Review by C.J. Bunce
The first five Final Destination movies arrived in theaters between 2000 and 2011, and audiences haven’t seen a new installment in 14 years. Final Destination: Bloodlines is the sixth movie in the franchise, and it succeeds in creating both a sequel and prequel as good as the first installments–you’ll need to go back to an out-of-control truck hauling logs for an entry as exciting. What makes the franchise unique compared to Halloween, Friday the 13th, Scream, and A Nightmare on Elm Street is the villain. That’s Death itself, which never materializes except in the form of killing off characters in the method of a classic Mousetrap game–Rube Goldberg setup disaster situations concocted carefully through happenstance and the chaos of science–which amounts to fate or destiny–you be the judge. In this supernatural construct, Death has a plan–and more importantly an order–to things.
Yet each story arrives with a hero or heroine that thwarts the plan, individuals with a premonition of the events that lie ahead and the ability to avoid death, but never for very long. Harbingers of danger ahead, hints, and clues, subtle or not are everywhere. The villain is a classic mystical “pusher”–able to subtly affect reality in ways only chaos could dictate. It’s no wonder the movies began as an idea for an episode of The X-Files. But this installment rearranges the narrative. This is the Final Destination answer to Terminator: Dark Fate’s return of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor and the recent Halloween trilogy’s return of Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode. Gabrielle Rose’s (The Night Agent, Psych) Iris Campbell is every bit a hardened survivor as Sarah and Laurie, and may be even stronger.
The result is fantastic. A film in three smart and distinct acts, the first act begins with Brec Bassinger (Stargirl) as twenty-something Iris Campbell, the perfect young woman of 1969, on a date with a man ready to propose to her at the opening of what looks like the Seattle Space Needle, but is actually some fictional creation based in the Northeast. In the franchise’s unique style of meticulously concocted “accidental” deaths, the simple act of an annoying young boy sets off the first domino. The audience follows Iris and the key point in the drama of her life as the new restaurant in the sky begins to come apart, and all while a band is playing The Isley Brothers’ “Shout.” From the subtle acts of rudeness by so many at the top of the tower to the gorgeous sunset in the background to the vintage cars and wardrobe to the interplay of chaos and science, directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein deliver a perfect opening sequence.
Bassinger’s Iris is young and innocent, the perfect Final Destination heroine to step up to take on Death face-to-face. Then the movie switches gears. As in Terminator: Dark Fate, a young Latina takes over as the lead for Act 2. Here it’s Kaitlyn Santa Juana (The Flash) as Stefani Reyes, a granddaughter of Iris in the present day some 56 years later. She is haunted by nightmares of grandma Iris dying at the needle restaurant disaster. After the audience meets Stefani’s family, Stefani tracks down the recluse that is her grandmother, holed up in a fortified house in the woods, prepared to defend herself against Death itself. But how did she survive?
The circumstances lead us to a boy Iris saved in the opening scenes… and that leads us to the final appearance of Tony Todd, the famed genre actor of horror and sci-fi who recently passed away. Todd has played mortician William Bludworth in all but the fourth movie. His scene provides a great send-off for a talented actor and an icon of the horror genre. It also brings the entire franchise full circle.
Final Destination: Bloodlines also stars Longmire’s Teo Briones as Stefani’s brother, The Imperfects and The Mandalorian’s Max Lloyd-Jones as Iris’s fiance, Anna Lore (Hysteria!) as cousin Julia, April Telek (Supernatural) as Aunt Brenda, Alex Zahara (Open Range) as Stefani’s uncle, and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Rya Kihlstedt as Stefani’s mom. But the best actor and role goes to Richard Harmon (Continuum) as cousin Erik, who gets his own tangles with Death.
Get ready for three more domino falling sequences full of great cringeworthy action. The Jenga game is the perfect symbol for the franchise in a family picnic disaster. Erik takes center stage in a tattoo parlor disaster and a more-than-mishap with an MRI machine at a hospital. And the third act sees a finale that takes attentive viewers back to methods used to beat Death in earlier movies.
Note that this isn’t the first prequel in the franchise–Final Destination 5 was also a prequel, just not in the way Final Destination: Bloodlines is. This isn’t the repetitive slasher scare fest of Saw or Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street or Chucky or The Conjuring. It’s horror with some thought and effort in the writing. My only aside here is that it would have been brilliant had Iris Campbell been with us for all six movies in the franchise. It seems like Iris is the best way to bring back the idea of Ali Larter’s character Clear Rivers from the first two movies. It’s easy to imagine Iris as an old woman version of Clear.
Like vampire movies the franchise has rules, many that have been provided by Tony Todd’s character along the journey. But once the drama is done, the special effects department earns its pay. If you’re unfamiliar with the franchise, note that this is full of body horror situations used in a mix of “just desserts” and dark humor ways. Lots of bodies fall and hit the ground and much more violence fills out the action sequences. The franchise continues to apply the only brand of body horror among the main line of horror franchises that somehow straddles the line between mainstream violence and crossing the line. But that line will vary by viewer.
It’s the best horror movie of 2025 so far, providing some of the best action in any movie this year, too. And it’s one of the best entries in the franchise–a surprise for a sixth movie in any franchise. Don’t miss Final Destination: Bloodlines now streaming on HBO Max.
