Rachel Squire is a passionate writer with a strong commitment to authentic storytelling and ethical journalism. As a writer for Hollywood Insider, she brings a deep appreciation for cinema’s power to inspire positive change. She values promoting meaningful media over gossip and sensationalism, and strives to contribute to a culture of integrity and substance in entertainment journalism.
May 30, 2025
Table of Contents
A Deadly Legacy Reborn
More than two decades after the original film debuted, ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ reminds audiences why Death can never be cheated and that the series still packs a lethal punch. As a thrilling addition to the cult horror franchise, ‘Bloodlines’ marks a surprising and sharp return to form and leans into the best traditions of the franchise while expanding the mythology in ways that feel both organic and genuinely unsettling. Director Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein pull off a difficult balancing act of exciting longtime fans with signature set pieces and teasing new directions that could fuel another era of inevitable, inventive fatalities.
The film opens in 1969 when a young couple, Iris (Brec Bassinger) and Paul (Max Lloyd Jones), arrive for dinner at The Skyview, a restaurant on top of a high-rise tower. As they’re enjoying their evening series of fatal events, beginning with a single penny, lead to the tower’s collapse and the gruesome deaths of everyone in the restaurant. The film then cuts to the present day, where Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) wakes up in a college lecture hall from a recurring nightmare she’s been having of Iris, her grandmother, dying in the tower’s collapse. Stefani, plagued by the nightmare, returns home to investigate and find her estranged grandmother to get the truth about that night back in 1969 and get the nightmares to stop.
After her Uncle Howard (Alex Zahara) refuses to help her on account of Iris being “mentally unstable,” Stefani convinces her Aunt Brenda (April Telek) to tell her how to find Iris. Stefani travels to her grandmother’s secluded and heavily booby-trapped cabin in the woods. She finds the now old and ill Iris (Gabrielle Rose), who tells her that the dream she had been having was a premonition Iris had that night at the Skyview, and that because of that premonition, she managed to save the lives of everyone there that night.
However, Death doesn’t like to be cheated. Iris tells her that one by one, each person who survived the pre-destined Skyview catastrophe, as well as their entire bloodline, has met horrible, tragic ends, and that Iris is next and has kept their entire family alive by staying alive herself. Stefani doesn’t believe her at first, but after Iris dies immediately after stepping out of her cabin and Uncle Howard, her oldest son, dies shortly thereafter, Stefani buys into the stories and attempts to convince her family as well.
Of course, her family doesn’t believe her until Howard’s oldest child, Julia (Anna Lore), meets her horrific demise. Once the remaining members of the family, her cousin Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner), mother Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt), and brother Charlie (Tio Briones), believe her, they set out to find a way to stop the curse and save their family from Death’s waiting arms.
Strong Performances Anchor the Horror
Kaitlyn Santa Juana anchors the film with a mix of vulnerability, grit, and emotional depth. She navigates the escalating horror with a grounded realism that makes the film’s supernatural premise feel human. Santa Juana’s portrayal captures the psychological toll of surviving near-death experiences while carrying the burden of trying to outwit an unstoppable force. Whether confronting trauma, unraveling cryptic clues, or facing loss head-on, she brings a compelling intensity that elevates the stakes and adds heart to the franchise’s signature dread.
Tio Briones stands out with his performance that balances charm, tension, and emotional resonance. As the skeptical yet loyal younger brother of Kaitlyn Santa Juana’s character, Briones brings an innocent presence to the chaos, offering moments of levity and sincerity amid the film’s suspense. His performance adds depth to the narrative and makes the losses in the family more poignant and the stakes feel intensely personal.
‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ positions generational trauma not just as subtext, but as a central driving force of the narrative, which elevates the film beyond the franchise’s usual formula of elaborate death sequences and ironic twists of fate. Here, trauma is inherited as much as it is experienced. Stefani isn’t just dodging the grim mechanics of Death’s design, she is confronting the emotional wreckage she inherited from Iris making her mother, Darlene, crazy with all of her talk of all the things in he world that could kill her, leading to her leaving her family when Stefani was ten because she couldn’t stop imagining all the ways her own children could die and believed they’d be better off without her anxieties.
The film’s exploration of generational trauma adds rich psychological tension to its supernatural horror. This emotional layering gives the film a solemnness that’s rarely found in sequels, especially within horror franchises known more for spectacle than substance. When the film slows down to show Stefani confronting the possibility that her mother did what she thought was best for her and Charlie, rather than being mad at her for leaving, it adds emotional complexity to the film. ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ not only honors the legacy of the original films but deepens it. The horror is still there, clever, suspenseful, and gruesome, but it’s the emotional core, the story of a family bound by fate and fear, that lingers.
Lipovsky and Stein understand the rhythm of a ‘Final Destination’ film. The film’s first major death sequence at the Skyview is full of suspense and tension. The sequence teases the catastrophe up until the dance floor finally shatters with cooking fire blazing, loud music, shoes hitting the glass floor, and cracks in the glass. The eventual tragedy is both absurd and horrifying, confirming the film’s understanding of what made the originals so incredible.
The film’s use of practical effects is spectacular and refreshingly old-school. In an age where digital blood blood and CGI body parts have become the norm, ‘Bloodlines’ makes a deliberate and effective pivot back to practical gore and hands-on stunt work. Lipovsky and Stein opt for a more tactile, gritty approach to violence that not only enhances the film’s visceral impact but also pays homage to the franchise’s early roots. Every snapped bone, charred limb, and blood-slicked accident is executed with brutal precision, heightening the sense of danger in a way CGI rarely can. The result is a horror experience that feels unnervingly authentic; one where you wince not just at what happens, but at how real it looks when it does.
What ultimately makes ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ work is its respect for the formula without being stuck in it. It captures the dread, the absurdity, and the terror of the original while finding new emotional and terrifying territory to explore. As credits roll, one thing is clear, death may be inevitable, but with ‘Bloodlines’, the ‘Final Destination’ franchise has never felt more alive.
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Rachel Squire is a passionate writer with a strong commitment to authentic storytelling and ethical journalism. As a writer for Hollywood Insider, she brings a deep appreciation for cinema’s power to inspire positive change. She values promoting meaningful media over gossip and sensationalism, and strives to contribute to a culture of integrity and substance in entertainment journalism.
Rachel Squire is a passionate writer with a strong commitment to authentic storytelling and ethical journalism. As a writer for Hollywood Insider, she brings a deep appreciation for cinema’s power to inspire positive change. She values promoting meaningful media over gossip and sensationalism, and strives to contribute to a culture of integrity and substance in entertainment journalism.
Rachel Squire is a passionate writer with a strong commitment to authentic storytelling and ethical journalism. As a writer for Hollywood Insider, she brings a deep appreciation for cinema’s power to inspire positive change. She values promoting meaningful media over gossip and sensationalism, and strives to contribute to a culture of integrity and substance in entertainment journalism.
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