Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Final Destination: Bloodlines Movie Review

Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)

Rent Final Destination: Bloodlines on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Guy Busick & Lori Evans Taylor (screenplay by), Jon Watts and Guy Busick & Lori Evans Taylor (story by), Jeffrey Reddick (based on characters created by)
Directed by: Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein
Starring: Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, Tony Todd
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
Plagued by a recurring violent nightmare, a college student returns home to find the one person who can break the cycle and save her family from the horrific fate that inevitably awaits them.

Verdict
This is a lot of fun, provided you can stand more than a few incredibly gory deaths. It's a Rube Goldberg machine of death, and each one taps into common fears. The movie realizes that a large part of the fun is the anticipation. It's a solid horror movie despite an unseen villain, and the way this keeps you guessing as to what item will actually kill someone is incredibly engaging. This even manages to find a way to tie all the movies together, albeit loosely. By connecting the movies and providing homage to some of the greatest scenes of the franchise, this impressed me far more than I expected.
Watch It.

Review
It's clear the movie knows the audience in just the first few minutes. We see several elements that could lead to death, and of course all of this is at a brand new restaurant hundreds of feet in the air. This takes a common fear to the maximum, and what a sequence that generates. It turns out to be a reoccurring dream for college student Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), a nightmare that's disrupting her life.

We get scenes where the anticipation is off the charts. At a backyard barbecue we wonder if it will be the piece of glass, the gas grille, or the rusty rake. The movie knows what it's setting up, having characters start and stop just before something bad almost happens. When it breaks, it breaks hard with gruesome and horrifying deaths.

I like how this finds a thread to connect every single movie. It's not even a big lift. The reason death is after her family is the same reason death was after everyone in all the other movies. You can't skip your destiny.

Kaitlyn Santa Juana plays Stefani

This has so much fun with the concept. There are so many ways Eric could die in the tattoo shop. He has so many near misses without realizing it. Just as we're sure it's the end the movie has another surprise. This even plays with the common tropes.

All of the death sequences are well plotted, though they all become gross. Nearly everything we see in the lead up to a death plays a part.

The entire movie is characters thinking they've cracked the code and are safe only to realize they aren't. You're never safe. It's a back and forth. Just when they think it's okay, the rug is pulled out from under them and someone dies. On top of that, this movie knows the log scene from the second movie is an ever lasting memory for anyone that's seen it. It's too good of a scene not to put a twist on it. This knows that everyone wants to see the death machine unfold, and this provides exactly what you want to see.

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