If I excitedly proclaimed that TobyMac’s sixth album was a shining piece of art, it’s doubtful that it would move the needle on folks unenthusiastic about the band. Rarely do artistic endeavors get six times up to bat to prove their mettle. If a show’s first two episodes don’t grab you, you’re not sticking around for that fateful sixth episode that turns everything around. An artist behind five dismal paintings isn’t going to inspire a lot of hope for their sixth.
The Final Destination movies were certainly never as obnoxious as a typical TobyMac track. However, this franchise’s track record was firmly set in the (to quote Letterboxd parlance) 2.5-ish star range. The original 2000 feature that started it all was fine, but not especially remarkable Final Destination 3 got some mileage out of Mary Elizabeth Winstead and some split diopter shots, but couldn’t quite cut the mustard either. The less said about the universally despised The Final Destination 3D, the better.
Somehow, though, 2011’s Final Destination 5 was like a magic trick. All of a sudden, more imaginative dark fun and visual panache was imbued into this saga right down to a delightful end credits montage set to AC/DC. In an extra weird twist, Final Destination: Bloodlines, the sixth entry in the series, is unquestionably the first really unabashed winner in this horror saga. Sometimes, the sixth try is the charm. TobyMac, maybe there’s hope for you yet.
Screenwriters Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor kick Bloodlines off on the right note with an extended prologue set in 1968 following a young Iris Campbell (Brec Bassinger). She and her lover are visiting a newly opened restaurant located miles up into the air, the Skyview, There's an enjoyable irony-free embrace of distinctly old-school archetypes in this segment (particularly through the committed performances) that immediately imbues Bloodlines with a fun atmosphere. There's a tremendously annoying kid who causes mayhem wherever he goes. Campbell and her boyfriend also quickly discover an overly exuberant elevator operator. There's even an exceedingly snooty Matre’d channeling the spirit of Ian Richardson.
As Iris begins to get an increasingly ominous feeling on the Skyview's dance floor, directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein and editor Sabrina Pitre begin displaying their keen sense of showmanship. The playful set-ups for blood-soaked mayhem (like a penny soaring through the air) are good for a chuckle, but the quick cuts in this scene are especially memorable. Constantly moving from close-ups of singers belting out the Isley Brothers song "Shout" to a cook sizzling a dish with an open fire to feet stomping on increasingly precarious ice, it all imbues a heavy weight of dread in your stomach. They absolutely wring all possible entertainment out of this build-up.
It's also neat that Lipovsky and Stein are embracing a distinctly new visual language compared to past Final Destination movies. These quick cuts and more intimate framing, not to mention the period-era costumes and sunset-tinged backdrop, immediately differentiate the Bloodlines prologue from the previous five opening acts in this saga. Similarly, emphasizing just Iris, rather than speeding through a bunch of college students/co-workers/NASCAR audience members accentuates the set piece's emotional urgency. Audiences follow just one person as Iris gradually realizes something's wrong. That tension really feels overwhelming when viewed through a singular lens. Eventually, though, everyone here dies, including Iris…which is when Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) wakes up.
This modern-day college student can't sleep because she keeps having horrible nightmares of people brutally dying at the Skyview. Turns out, though, this isn't just some random blast from the past. Iris is Stefani's grandmother. That dream is the premonition that Iris had on her fateful Skyview trip. As anyone who's seen the last five Final Destination movies knows, death doesn't like to be cheated. Nobody should've survived that collapse. Subsequently, Death's come after all the survivors and their descendants. Now, it's time for Stefani and her relatives to pay the price of Iris having that vision. Those relatives include Stefani's younger brother Charlie (Teo Briones), their estranged mother Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt), Uncle Howard (Alex Zahara), and his offspring Julia (Anna Lore), Erik (Richard Harmon), and Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner).
This is where Bloodlines kicks its plot into high gear, as the descendants of Iris begin to go one by one. Busick and Taylor's script isn't quite as adept, unfortunately, with some of the familial drama as it is with the masterful prologue. The story just bites off more than it can chew in terms of specific fractured dynamics between family members. Darlene as the absent mother, for instance, gets awkwardly and abruptly introduced into the story, ditto Stefani’s contempt for her. Similarly, Charlie’s frustration over his older sister growing distant suffers from an excess of telling, not showing.
While the macabre comedy in Bloodlines is rife with passionate creativity, these dialogue-heavy scenes involving family members bickering and proclaiming “you were never there!” radiate obligation. Luckily, they don’t take up too much screentime from the main attraction: entertainingly cartoonish death scenes. Both the screenwriters and directors have a blast with rug-pulls and fake-outs for when characters just might bite the dust, particularly with the darkly humorous side character Erik. The eventual demises are just as fun in their over-the-top execution, particularly one creatively brutal slaying in a hospital. Dark comedy wit is the main course for Bloodlines, and it's delicious.
That tastiness is helped thanks to Lipovsky, Stein, and cinematographer Christian Sebaldt's sharp visual sensibilities in framing these deaths. One supporting character, for instance, has their fate sealed while walking down the sidewalk in the background in a wide shot. That event is humorously juxtaposed against three temporarily oblivious characters debating the potential viability of Death as a slasher villain. The uber-precise blocking and lack of intrusive cuts render this moment a riot. Those savvy imagery-based inclinations extend to the fun use of IMAX cameras to capture every inch of the splattery mayhem. How darkly amusing to see tools previously used filming nature documentaries and Christopher Nolan movies on people’s heads exploding.
All these fun attributes belong specifically to Bloodlines in the context of the Final Destination franchise. It’s like Lipovsky & Stein and company looked at the past five movies and decided to make something that fulfilled all their untapped potential rather than a rigid retread. This feature’s even a standout entry from many horror movie legacy sequels from the last decade. Sure, the Bloodlines script also has an experienced older lady hiding out in isolated confines waiting for her traumatic past to resurface.
However, the innately limited lifespan of Final Destination protagonists means that Bloodlines can’t rely on this saga’s equivalent of Sydney Prescott or Laurie Strode to carry the day. This is a standalone feature with distinctly individual charms compared to the previous Final Destination entries. This especially manifests in the title’s imagery, which is chock-full of fun unique visual motifs like playful Dutch angles or juxtaposing the gnarliest deaths against brightly lit suburban confines. The directors of 2019’s live-action Kim Possible movie have done something nuttier than evading death. They made a sixth Final Destination feature deeply entertaining rather than a cashgrab. Forget offering hope to TobyMac. Maybe this means any long-running horror franchise can eventually reach its full creative potential…except for Insidious. There’s nothing worth salvaging from those dismal movies.
Sidenote: I couldn’t find a place to mention it in this review, but Tony Todd’s one scene in Bloodlines is tremendously moving. What an honor to see one of his last movie appearances on a massive IMAX screen. Horror cinema won’t be the same without this legend.