The Final Destination franchise is the rare example of a horror formula done right. In the first act, the hero has a premonition of a freak accident that will kill a large group of people. Armed with this knowledge, the character can avoid (but not always stop) the tragedy, saving loved ones in the process. Unfortunately, it won’t be long until Death returns to finish off those who were “supposed to die,” usually in a predictable order.
I find the concept irresistible. If we can have hundreds of movies about vampires, zombies, and superheroes, why can’t Final Destination be a genre? The films still have a lot more steam in ’em than Freddy or Jason had by their sixth installments.
Final Destination Bloodlines is a lot more creative than its generic title would suggest. The film begins in 1968 at the grand opening of Skyview Tower, a preposterously tall restaurant that resembles Seattle’s Space Needle on growth serum. There’s a single elevator and a narrow set of hard-to-find stairs (nobody knows they exist until an employee points them out) which leads me to believe fire marshals must not exist in the Final Destination universe. A young woman named Iris foresees that the glass dance floor will crack as the restaurant nears capacity, which will kick off a hilarious chain of events that has victims being roasted alive, crushed by pianos, and impaled left and right.
This is thrilling stuff. It usually is, but the humor’s been turned up a skosh. The producers wisely stop just short of jumping the shark entirely, but manage to give the audience more of what they want. Consider how “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” plays from a tinny radio as the diners come falling out of the sky on the valet attendants. I really believe the first stories our prehistoric ancestors ever told was probably “Things That Can Kill You” and the Final Destination films tap into that primal excitement in a darkly funny way.
Fast forward to modern times and we learn that the premonition has in fact become a recurring nightmare for Iris’s college-age granddaughter, Stefani, whose grades are beginning to slip because of her intrusive visions. In an attempt to banish the thoughts and get her life back on track, Stefani travels homeward to meet Grandma Iris, who convinces her their entire family is cursed; Death will come for them in order of oldest to youngest.
You’ve seen this before. You already know that everybody who escaped Death the first time will gather with varying levels of skepticism while the hero struggles to convince them of the danger they’re in. Because they’re dealing with a faceless enemy which can’t explain its motivations (the franchise’s biggest strength), there will be some wild assumptions and leaps of logic that rarely prove right for the characters. In order to get scant insight into their predicament, they’ll have to speak to someone who actually knows what’s going on.
That knowledgeable character is usually the mysterious undertaker played by Tony Todd, who this time around gets a brief origin story. I rolled my eyes at the news that this installment would flesh the character out. Thankfully, his backstory is handled about as well as it could have been. But the rest of his scene? Not so much. I’m sure a lot of fans will appreciate Todd’s real-life send-off, but the way he verbalizes the previously unspoken moral of the Final Destination films comes off so hackneyed that I kinda expected him to turn to the camera and say, “And that’s the final destination.” Wink.
That doesn’t matter. I’m nitpicking a great movie. In a post last year, I said Final Destination may be my favorite horror franchise of all time. That’s still true. I’m looking forward to future installments (so long as soulless studio execs don’t go down the dreaded “reimagining” route). If the filmmakers keep it simple and only innovate just a little in each installment, this franchise could go on forever as far as I’m concerned.
See it with a crowd.
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