Apparently, death never takes a vacation. And in Final Destination: Bloodlines, it’s back—grislier, nastier, and with an even darker sense of irony than ever before.
Let’s get this out of the way: this isn’t reinventing the formula. It’s lovingly embalming it, stuffing it full of blood-soaked callbacks and razor-sharp tension, then lobbing it at a new generation like a meat grinder at a mime convention.
Directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein know exactly what franchise they’re reviving. They don’t treat it with reverence—they treat it like a loaded mousetrap. The setup is classic: a would-be tragedy is narrowly avoided when college student Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) has recurring nightmares of a catastrophic Skyview Tower collapse—visions linked to her grandmother Iris (Brec Bassinger) who foresaw and narrowly averted the tragedy decades earlier. But Death, the franchise’s true star, doesn’t take rejection well.
This entry’s kills? Creative and cruel. We’re talking surgical wire, pressure cookers, tanning beds—basically, OSHA’s fever dream. Each sequence is a masterclass in tension, turning everyday objects into murder Chekhovs. You’ll never trust an escalator again.
Where Bloodlines earns its subtitle is in the twist: the characters aren’t random victims—they’re tied by blood to past survivors and victims from earlier entries, including the original Flight 180 disaster. Death isn’t just cleaning up loose ends—it’s settling a generational score Yes, this one’s got legacy. It digs into the mythology with surprising ambition, brushing up against cosmic horror without losing the popcorn edge.
But it’s not perfect. Some of the acting is, let’s say, bloodline-adjacent. Supporting characters feel like they’re auditioning for a CW pilot, and a few deaths telegraph their punchlines too early. Also, don’t look for emotional depth. Look for depth through someone’s ribcage.
Still, if you come for elaborate death traps and existential dread dressed in Hot Topic, Bloodlines delivers like a scythe-wielding Amazon Prime driver.
RHFC Rating: 7.5/10🍿
