Final Destination: Bloodlines
Although graphic horror isn’t my preference, I decided to see Final Destination: Bloodlines. Sometimes an assault on one’s senses can be beneficial, and so it was in this case. Reading or watching the news is often deadly depressing. How much worse could a movie that challenges itself in gross-out death scenes be? To no great surprise, given that horror films are particularly popular during times of socio-political-economic stress, the movie was rather cathartic. Its gleeful gore and perverse sense of humor was just what the (Mad) Doctor ordered.
The flick begins in 1968, accompanied by a soundtrack that integrates songs from that era in a sardonic manner. “Bad Moon Rising,” for example, sets the tone for what’s to come when nervous Iris (played by Brec Bassinger) is escorted by her boyfriend to the posh restaurant in Skyview, a newly constructed high-rise. The structure has lots of glass to display magnificent views and flaunt its impressive height, including glass floors guaranteed to send shivers down the spines of sufferers of acrophobia. The employment of the song “Fallin’” is particularly good in this context. Another delicious touch comes when diners fracture crème brûlée sugar crusts as a taste of what can happen when glass cracks. Iris foresees a disaster in which there are no survivors, herself included. Then, there’s a bloodcurdling scream that brings the action into present day.
As in the previous installments of the Final Destination film franchise, Death (capital D intended) is eluded and is determined to rectify the evasion. Tracking down the survivors of the collapsed edifice to settle the score, Death is now focused on Iris and her descendants. Iris’s granddaughter Stefani (portrayed by Kaitlyn Santa Juana) has been plagued by recurring nightmares that replicate Iris’s horrific visions. This has severely impacted Stefani’s sleep and she is in danger of losing her college scholarship because of the ensuing listlessness. She returns home to her dysfunctional family and discovers that her mysterious estranged grandmother (Gabrielle Rose) has a story to tell.
The story, of course, is merely an excuse for a chain of incidents that result in characters being decimated in creative ways. It also reinforces what we all know: using logic to cope with the illogical is futile. The film is sly in the conversion of mundane objects into fearsome devices: a garbage truck, a rake, a coin, the potential of harm in a revolving door. Editor Sabrina Pitre and directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein expertly manipulate the audience into envisioning lethal scenarios in commonplace items and settings. Which is parenthetically a means of ratcheting up the paranoia of the characters who are under assault. Sometimes though, as Freud purportedly stated, “a cigar is just a cigar.” The directors and writers Guy Busick, Lori Evans Taylor, and Jon Watts revel in teasingly torturing the moviegoers with enough misdirection to offset a predictability comfort zone.
Death’s inevitability is a poignant part of Final Destination: Bloodlines especially considering the November 2024 passing of horror star Tony Todd. His cameo in the film reprises the character of William John Bludworth, a creepy fatalistic coroner who was featured in five of the six films in the franchise. Todd will, no doubt, be remembered for that role but was most impactful in his iconic portrayal of Candyman in the eponymous 1992 film.
Mortality is part of the allure of horror and engaging in a bit of fatalism tempered with merry mayhem, achieved through laughably lurid visuals, can be therapeutic. Final Destination: Bloodlines served its purpose.
