{"id":31268,"date":"2025-05-15T23:05:35","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T06:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=31268"},"modified":"2025-05-15T23:05:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T06:05:35","slug":"final-destination-bloodlines-spills-gore-with-gusto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=31268","title":{"rendered":"FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES Spills Gore with Gusto"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Running Time: 109 minutes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This feature from Warner Bros. Pictures is currently playing at theaters and on IMAX screens.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been 14 years since the last Final Destination<\/em>\nfilm arrived on cinema screens. Long enough that most would have thought, also\ngiven the end of that chapter, that the story had been fully wrapped up. But\nno, this week sees the franchise expanded with another follow-up. Final\nDestination: Bloodlines<\/em> is a sequel and not a reboot or reimagining. It is\nmost definitely connected to previous entries. The feature isn\u2019t as strong as\nthe original or part five, but it is a solid effort that might just rank third\nin the series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The story begins in the late 1960s in which Iris Campbell\n(Brec Bassinger) and her fianc\u00e9 Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones) decide to attend the\nopening of the Skyview Restaurant Tower. If you\u2019ve seen the trailer or any\nmarketing for the feature, you\u2019ll know that a horrible disaster occurs, leaving\nmany dead. The movie jumps forward to present day and reveals that this vision\nis actually a recurring nightmare of student Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa\nJuana). Recognizing Iris from the dream as her grandmother, she asks her father\n(Tinpo Lee), brother Charlie (Teo Briones) and other family members to fill her\nin on her estranged grandparent. The trail eventually leads to an elderly Iris\n(Gabriella Rose), who warns Stefani that because she has cheated \u201cDeath\u201d back\nin the 60s, their entire family is slated to be wiped out in the near future.\nSoon, skeptical family members meet horrific ends and Stefani must attempt to\nbreak the curse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Those who have seen previous titles in the series will know\nthat they are exaggerated and feature characters meeting gruesomely violent\nends. In fact, they often play out in a darkly humorous tone. The individuals\nare broad and are not overly developed. The entertainment within the film isn\u2019t\nso much about worrying about their fates, as trying to identify who will meet\ntheir end next and exactly how this will occur. There are plenty of red herring\nelements (for example, inanimate objects tumbling and turning dangerous\nmachinery on) and it\u2019s just a matter of figuring out how all the pieces fit\ntogether to deliver a shocking outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new filmmakers behind this chapter understand the\nprinciple, and early on there are plenty of creatively executed moments. The\ndream sequence itself is very elaborate, featuring a number of characters in\nthe restaurant tower, both nasty and nice, meeting jarring fates and things\nbegin going horribly wrong. It\u2019s like watching a 10-minute assembly of all the\nover-the-top death scenes in The Towering Inferno<\/em>. Characters are\nflayed, crushed, and fall hundreds of feet to splatter on the sidewalk below\n(while \u201cRaindrops Keep Fallin\u2019 on My Head,\u201d plays on a radio in the\nbackground).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Early on, there are also notable bits set around a family\nbarbecue and one memorable scene inside a tattoo parlor (the movie really makes\nsome wince-inducing moments out of body piercings), as well as another\nhighlight that takes place on a seemingly ordinary residential street.\nClose-ups and sound are wonderfully used to make viewers nervous about\nseemingly innocuous acts. Some of the characters are also amusing to watch,\nincluding Stefani\u2019s cousin Erik (Richard Harmon) who initially does not believe\nin the curse and makes amusing verbal jabs as he pokes fun at the protagonist\u2019s\nassertions. And there is a really sweet (by horror standards) cameo from Tony\nTodd. Shot just before the actor\u2019s passing, it\u2019s a notable goodbye with some\nfriendly advice for all the characters, as well as audience\nmembers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are a few caveats though. For this reviewer, the film began to run out of steam by the time the characters arrived at the hospital. Some of the events that occur there are certainly elaborate, but not quite as believable in their execution. One begins to note that the crushing of a particular body part is used repeatedly. Another issue with setting a movie like this around a family is how quickly they get over the brutal end of a sibling, uncle or parent. The individuals do grieve for a scene and admittedly have to take action to save themselves, but even still it feels as though those who make a hasty exit from the story aren\u2019t remembered for long by loved ones. And while most of the computer-generated imagery is good, a few bits (particularly at the close) aren\u2019t as impressively rendered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Still, the primary goal of the film is to deliver outrageous executions by an unseen force, and not to labor on the emotional toil and grief of those left behind. Making it look too real would also make the film more disturbing than entertaining. So, I\u2019m not going to be too hard on the picture. While it isn\u2019t perfect, Final Destination: Bloodlines<\/em> is a capable sequel that will impress fans of the series and will, at the very least, rank somewhere in the middle of the franchise. For part six in a long-running series, that is an accomplishment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running Time: 109 minutes This feature from Warner Bros. Pictures is currently playing at theaters and on IMAX screens. It has been 14 years since the last Final Destination film arrived on cinema screens. Long enough that most would have thought, also given the end of that chapter, that the story had been fully wrapped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":31269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[216,3041,3460,5213,7550,7552,7553,7554,7555,7810,8044,9319,11416,13476,16992,18035,19720,22937,23101,23989],"class_list":["post-31268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-216","tag-bloodlines","tag-brec-bassinger","tag-dark-comedy","tag-final-destination","tag-final-destination-bloodlines","tag-final-destination-bloodlines-film-review","tag-final-destination-bloodlines-movie-review","tag-final-destination-bloodlines-review","tag-franchise","tag-gabriella-rose","tag-horror","tag-kaitlyn-santa-juana","tag-max-lloyd-jones","tag-richard-harmon","tag-sequel","tag-teo-briones","tag-tinpo-lee","tag-tony-todd","tag-warner-bros"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}