After spending time revisiting all of the Final Destination films, I found the long wet cement of my opinions on the franchise finally hardening. Until now, I wasn’t quite certain on the merits of the horror series in which the unseen force of Death gleefully slaughters special individuals who at first escape Death’s grasp. There is something fun about the premise, and in discrete moments this sense of fun comes to the fore. But often, these films are fairly mild in terms of horror and fail to nail the comedy tone that I think is necessary for these film to work at all.

Final Destination: Bloodlines, thankfully, fully understands the assignment. There are moments that lean towards serious drama, but in the main this film makes comedy out of an inherently silly premise. At the same time, directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein succeed in crafting 2-3 fantastically gnarly set pieces that depict absolute mayhem.

For those unfamiliar, the premise of Final Destination involves an instance of horrific mass death, which one character has a vision of before it happens. This character sees all of the death in grisly detail, then snaps back to reality with just enough time to warn others and save at least a few people who were “supposed” to die in the accident. Unfortunately, Death is always close behind…

Except, in the case of Bloodlines, he is apparently quite slow. So many people were meant to die in the collapse of Skyview tower in 1968 that it takes decades for Death to catch up and kill the stragglers. It takes so long, that many survivors have started families. Death wants the whole lineage of these survivors, and he has come to collect on one family in particular.

Also, if you really want to get into the weeds, the film also implies that perhaps every other accident in this franchise has stemmed from these Skyview “bloodlines.” We get an expository notebook of certain doom with silly images that reminds us of the past (drawings of a plane and a flatbed truck filled with logs). So I suppose we are meant to believe that every person on the flight in the first film had a family member at the Skyview opening in 1968. It’s really quite silly, but all of this stuff is anyway. I can hardly find the energy to care about the nuts and bolts of all this.

Speaking of nuts and bolts…the premonition sequence that opens Bloodlines is exhilarating. It is a light year ahead of the rest of the franchise in terms of aesthetic and visual storytelling. And this storytelling is almost elegant in its simplicity…until it literally drops a piano through the middle of that elegance. If I’m being unclear, let me assure you that this is a compliment. The looping progression that involves a penny, a bratty little boy, and this piano is a Three Stooges bit amplified to insane levels. The sequence takes a long time to develop, but the whole thing is a juicy morsel of morbid delight. It is probably the best set piece of the entire franchise.

Other set pieces in Final Destination: Bloodlines are a sufficiently bloody good time. The barbecue and tattoo parlor sequences hinted at in promotional trailers are great. But what is most fun is the drawn out deaths of two characters, who react to the knowledge of their impending doom in drastically different but equally interesting ways. This culminates in a ludicrous sequence that is hilarious once the viewer can let go of any pretense of realism.

The film is not perfect. Fun though the set pieces are, the gaps between them are long and arduous. For whatever reason, the script requires not one but two expository characters who each get one long scene to monologue about how the plot will continue (this is on top of the aforementioned book of exposition, a third totem of lazy screenwriting that hangs over this film). This wizened expert is a classic and properly ridiculed trope of horror; it’s a lazy storytelling shortcut that grinds films to a halt. It is understandable to want to bring Tony Todd back (he’s one of the two characters in question), and I’m glad they did. Seeing Todd on screen one more time is great. Giving him little to do other than provide boring exposition is a shame.

In the end, those with a fondness for Final Destination will get their itch scratched and then some with Bloodlines. For everyone else, it’s one of the few good options you have right now at the box office.

Final Destination: Bloodlines: B

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As always, thanks for reading!

—Alex Brannan (Letterboxd, Facebook)