Final Destination: Bloodlines

Bluesky

The sixth in the Final Destination series, Bloodlines contains few big surprises but some devilish detail. Probably aptly, as the whole franchise is based on the inevitability of death and the often entertainingly complicated ways in which the Grim Reaper marks their card.

The inciting incident here is slightly larger in scope, a whole restaurant in a tower vaguely resembling Seattle's Space Needle succumbing to the twin forces of physics and fate. Disbelief requires a bit more suspension than the glass dance-floor, but were it not for impossible architecture and dimensional rifts we wouldn't be treated to piano-led comeuppances and Chekhov's creme brulee.

Co-directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein have some credible horror behind them, including works like Freaks. They've worked within franchises before, helming a Kim Possible TV movie, episodes of the Fraggle Rock reboot, and Lipovsky also took up directorial duties for continuity-confusing Leprechaun: Origins.

The writing team is even larger, with Guy Busick (2022's Scream), Lori Evans Taylor (more often a producer, but recently behind Cellar Door), and Jon Watts (thriller Cop Car among others). The advantage of a franchise like this, beyond its effective status as an anthology of similar stories, is solid ground rules. The joy, such as it is, comes from familiar components arranged into new configurations to produce entertaining outcomes.

One of those recurring elements is the late Tony Todd, whose (doctor) Bludworth is woven into proceedings. Those follow the Reyes family and their cousins (those eponymous Bloodlines) as they try to understand what fate has in store for them. Kaitlyn Santa Juana is relatively new to the industry, and she does enough here that we'll hopefully see more of her. Gabrielle Rose has been working almost ten times as long but their scenes in Aunt Iris' fortified compound are some of the more entertaining, and show good chemistry between two folk who are very differently aware of what's actually going on. A large ensemble cast has a couple of standouts, including Richard Harmon as Erik and Anna Lore as Julia, but it's in some ways as episodic as any TV show.

Indeed with its potential outlined in a sprawling conspiracy wall of family trees and newspaper clippings one does wonder if this was originally pitched as an 'improbable fatality of the week' show. There's a straightforward relentlessness to the Final Destination series, and part of the fun is figuring out how various ducks will align to deadly effect. It's differently foregrounded here, as Aunt Iris has been studying and in a tremendous bit of art direction has a book more deadly than that of Death Note, a Rube Goldberg compendium of calamity, miscellany of mortal mishap, a dossier of deathtraps.

On the big screen Bloodlines was close to an amusement park ride, the steady click of anticipation paired with the knowledge of the impending drop. On small screens that sense of fun will be preserved, though perhaps not as immersively. The CG that in places struggled to reconcile budget and ambition will experience a little forgiveness on TV, but the point remains the same. Final Destination: Bloodlines clearly sets out what's coming, and then delivers. It might be about an hour in before there are fatalities not in the trailers, but anticipation is part of the franchise's stock in trade and there's some subversion of them anyway.

There's any number of horror or adjacent franchises where later outings confusingly re-use titles or launch proceedings into space, where formula is stretched to the point of breaking or thin material does more than let people fall to their deaths. It might seem faint praise but with its combination of flashbacks and prophecy Bloodlines represents both a return to form and an entertaining presence.

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