Final Destination Bloodlines Review: An Unexpectedly Endearing Gorefest

Life is full of surprises: Birthday parties. Snow days. But one thing that is never a surprise is the "Final Destination" franchise. With these films, you can expect to get exactly what it says on the tin. "Final Destination Bloodlines" — one of the many horror sequels hitting theaters in 2025 — is the latest outing in this series about attempting to cheat Death, and although the conceit is well-worn by this point, it's a genuinely fun flick from directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, who previously helmed the indie thriller "Freaks." With gory, inventive set pieces and engaging performances from its young cast, "Final Destination Bloodlines" is pure, pulpy entertainment.

You know the drill by now. When someone inadvertently evades Death (normally by having a vision of a future calamity that they're able to avert), that doesn't sit well with Death, who puts in serious overtime in finding gruesome ways to kill them so that balance is restored. In this case, our clairvoyant hero is Iris (Brec Bassinger), who is taken by her boyfriend to the grand opening of the Skyview, a glamorous restaurant hundreds of feet above the ground and definitely not built to code. She has a vision of the entire building collapsing, and is able to warn everyone in time before there are any fatalities. This, as you can well understand, really grinds Death's gears.

Fast forward half a century, and Iris's granddaughter Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) is having debilitating nightmares about the Skyview, leading her to seek out her estranged grandmother. What she discovers is, understandably, something of a shock. Death has been coming for each of the survivors of the foiled Skyview accident, and once it succeeds in killing Iris, it'll continue on with the rest of her bloodline. So now, it's up to Stefani to find a way to protect her family, cheating Death for as long as they can.

The fact that the story is built around a family unit that is being picked off one-by-one goes a long way in adding to its emotional currency. It becomes easy to care about this tight-knit group of cousins because the stakes for them are immediately clear. Each death is not just a shock, but the loss of a beloved family member. Each of the kids — from Stefani and her younger brother Charlie (Teo Briones) to their three cousins, Erik (Richard Harmon), Julia (Anna Lore), and Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) — are well-cast and genuinely engaging. They're each far less one-dimensional than we might expect from this type of horror film, and the brothers Erik and Bobby are standouts. The comedic relief they bring speaks to how well the directors understand how to balance humor and gruesome death in a film like this.

Because if there's one thing "Final Destination" has mastered, it's the art of the inventive, unabashedly gruesome set piece where someone is killed by a version of Death who's nursing a bruised ego. The death scenes here are top-notch, from the extended opener with the Skyview Restaurant to the family barbecue that sets off the violence in the present day. Although there are comedic touches that prove no one involved in the production was taking things too seriously, there's also a palpable tension as you, like Stefani and Iris before her, begin to clock all the ways that the characters might die horribly.

Ultimately, the biggest metric of success for a horror film like this, where characters are killed off in rapid succession, is whether or not the audience cares when they die. It is shocking how many horror films stumble over this hurdle. You can put in as many bloody hatchet jobs and jump scares as you want, but if we're not rooting for the characters to overcome the odds and survive, none of it really matters. "Final Destination Bloodlines" doesn't have an issue here: We become attached to the misbegotten Campbell-Reyes clan, and hope that they might somehow manage to pull one over on Death.

Not that movies like this need to have themes or a deeper message — most of the time we're satisfied with buckets of gore — but there is something compelling about the idea of generational trauma in "Final Destination Bloodlines." The young cousins make an effort to "break the cycle," ostensibly referring to the path Death takes to reclaim those who have outsmarted him and their descendants, but also the inherited trauma of their family. Iris caused harm to her children — by becoming so fixated on Death, they were eventually taken away from her — and Stefani's mother left her and Charlie to avoid doing the same thing to them. With this battle against Death, they have a chance to stop this pattern in its tracks, one way or another.

Don't get me wrong, "Final Destination Bloodlines" is a profoundly silly movie. There are no Oscars heading its way, and even a top-tier "Final Destination" film is going to fall somewhere in the middle of the larger horror genre. It's a one-trick pony, and only the skill of the directors keep it fresh. But that said, "Final Destination Bloodlines" is a tremendous amount of fun, especially if you can see it in a theater (preferably with an audience willing to match its energy). I said that "Final Destination" offers no surprises, and yet this iteration of the concept is a pleasant one.

"Final Destination Bloodlines" hits theaters on May 16.