Final Destination Bloodlines Review: A Bloody Good Return And A Fun Franchise Best

Most horror franchises enjoy longevity because they stick to a familiar formula: an unstoppable villain, a perennially haunted setting, or a sharp-tongued survivor for the audience to root for. But then, there's the "Final Destination" series, the rowdy cousin of the iconic maniacs we know and love who shows up without a mask, without a monster, and delivers a higher body count than any of our stalking slashers. The "Final Destination" movies don't need to rely on an easily marketable character that stays relevant through remakes, reimaginings, and hot sales on costumes at Spirit Halloween every spooky season, because its big bad is, well, Death. The fear of "Final Destination" is not rooted in a singular baddie to overcome, but the invisible, inevitable — and apparently obsessed with butchering ala Rube-Goldberg machines — entity that comes for us all — Death.

I'm a firm believer that there's no such thing as a bad "Final Destination" film, with even the weakest of the bunch still a hoot and hollerin' good time. Now, 14 years after "Final Destination 5" shocked audiences everywhere with its surprise twist ending, "Final Destination Bloodlines" has returned to put an end to Death's design for good, and potentially serve as a launchpad for future films to come. Fortunately, the film is well worth waiting nearly a decade and a half, as the story from Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor is the most satisfying yet, and Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein skyrocketed above the already high bar they set with their much buzzed about means of earning their spots in the directors' chairs.

I say this with no hyperbole, "Final Destination Bloodlines," the sixth installment in the franchise, is the bloody best one yet.

"Final Destination Bloodlines" opens with the series tradition of an unsuspecting character facing a dreadful accident that will be responsible for a mass casualty event, only for them to realize that the horrors they've just witnessed was actually a premonition for things to come. In this case, it's soon-to-be-mother Iris Campbell (Brec Bassinger), who on this night in the 1960s, successfully saved the lives of hundreds of people who would have otherwise met splattery (or fiery) ends — including one of the most disgustingly graphic degloving scenes I've ever seen.

But the premonition we've witnessed is seen by more than just Iris, as her granddaughter Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) has been plagued with a recurring nightmare of the tragedy, unknowingly seeing the disaster that drove her grandmother to become a mentally unwell recluse. With her university grades suffering from a lack of sleep due to the nightmares, she travels back to her hometown to talk to her family and try to get to the bottom of what's tormenting her.

It's this set-up that separates "Bloodlines" from its predecessors. Everyone in Death's pathway is a member of Stefani's immediate family, and there's not one unlikable character in the bunch. Stefani's younger brother Charlie (Teo Briones) is an early adopter of her theory that Death is coming to prune the branches of the family trees of anyone who survived the night of Iris' premonition (and therefore should never have been born), and even though her cousins — Erik (a scene-stealing Richard Harmon), Julia (the always perfectly-cast Anna Lore), and himbo sweetheart Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) are skeptical at first, they're all such lived-in characters that you wish by some gift of the universe that they'll all survive. But this is a "Final Destination" movie, and we all know better than to get attached to these characters.

Prior "FD" movies typically feature at least a couple of characters the audience can't wait to see obliterated, but that isn't the case with "Bloodlines." We know their deaths are inevitable, but there's an added layer of "Oh nooooo!" with each added tally to the body count because these characters are so easy to love. Even when Stefani's estranged mother Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt) shows up, the film quickly makes us empathetic toward her, and puts a pit in our stomach because we know she's probably not making it out of here alive.

A "Final Destination" movie lives and dies by its kills, and while I don't think anything will ever top the culture-shifting power of the logging truck from "Final Destination 2," "Bloodlines" is filled with plenty of new ways to make you paranoid about the world around you. Lawn mowers, garbage trucks, MRI machines, vending machines, and even septum piercings are all given the "1000 Ways To Die" treatment with bloody brilliance. The Rube-Goldberg machine setups are so delightfully tense, I could hear my entire theater squirming in their seats. Half the fun of a "Final Destination" movie is seeing if you can figure out what tricks Death is planning on playing before it actually strikes, and "Bloodlines" paces the carnage out perfectly, with plenty of room for bait-and-switch reveals.

The premonition opening kill is unquestionably one of the best in the series, and will undoubtedly be responsible for a sharp decline in attendance of glass-bottomed rooftop decks. (For the record, I was scared as hell of those places before "Bloodlines," but now I'm definitely never going up there.) With an estimated 496 deaths either shown directly (or implied, like in train/plane crashes) before this latest film, the "Final Destination" team (including longtime producers like Craig Perry and Sheila Hanahan Taylor) have proven they have plenty of totally messed-up ideas for how to kill people up their sleeves, leading me to believe (see also: hope/pray) that this isn't the end of the series.

As fun as the kills are, it's pairing the creative methods of annihilation with characters you desperately wish could survive that makes it all work. One of the most anxiety-riddled moments comes when a character attempts to follow the path of Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook) in "Final Destination 2" by intentionally dying in the hopes of being resurrected to "cheat" Death by deliberately going into anaphylaxis. It's an uncomfortably real moment that helps ground the purposefully over-the-top series, reminding us that Death doesn't always arrive with a parade; sometimes it moves in silence ... gasping, clawing, swollen, silence.

"Bloodlines" also marks the final film appearance of franchise mainstay and horror icon Tony Todd, who returns as William John "J.B." Bludworth, the coroner turned mortician (and voice of the Devil animatronic at the carnival in "Final Destination 3") who often serves as the lore dropper for panicky white kids going toe-to-toe with Death. Throughout the series, Bludworth was presented as the all-knowing expert on Death, as well as an ominous harbinger that led many horror fans to believe the character was simply Death personified.

"Bloodlines" finally gives Bludworth a chance to tell his story, but more importantly, say goodbye. Without divulging any spoilers, Todd delivers a monologue from the perspective of Bludworth regarding death that doubles as Todd saying farewell to the horror fans who made him a legend. A film about cartoonish, extravagant extinctions had me laughing my ass off, writhing in discomfort, and crying from heartbreak all in less than two hours.

Right now, the film industry is in a weird place, with studios and financiers far more willing to return to the well of proven hits than take the risk on something original. But "Final Destination Bloodlines" proves that there is still gold to be mined as long as you have people at the helm who genuinely care about making the best movie possible.

When the world feels like it's on fire and atrocities are inescapable, there are few outlets for cathartic stress relief quite like a "Final Destination" movie. We're a culture plagued by existential dread already, so why not have fun shrieking, laughing, and judging people for their dumb decisions without consequence? Watching a film like "Final Destination Bloodlines" in a theater full of screaming strangers is my kind of community building.

/Film Rating: 8 out of 10

"Final Destination Bloodlines" opens in theaters on May 16, 2025.