Death is funny. Not “coincidental” funny. I mean, like, Death ought to do stand-up. I never noticed that about this franchise before, but Death has quite a sense of humor … like an improv on stage, Death takes suggestions from the actors’ cues: “those guys playing soccer” … “a woman jogging” … ”that green bin” … ”that garbage truck” and then Death immediately puts together an elaborate and gruesome mortality sequence. It would be poetic if it weren’t funny.
And don’t kid yourself, this is humor. It is as dark as humor gets, but the death sequences in Final Destination: Bloodlines are so elaborate and decidedly painful that it is hard to pretend there isn’t a team of sick f***s getting their jollies off inventing them. I swear these late show writing cast-offs challenged themselves to make the most innocuous of objects into a death machine; the film bookends with elaborate “homicides” created, essentially, by a single Abe Lincoln penny. You can almost see the writers’ room as they accuse, “Oh yeah, what can you do with that?” “Hmmm … let me show you…”
You may not be familiar with the Final Destination shtick. Lemme enlighten: The film begins with an elaborate Rube Goldbergian chain effect that culminates in a death sequence claiming at least a dozen bodies or more. In this case, we are at the grand opening of a Skyview [read: Space Needle] restaurant and dance club in 1969. The glass floor in the club cracks causing everybody in the tower to die, one way or another.
Then the film reveals that this is just a character having a premonition, and that character stops the tragedy from happening. In fiction, this is called a cheat. You got us -the audience- to invest in something that isn’t real, which is playing with our emotions, which sucks. HOWEVER, the film knows it cheated us and thus presents the character of Death -unseen and unheard- but as a force dead set on claiming all the lives that should have died if not for the premonition. Hence, the rest of the film is Death killing off people in random ways.
Got it?
The sneaky part of Final Destination: Bloodlines is that Death was lazy (?!) Hence, the woman who had the premonition and saved everybody, Iris, went on to have a baby, and eventually became a grandmother. Nut Death knows. And so now it’s only gonna take down Iris, but everybody alive just because Iris lived in the first place, including children and grandchildren.
We’re let in 
on the joke because college student Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), granddaughter of Iris some 50+ years later keeps waking with dreams of the Skyview tragedy. And here’s where the fun begins. Gentleman, start your bodybags.
Over the course of two hours, lucky audiences got to see (among MANY other colorful deaths) a man lose a fight with a lawnmower, a young woman squeezed to death by a compacting garbage truck, and an overly pierced man dangling from his nose ring as the chain connecting it is wrapped around a ceiling fan. It wasn’t even done with that poor schlub; later on, we see his nipple rings violently wrested from his body via super magnetism.
I’m not going to tell you this is great art. But you know what? It’s not NOT great art, either. Final Destination: Bloodlines is a 100% premise achiever. You came for bloody ridiculous deaths. Here ya go: bloody ridiculous deaths. It’s the “Beavis & Butt-head” of filmdom. You can’t possibly say you didn’t get what you were expecting, and what you wanted to see? Well, it’s there. Is it brilliant? It’s not Einsteinian, but in its own way, it is brilliant. Kudos to your silly film. May there be many more of these.
There once was a bright coed teen
Who envisioned a most gruesome scene
Her grandma it would seem
Cheated Death, in a dream
As for retribution, the latter is quite keen
Rated R, 110 Minutes
Director: Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein
Writer: Guy Busick, Lori Evans Taylor, Jon Watts
Genre: Dark, dark humor
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Final Destination fans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The sane and sensible
