I’ve always enjoyed the Final Destination series, which has provided years of entertainment with its ‘open source’ premise promoting the most violent, twisted and gnarly ways Death can come for us all. While not outright scary, the series has always done an excellent job of pushing the buttons of commonplace paranoia and how routine day-to-day life can go terribly and fatally awry. 

 

The plot has never been the strong point of the series, but Bloodlines brings an interesting twist with an opening disaster premonition set decades in the past, but has deadly consequences for the descendants of the survivors of the initial should've-been tragedy. Death is coming to collect on their IOU slips and is not interested in ‘natural causes.’

 

Bloodlines is full of creatively ingenious set pieces that boast hilarious, tongue-in-cheek foreshadowing of character demise, over-the-top gore and absurdist morbid humor generated by its amusing ‘bad-luck-penny’ kill scenarios. I don’t want to spoil much of the fun, but some highlights include a poorly constructed ‘Space Needle’ like restaurant that experiences a domino effect of fiery mayhem and a series of events involving a soccer ball and a garbage truck, which the disembodied ‘Death’ character likely found inspiration from Pee Wee’s Playhouse’s breakfast preparing contraption. There is also an amazing scene involving a hospital MRI and a tattoo shop that have some twisted fun with a twerpy, sarcastic emo dude with some poorly located piercings. 

 

Going back to the plot…just kidding there’s no need. Those familiar with the series have heard the same exposition over and over of death has a pattern and is coming for us all. None of this really matters. The acting is fine and serves its purpose, but its purpose is only really to move things along to the next scene of carnage. The only memorable bit of exposition was delivered by a lovely cameo appearance of the late Tony Todd, who has been a staple of the FD series and of horror in general. It was bittersweet watching his character deliver a swan song to the series but longtime fans are rewarded with a wonderful, albeit brief performance from the horror legend. The scene also serves a satisfying closure and background to the character that was easily the best non-Death scene of the movie. 

 

Final Destination: Bloodlines is a wild ride that executes (literally) the perfect balance of gruesomely comical, slapstick violence with its  elaborate, creative set pieces drafting the blueprints of Death. It is more of the same, but in the best way possible. It continues the premise and tradition of the previous films, but injects fun and freshly creative kill scenarios that surprise, mislead and keep us guessing despite us all knowing things will ultimately end in a cemetery (if there’s anything left to bury, that is).