Film Review: Final Destination Bloodlines 死神來了：血脈 (2025) - USA
Tagline: A Gruesome, Witty Dance with the Reaper
Rating: ★★★★☆ (8/10)
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
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Death takes a vacation? Hardly. After a decade's silence, the Grim Reaper returns to the multiplex with “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” and it’s a surprisingly robust, bloody, and darkly funny resurrection. Co-directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, this sixth entry doesn't reinvent the death trap, but it remembers why we flinched and laughed in the first place. It’s a vibrant, gruesome spectacle that winks at its own absurdity while offering a surprisingly resonant, if pulpy, meditation on fate’s cruel persistence.
The film wastes no time plunging us back into its fatalistic rhythm. A gleaming new observation tower, Seattle’s latest skyline piercer, becomes the stage for the inaugural catastrophe. We meet Iris (a convincingly anxious Brec Bassinger) and her boyfriend Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones). The ascent is pure, masterful tension. Lipovsky and Stein understand that dread isn't just about the “what”, but the “when” and “how”. Every flickering light, every creaking bolt, every innocuous close-up – a loose screw, a condensation-slick glass – feels like a ticking bomb. It’s Hitchcockian in its meticulous setup, pure "Final Destination" in its gleeful, gory payoff. Iris’s panic isn't mere vertigo; it’s the chilling echo of a future already written.
The franchise’s enduring, perverse charm lies in its unique alchemy: slapstick choreography meets Grand Guignol. "Bloodlines" delivers this in spades. Each demise is a Rube Goldberg machine of misfortune, a dark ballet executed with macabre precision and an undeniable streak of sick humor. Think Sam Raimi’s "Evil Dead" era, where the horrific becomes hysterical through sheer audacious invention. The film embraces its inherent ridiculousness, allowing the audience to ride a wave that crests alternately in shocked gasps and nervous giggles. Is it wrong to laugh as a victim is dispatched by a rogue garden hose and an ill-placed trampoline? The film argues it’s part of the ride.
Delightfully, "Bloodlines" weaponizes Chekhov’s principle like no other. The entire film becomes a treasure hunt for doom. A beer bottle left precariously? “Check.” A faulty elevator panel? “Check.” A stray BB pellet? “Double check.” The filmmakers invite us to play along, cataloging the innocuous objects destined for deadly deployment. It transforms passive viewing into an engaging, morbid game of "I Spy."
Yet, beneath the viscera and laughs, "Bloodlines" finds surprising weight. It grapples earnestly, within its genre confines, with free will versus an implacable universe. If Death has your number, can you truly cheat it? The characters’ desperate scrambles feel poignant against the cosmic inevitability. This existential thread, woven through generations via Iris’s visions linking past family trauma to present peril, adds a layer of unexpected gravity. The notion that fate might be an inherited burden resonates deeper than expected.
A lump forms in the throat during Tony Todd’s final bow as the cryptic mortician, William Bludworth. Todd imbues his few scenes with a gravitas that transcends the material. His voice, a gravelly rumble of doom, carries the weight of the entire franchise and, heartbreakingly, the knowledge of his own mortality. His performance here isn’t just acting; it feels like a farewell, lending his pronouncements on death an unnerving, profound truth. It’s a powerful moment connecting the film’s fantastical horror to the universal human experience.
While not reinventing the wheel (or the death-by-wheel sequence), "Bloodlines" successfully jump-starts the franchise. It understands its assignment: deliver creatively gruesome demises, leaven them with wit, maintain a relentless pace, and offer just enough thematic meat to chew on. The cinematography is sharp, finding a perverse beauty in the carnage, while the sound design makes every creak and splatter land with impact.
In conclusion, “Final Destination: Bloodlines" is a bloody good time. It’s a confident, self-aware return that honors the series’ legacy while injecting fresh energy and surprising depth. It makes you jump, it makes you laugh (sometimes guiltily), and it might just make you ponder the fragility of it all as you double-check that wobbly ceiling fan on your way out. After all, as Bludworth might intone, death designed life... and it’s always watching. Keep an eye on that penny. (Neo 2025)