For over 25 years, the Final Destination franchise has haunted audiences with its unique brand of horror, the terror of cheating death.
To date, millennials and Gen Zers are terrified to drive behind log trucks or ride an overpacked elevator. The franchise’s sixth installment, Final Destination: Bloodlines, continues the gruesome battle with fate, but this time, it includes significant levels of emotional depth that make it much more terrifying.
“This one’s so much different than the other ones in terms of it being about a family and people who have known each other their whole lives,” actor Kaitlyn Santa Juana told Blavity’s Shadow and Act in a recent interview.
Final Destination: Bloodlines follows the story of Juana’s character, Stefani, as she fights to save her family from impending doom.
Stefani is the oldest of two children and an overachieving college student now facing academic probation because her horrifying nightmares prevent her from reaching her potential. The uneasy feelings she experiences as a result of the nightmares push Stefani to take a trip home to get some answers.
After following the prophecies from her dreams and pulling information from her family, Stefani ends up at the home of her alienated grandmother, Iris, whose premonitions and halting of a massive supper club disaster in 1968 set the vindictive wheels of death in motion.
The family ties in ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’
As Stefani does her best to urge her father, brother and extended family, including an aunt and three cousins, to get on board with her plan to cheat death, she’s dismissed and met with disgruntled reactions.
The only person who believes her is her estranged mother, Darlene, played by Rya Kihlstedt.
Darlene’s upbringing of always running from death along with her mother, Iris, caused her to leave her children, Stefani and Charlie (Teo Briones), in hopes of giving them a normal life without the cloud of deathly generational trauma looming over their heads.
“Because it’s somebody you know, it’s somebody in your family, it’s somebody you love, and you know where you stand in the list, those stakes go up really fast,” Kihlstedt said of the unexpected emotional pull the horror film could have on viewers.
While Bloodlines deviates from the franchise’s established blueprint of strangers or groups of friends attempting to outrun fate, franchise fans won’t be disappointed with the new family dynamic, as their different personalities don’t spare any chances for conflict.
Richard Harmon plays Stefani’s skeptical cousin, Erik (Richard Harmon), whose unknown secret changes the trajectory of the film.
“I had so much fun playing this character, and he was allowed to make the quick one-liners and the snarky remarks, which I think on a franchise like Final Destination, which I grew up with, and it’s been terrorizing me for 25 years, it’s so much fun to play comedy in it because you just make light of,” Harmon said.
Erik’s sarcastic sister, Julia (Anna Lore), shares several relatable love-hate moments with her cousin, who comes home with a family death notice. Their younger brother, Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner), follows his big brother, even if it’s to his demise.
Bringing the epicness of the franchise in IMAX
This installment is also special because it features the last onscreen appearance of late actor Tony Todd as mortician William Bludworth, who died in November.
In previous series films, the characters sought Bludworth’s advice on cheating or halting death. Bloodlines creates a thoughtful narrative early in the movie with context for Bludworth’s knowledge of the twisted fate and why he was such an impactful character in the franchise.
The cultural fixture that the Final Destination franchise evolved into was one of the main reasons why directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein reprised it after 14 years. The two creatives, who even faked their deaths in the film’s pitch meeting, erred on the side of “go big or go home” when it came to the IMAX-ready film and its signature fatality scenes.
“We really wanted to find a way of bringing that epicness that Final Destination‘s kinda known for, especially knowing that it’s gonna be in theaters and on IMAX,” Lipovsky said. He added, “You wanna kind of feel something huge onscreen, knowing that it’s gonna be combined with the insanity that Final Destination is known for. When people go flying out of these buildings or get lit on fire, you’re not gonna cut away; you’re gonna show exactly what happens, which is a really unique opportunity.”
Final Destination: Bloodlines is in theaters now.
