‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ is a Gleefully Gory Event

At a Glance: Over the top in all the right ways, Bloodlines breathes fresh life into the franchise with explosive and hilarious mayhem that will leave you wincing in gleeful anticipation from beginning to bloody end.

I’ve just come off a full series binge in anticipation of Final Destination Bloodlines, and what struck me most is the raw creativity of the franchise. A slasher without a slasher, Final Destination instead employs Death itself as its ultimate antagonist.

Oddly and despite the ludicrous Rube Goldberg-esque killings, this somehow makes the franchise more relatable to everyday life – and all the more terrifying for it.In Bloodlines, we follow the same setup that has made this series infamous: a psychic premonition warns someone of an impending disaster, allowing them to avoid their fate – but Death, feeling cheated, stalks the survivors and kills them in gruesome fashion.

This time, we open in the 1960s with a young woman who narrowly prevents a horrific accident at a Sky Needle-style tower. The scene is an opera of carnage, one that leans heavily into the absurdity of it all to morbidly hilarious effect.

In an expansion of the premise, death not only comes for the survivors, but all of their descendants. We jump to present day where we meet a fresh young cast of expendables, a multigenerational family with a checkered history of missing maternal figures. The new cast is refreshing, with strong comedy chops and a chemistry that feels like an authentic, warts-and-all family.

Rising above an already stellar cast is the late Tony Todd, whose brief, ghostly appearance unexpectedly grounds the film and shines a poignant spotlight on the realities of Death – and of Life. It’s an unusually meta final performance for an icon like Todd, who clearly revels in the chance to share his own perspective on mortality that will stick with viewers long after the credits role.

As Death begins to pick off the descendants of the first survivor, the pure joy of the filmmakers in their mean-spirited humor is hard to ignore. The film masterfully plays with expectations, teasing viewers with small beats in which you’re sure this is going to be the thing to do our poor characters in, just to pivot and shock you with something completely outside the realm of a well-adjusted imagination.

The outrageous kills deliver throughout the film, but the stories pacing begins to sag a bit in its final act. The momentum slows and we’re given a “final” standoff with death that feels a bit rushed and underbaked.

Still, it’s hard to knock a sixth installment of a horror franchise for being underbaked, and compared to other long running series, Final Destination continues to satisfy in bloody and innovative new ways.