Title: Final Destination Bloodlines
Directors: Adam Stein & Zach Lipovsky
Cast: Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Rya Kihlstedt, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, Tony Todd
Where: In theatres near you
Rating: 3.5 Stars
This film opens with a jolt—literally and figuratively. During a jerky car ride over a railway crossing, a blindfolded woman asks, “What was that?” Her companion grins and replies, “You said you liked surprises.” She agrees—and from that moment on, surprises become the film’s lifeblood.
This dialogue, clever and self-aware, feels like a wink to the audience, breaking the fourth wall with a casual flair that sets the tone for what’s to come: a film that knows it’s being watched, and plays with that knowledge like a cat with string.
Fourteen years after the last instalment, this film returns like karma calling—inevitable, merciless, and grinning. It doesn’t reinvent the franchise; it revives it with flair, delivering fatalism as a cursed heirloom packed with vintage jump-scares, flamboyant gore, and even a disturbingly aware vending machine. Death, once again, takes center stage.
Directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein clearly understand the absurdity baked into the DNA of the Final Destination universe and, rather than resisting it, lean in like two mischievous uncles at a wake. What emerges is a surprisingly self-aware film, occasionally gripping, and somehow touching in delightfully improbable ways.
The premise remains satisfyingly familiar: a protagonist has a premonition, avoids disaster, and inadvertently sets off a chain of grotesque and ironic deaths. This time, it’s Stefani Reyes (a compelling Kaitlyn Santa Juana), haunted by dreams of the collapse of a 1960s tower. Her return home to a suspiciously large family gathering reveals the real horror—Granny Iris once cheated Death, and now her bloodline must pay.
What sets Bloodlines apart is its surprising emotional core. Unlike earlier entries that treated characters as countdown fodder, this film gives them flesh, quirks, and, dare we say, hearts. Owen Patrick Joyner’s Bobby and Teo Briones’ Charlie bring warmth and comic timing. Richard Harmon’s Derek meets a grisly, ink-splattered fate that is both horrifying and stylish, the kind of kill that makes you flinch and applaud in the same breath.
Not all is perfect, of course. Subtlety is steamrolled in favour of spectacle. The final act feels like a narrative pile-up, where twists careen into one another until logic taps out. But if you are looking for subtlety, you probably wandered into the wrong screening. Bloodlines is about theatrical death, and it delivers—via exploding grills, fatal home appliances, and yes, that devilish vending machine that seems to know exactly – who is next.
Technically, the film is tight. Christian Sebaldt’s cinematography swerves between sleek and surreal, and Tim Wynn’s score thrums with pulpy menace. And Tony Todd? Still death personified—velvet-voiced, shadow-lurking, and deliciously eerie.
Ultimately, this film is not high art. It is a self-aware spectacle—equal parts scream, smirk, and splatter. It doesn’t just ask you to suspend disbelief; it hands you a blindfold and says, “Trust me.” You will. Because surprises are what you signed up for, Death’s timing remains flawless, delivering wickedly stylish scares with undeniable showmanship.
