‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ review: Death makes a glorious comeback

There’s a bad moon a-rising. Almost a decade-and-a-half since the franchise’s last blood-soaked calamity fest, Final Destination 5, and a quarter of a century on from the series’ inception, the supercharged Final Destination Bloodlines proves there’s life in the old Death yet.

It’s not exactly a reboot, given the spartan nature of the films’ general premise: you just know a teen will experience a premonition about an oncoming disaster, prevent it from happening and watch helplessly as the Grim Reaper returns for the survivors in a series of elaborately gory set-pieces. But Final Destination Bloodlines is even more self-aware than its predecessors, with hugely enjoyable results.

Bloodlines opens in 1968 – though it looks more like the ‘50s – when Iris (Brec Bassinger) and her beau, Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones), visit a swish new restaurant atop a perilously high building clearly modelled on Seattle’s ‘Space Needle’. Iris’ fear of heights is already twitching when a bell boy cheerfully informs them that construction was completed five months ahead of schedule; the ensuing carnage will be enough to keep you grounded for the rest of your life. Steel splinters, glass cracks and bodies tumble to the unforgiving pavement below, showering security guards in cartoonish bursts of blood. A macabre punchline involving a piano and a naughty kid prompted a round of applause at the screening NME attended.

Before you can say “it was all a dream”, we fast-forward to the present, as Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) wakes up abruptly from a nightmare in which all of the aforementioned chaos played out. What could it mean?

It’s to their credit that directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein don’t waste much time on this question, since we already have a rough idea of the answer anyway. Soon Stefani learns that Iris, her grandmother, saw said accident coming, stopped it and saved hundreds of lives. Death spent decades correcting this affront and is now coming for the survivors’ children and grandchildren – following the bloodline, geddit? – which spells high-concept trouble for Stefani and her family.

Cue a get-together that results in the goriest lawnmower sequence since that episode of Mad Men, an extraordinary meeting of nipple piercings and MRI scanners as well as a fabulously nasty set-piece in a tattoo parlour. The relentlessness of these killings could and possibly should be depressing and tawdry; what most impresses about Final Destination Bloodlines is the filmmakers’ success in keeping the tone so comical and uproarious throughout, which shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s probably the best version of this film you could expect to see.

There’s a borderline emotional cameo from late series stalwart Tony Todd, who sadly died not long after filming the scene in which he warns our would-be survivors to enjoy life because “you never know when” your time is up.

Overall, though, Bloodlines is a deliriously daft celebration of all the silliness that made the franchise so much fun in the first place, as characters pick apart the premise in a manner reminiscent of Scream. With a killer soundtrack that swings from Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Bad Moon Rising’ to the Isley Brothers’ ‘Shout’, it’s basically one big cinematic party for likeminded sickos. Watch out for the lawnmower.