The Final Destination franchise has always been a macabre celebration of freak accidents and fatal premonitions — and with Bloodlines, the sixth installment, the death train rolls on with unrelenting flair. At first, it’s business as chillingly usual: ordinary objects become instruments of doom, and Death’s shadow creeps around the edges of seemingly mundane moments — a sip from a glass, a trampoline bounce, a stomp on a glass dance floor, or a coin tossed just a little too carelessly.
What sets Bloodlines apart, at least initially, is its sharp buildup and a fresh emotional core. The film centers on an extended, racially diverse family that reunites with genuine warmth, only to have their bonds tested as a half-century-old curse resurfaces. The dread is palpable, and the tension coils tightly in the opening act, delivering on the series’ signature anxiety-inducing set-ups.
At the heart of the film is Iris, played with eerie sensitivity by Brec Bassinger, who unknowingly triggers the new chain of deathly events during a dream date in the 1950s at the newly-opened Skyview restaurant — a precariously perched glass-and-steel structure 500 feet above the ground. The scene is soaked in unease: gusty winds, clinking glasses, and a dangerously overloaded elevator tease the inevitable, and long-time fans will relish spotting every hint of impending doom.
Directors Guy Busick, Lori Evans Taylor, and Jon Watts (who also co-wrote the screenplay) craft a few standout moments that maintain the franchise’s gruesome charm while attempting to add emotional depth. The idea of Death stalking generations of a family introduces a disturbing new layer, giving the kills a more personal, tragic undertone.
However, that emotional investment frays as the film progresses. Once the blood starts spilling, the humanity fades, and the plot sidelines key characters — even forgetting a woman who loses her entire family in a matter of days. The kills escalate in creativity and brutality, but the emotional fallout is never fully reckoned with.
Bloodlines thrives in its campy, over-the-top death sequences and spine-tingling foreshadowing — staples of the Final Destination legacy. Yet, it also flirts with deeper psychological horror, especially in its quieter moments of grief and denial. It’s these whimpers, not the bangs, that truly unsettle.
Ultimately, Final Destination: Bloodlines may not reinvent the formula, but it injects enough fresh dread and familial stakes to keep the franchise very much alive — even as Death keeps coming, coin toss by coin toss.
