.
And Stefani? She learns that she is haunted by the dream of her grandmother's own premonition: The vision that saved the lives of the people on the Sky View. Iris kept a book, tracking the deaths of the survivors over the years. Who died relatively natural deaths? How many more died in hideous, almost impossible ways?
She won't try to hold Stefani against her will, though. Iris is dying of brain cancer and hasn't long to live.
Iris suspects that death doesn't want cancer to end her life. Her continued existence is personal for death. Maybe Death gave Stefani the visions so she'd seek out her grandmother?
Hard to say, but near accidents are happening in the cabin even while the two women talk. Iris is used to recognizing the pattern and stopping it.
Or at least that's how it all looks to Iris. To Stefani, she's convinced the old lady is bananas and wants out of there but quick.
Seeing this behavior and exhausted by a lonely life of trying to convince people and avoid death, Iris proves that she is telling the truth. That's when Stefani's world turns upside down in a violent baptism of blood and horror.
As with the whole franchise, the rest of the movie involves a desperate Stefani struggling to convince everyone else that death is coming for them. Why now? Because, as FD fans know from the series, Death has a pattern. If you can figure out the pattern then you can avoid Death and then it will be anywhere from hours or years before Death circles back to you again. After all, Death has a busy schedule and has to edit out the mistakes when the opportunity presents itself.
In this particular case, None of Iris' progeny should have been born because Stefani and Paul were supposed to die in 1968. Iris and Paul's lives blocked Death. It eventually got Paul, but not before the had babies. With the gruesome death of Iris, Death can move forward to spell check and correct the rest of her bloodline.
Sounds dismal, right? But FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES is infused with reminders and references to the past movies in the franchise and its done in an assured, humorous way, that Horror fans will find a lot of laugh out loud moments.
Unless you're the kind of person who views with utmost somber gravitas, such koo-koo deaths like a guy getting dragged to his death as an MRI machine from across the room, magnetically pulls on his nipple rings and ampalang, you'll have a dynamite time with FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES.
Four Shriek Girls.
This review
copyright 2025 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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