Now Playing

 Below is a look at the new movie I saw this week, the sixth entry in a popular horror franchise. You can keep up with everything I'm watching by following me on Letterboxd @knighthawk7734.

Final Destination: Bloodlines (Theaters)
Starring: Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, and Brec Bassinger
Synopsis: It’s been 25 years since Death first decided to hunt those that escaped him. In that first Final Destination film it was about a group of high school students who stepped off a plane after a classmate got a premonition. But Death has continued to stalk people in the years since. Now the sixth installment—but first since 2011—is making its way to theaters for the summer movie crowd. In this one, it’s all about a specific family who was never supposed to exist. Can they outrun death? We first meet Stefani (Santa Juana) who is a college student just trying to get through classes. But she’s plagued by a violent and elaborate dream that has haunted her for the past two months. In it she sees Iris (Bassinger), who should be enjoying the best night of her life. But, shortly after getting engaged, The Sky View Tower where she’s enjoying an evening collapses, killing everyone. Stefani doesn’t know what it means, but she thinks that the dream might be of the grandmother she never met—Iris (Gabrielle Rose). After a little digging with her extended family, she finds where Iris is living. She also finds a picture that proves the dream is connected to her grandmother. When Stefani tracks Iris down, things don’t go as planned. Turns out the dream she’s been having is connected to a vision Iris had. Iris used the vision to stop people from dying, and now Death has been hunting them ever since. Stefani thinks her grandmother is crazy, but soon it becomes all too real. Stefani is charged with using her grandmother’s lifetime of research to help save her family, if she can.  I’ve been a fan of the Final Destination franchise since the first one. I was in college when I watched that first tale play out on the big screen. I’ve seen each of the ones in the franchise since, but often they came with diminishing returns. That’s largely why it died out for more than a decade after the fifth installment. This film takes a clever route. It also returns fan favorite Tony Todd in his final screen performance. That is one of the more memorable moments here. I also thought the elaborate death scenes were quite creative. That starts with an opening sequence set at a structure meant to mirror the Space Needle. It works well enough and is entertaining for what it is. The creativity of the death sequences keeps you engaged, even if the narrative around our characters—and the performances of the cast inhabiting those characters—mostly doesn’t. It was fun to revisit the franchise, and this is one of the better installments, but doesn’t live up to the original. Still, if you’re looking for a creative horror film this summer, Final Destination: Bloodlines fits the bill. The film is now playing in theaters nationwide.
Rating: Rated R for strong violent/grisly accidents, and language.
Verdict: Three stars out of five