Degrees of Squashability a la Final Destination: Bloodlines - A Review

by Rudradeep Biswas

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⚠ SPOILER ALERT: Mild and Obvious Spoilers Ahead!

“Death is everywhere, There are flies on the windscreen for a start, Reminding us we could be torn apart tonight…” Before catching the new Final Destination, the first verse from Depeche Mode’s song “Fly on the Windscreen” is playing in my head—infecting it with a morsel of an idea, a precursor to the irredeemable things I will watch in the next two hours. The downside of media literacy immediately begs the question: does a film like Final Destination: Bloodlines, that relies on shock value, have a place in this age of film? We are more desensitized than ever. Widely circulated (sadly enough) videos of innocent children's heads blown off in political bids for power rule our social media algorithm, and then we go about our day, doomscrolling and not as filthy with remorse as we should be.

Half an hour into the film, this notion is somewhat dispelled as the makers of the latest installment of the mainstream horror faithful's favorite gore offering make it clear that they are increasingly self-aware about the clichés of the series.  They introduce a rather interesting pivot, where the premonition of Iris Campbell watching a skyscraper hotel fall apart, resulting in thousands of deaths, is instead revealed to be the sense of impending doom that Stefani Reyes—her granddaughter and the main character—has started feeling. Not interested in being the mindless teen flick its predecessors were, this film is a family drama straight from the heart, yet funny enough in parts. Meanwhile, following Stef's attempt to unravel her death dream, it is revealed that Iris became estranged from her family decades ago after saving everyone at the hotel. As years passed by, her intuition told her that "death is coming for them", ultimately leading to her becoming a shut-in. 

This plot device sets in motion the narrative of the film: each member on Iris' side of the family tree is destined to die a grisly death in chronological order because she was never meant to thwart death’s plans at the hotel. During my childhood, my classmates had an uncanny fascination with the sequences from the first four, five Final Destination films that, to me, seemed akin to a dark-web lurker's inclination towards snuff. As much as I never bought into the hype, some of the set pieces from the previous films—logs from a truck falling onto a highway crushing a horde of oncoming cars, a gymnast slipping and contorting herself beyond repair, a tanning bed scorching a babe to death, a nail-gun accidentally firing into the head of another lady—were tasteful enough, and emphasized the danger that objects from daily life pose us. 

The first half of Final Destination: Bloodlines lives up to its identity and has some really compelling deaths. Iris finally falls victim to death’s immaculate design via a wind vane, following which Stef's uncle's face is chewed out by his beloved lawn mower in an anxiety-inducing domino sequence. Stef's cousin then falls into a garbage truck and gets her head crushed in the compactor in a yet another surprising pivot, her squanderer of a cousin nearly dies in a tattoo parlor fire with his nose-ring skewered and hung to a fan. Here is where my only diatribe with the film lies: the deaths become relatively dumb in the second half. Stef's vainglorious cousin and his younger sibling's annihilation caused by the over-the-threshold magnetic field of an MRI machine, is perhaps the most overexaggerated and implausible scene in the series and hits two birds with one stone: establishing the Grim Reaper as the behemoth that he is and dismantling the tropes of the series at the same time. 

Yet, the suspension of disbelief starts wearing off at this point. And even I, as an anxiety-addled adult, can't help but scoff at the final 30-45 minutes of Final Destination: Bloodlines. For what it’s worth, one of the most redeeming parts of the film is placed just before the cousin brothers' ridiculous death. The late Tony Todd, famed for his cameos in this franchise and spearheading the creepy Candyman series, makes his final media appearance playing the ominous William Bludworth, giving a rather heartfelt monologue about not fearing death and being one with life. For those unaware, Todd passed away last November from stomach cancer, making his posthumous appearance and final film credit even more endearing and cathartic.

The final third of the film plays out in quite a predictable fashion. However, it does reference a few iconic scenes from previous Final Destination films (you’ll know when you see them). There aren’t many flaws in Final Destination: Bloodlines, and it does seem intent to finally pare down the franchise to rest. The characters are also likable, apart from the father who is excruciating to watch in every scene he occupies. The commute back home from the cinema is likely to make the viewers alert, but not too uncomfortable. Why? Because our growing dossier of knowledge from watching the myriad ways in which people suffer (and die) has lent us a sardonic assurance of life, for better or worse.