Final Destination, the giddy andsplatterificfranchise where the grim reaper finds increasingly cartoonish and comical ways to get back at those who think they’ve cheated death, has been sitting things out for more than a decade. Maybe that’s telling.
In the time since, we saw the rise of so-called “elevated horror”, a trend that arguably began with 2014’sThe Babadookand enjoyed its biggest success with last fall’sLonglegs. Those earnestly artful films tend to shrug off the horror genre’s baser pleasures to instead mine drama, trauma and influences such as Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski and Nicolas Roeg. For those feeling a bit trauma-fatigued, I’m happy to say Final Destination is not only back but better than ever.
Not that Final Destination: Bloodlines isn’t elevated. Directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B Stein, who broke on to the scene with the inventive low-budget sci-fi spectacle Freaks, class the joint up while refusing to let their movie take itself too seriously.
Their sixth chapter embraces the knowingly silly premise and grisly thrills we’ve come to expect from the 25-year-old series, in which cursed characters meet their demise by way of tanning beds, eye surgery and logging trucks. In Final Destination, death, with its affinity for complicated Rube Goldberg-esque methods, makes the most mundane and inanimate objects a threat we can never look at the same way again. But where Bloodlines excels is in the clever and often diabolical storytelling craft and visuals. There’s a decadence in the film-making that isn’t at odds with the campy nature of Final Destination but instead realizing its full potential.
Nowhere is that more obvious than the stunning opening set piece, which kicks things off with a closeup of a young woman (Brec Bassinger) in a blindfold, a fun little detail since she’s the one who will be seeing into the future. Her name also happens to be Iris.
It’s the 60s. Iris is being chauffeured by her boyfriend to a surprise night out. They’re attending the opening of a fancy new restaurant atop an observation deck, where the magic-hour views are paired with fine dining and dancing; a house band building up the joyous frenzy performing The Isley Brothers’ Shout.
Anyone familiar with the Final Destination formula knows we’re witnessing Iris’s premonition and that things won’t end well for the revellers twisting and shouting on the glass bottom dancefloor. The sequence is engineered to keep us on our toes, anticipating what’s to come. But it holds the tension in such a beautiful unhurried fashion, affectionately doting over the scenery and chemistry between the characters while caught up in the up-tempo romance of the evening.
The thwarted disaster isn’t just setting the table for Iris’s fate, but, retroactively, the whole Final Destination franchise. Bloodlines introduces an origin story in its prologue that playfully tinkers with the series mythology.
Generations later, in the present tense, Iris’s granddaughter Stefani (a perfectly frazzled Kaitlyn Santa Juana) is haunted by that same observation-deck premonition. She goes digging up buried family secrets to figure out what it all means. Meanwhile, a stockpile begins to form at the family burial plots. This time death isn’t just going after who survives the instigating events but also who inherited their curse. And because the cast can be so charming, especially Richard Harmon as a snarky but sentimental cousin, we might actually be rooting for a few of them to survive – a rarity in a franchise where we bought a ticket to watch everyone die in spectacular fashion.
The most entertaining kills, which this time around involve everything from lawn tools to an MRI, have a Buster Keaton-esque flair for physical comedy. These sequences, along with the plot as a whole, tend to include little callbacks to the past: buses, barbecues, ceiling fans and logs make cameo appearances, thrilling little reminders of the havoc they can wreak in a Final Destination. Sure, its fan service, the kind so many craven reboots are prone to. But it feels more earned in Bloodlines because they’re often building to something fresh and, in one instance, even moving.
The most sentimental – and much written about – homage to the franchise’s past is the late Tony Todd’s return as William Bludworth. The iconic Candyman actor is a Final Destination regular, playing the mischievous mortician often spitting some cryptic truth to death’s would be victims. Todd, who died in the fall, appears as Bludworth one last time to give an improvised monologue, parting words suggesting we make the most with what little time we have left.
The characters listening in that scene, who are scrambling to avoid the inevitable, don’t quite heed his advice. The movie, which breathes new life into a franchise about being stalked by death, takes the idea of savouringeverymoment to heart.
Final Destination: Bloodlines is out in UK cinemas on 14 May, Australian cinemas on 15 May and US cinemas on 16 May