Final Destination: Bloodlines Review (Film, 2025)

content warning: blood, gore, foul language, violence against women, violence against children, alcohol use, grieving

Final Destination: Bloodlines is the Final Destination film we've been waiting for. On one side, the film provides a fitting wrap-up to the lore and threads the needle between the events of the different films in a satisfactory way. On the other side, the film acknowledges and embraces the absurdity of the concept, comfortably toeing the line between horror comedy and slasher.

For those unfamiliar with the premise, Final Destination stories begin with a premonition. Someone gets a glimpse into a horrific, mass casualty event that will end their life. They warn the people around them, narrowly escaping their fate. Death does not like to be thwarted, so Death finds creative ways of tying up loose ends to restore balance to the universe. Death comes for the would-be victims in the order they should have died in the event. There are ways around it, in theory, but nothing we could prove until this film.

Bloodlines brings us back to the 1960s, where a young Iris is going on an exclusive date with her boyfriend Paul. He got them reservations at the brand new observation skyscraper, complete with glass bottom dance floor, for opening night. After they get settled in, Iris starts to get a bad feeling about what's to come and sees everyone in that building die a horrible fate. From the glass floor breaking to people being caught on fire or crushed by a piano, Iris is given a premonition that will save her, her fiance, and countless other people from certain death.

Cut to the present and Iris' granddaughter Stefani is failing out of college due to seeing her grandmother's vision as a recurring nightmare. She has inherited the gift of being able to see what Death's next play is and it's ruining her life. Her family doesn't want anything to do with Iris, long written-off as a crazy old fool, but Stefani is convinced if she meets Iris, everything will change. She's right, but for the wrong reasons. Death has decades of catching up to do and Iris is the last domino left to fall before death comes from Stefani's entire family.

Within the narrative of Final Destination: Bloodlines, we see Iris' decades of research into Death's punishments through Stefani's attempts to save the family. A carefully constructed scrapbook of newspaper clippings and hurried notes shows every other victim and escaped tragedy from the entire series, connecting all events back to Iris' premonition. As the survivors of the skyscraper tragedy finally pass on, their descendants quickly meet gory fates. After all, Death believes they never should have existed to begin with. It's a satisfying retcon to the series that adds some exciting new possibilities for the universe. It also provides a wonderful closing moment for the late, great Tony Todd as JB, now revealed to be the youngest of survivors thanks to Iris' premonition.

On the other side is the camp. Final Destination: Bloodlines is the kind of horror film you kick up your feet and laugh at. It's utterly ridiculous yet firmly within the rules of its own universe. This is the A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Warriors-style shift from sincerity to hilarity.

A recurring gag sees one potential victim tormented repeatedly by his greatest foe: peanut butter. A backyard is filled with dozens of ways of knocking off Stefani's whole family at once, including glass in the ice chest, a rake under a trampoline, and a heavy duty game of Jenga. I knew I was in for a throwback popcorn slasher when a woman, attempting to flea the collapsing skyscraper, catches on fire from a flambe accident and runs into a leaking gas pipe. That is Camp with a capital "C."

I've barely scratched the surface of what Bloodlines provides. This is a fantastic film for fans of the franchise and, honestly, a great intro to see if you might want to dig further in the series.

Final Destion: Bloodlines is currently in theaters.