Since then, "elevated horror" has been more popular. This trend may have started with The Babadook in 2014 and peaked with Longlegs last autumn. These sincerely artistic films often ignore the basic joys of the horror genre in favour of drama, trauma, and directors like Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski, and Nicolas Roeg. I'm pleased to inform people who are experiencing some degree of trauma fatigue that Final Destination is not only back, but better than before.
Not that Bloodlines isn't a higher level than Final Destination. While avoiding taking their film too seriously, directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, who made their debut with the innovative low-budget sci-fi spectacular Freaks, class it up. Their sixth chapter embraces the blatantly absurd premise and gory pleasures that we have grown accustomed to from the 25-year-old series, where cursed characters die at the hands of logging trucks, tanning beds, and eye surgery. Death, with its penchant for intricate Rube Goldberg-style techniques, turns even the most commonplace and inanimate objects into a menace in Final Destination that changes the way we perceive them forever.
The gorgeous opening set piece, which begins with a closeup of a young woman (Brec Bassinger) wearing a blindfold—a playful little detail given she will be seeing into the future—is the most obvious example of it. In addition, she goes by Iris. It's the 1960s. Her boyfriend is driving Iris to an unexpected night out. They are at a beautiful new restaurant opening on an observation deck, where they can enjoy great eating and dancing while taking in the magic hour vistas. The Isley Brothers' "Shout" is being played by a house band to add to the festive atmosphere.
Anyone familiar with the Final Destination formula knows we’re witnessing Iris’s premonition and that things won’t end well for the revellers twisting and shouting on the glass bottom dancefloor. The sequence is engineered to keep us on our toes, anticipating what’s to come. But it holds the tension in such a beautiful unhurried fashion, affectionately doting over the scenery and chemistry between the characters while caught up in the up-tempo romance of the evening.
Not only does the averted catastrophe foreshadow Iris's destiny, but it also foreshadows the whole Final Destination series in retrospect. In its prologue, Bloodlines tinkers with the series mythology by introducing an origin narrative.
The thwarted disaster isn’t just setting the table for Iris’s fate, but, retroactively, the whole Final Destination franchise. Bloodlines introduces an origin story in its prologue that playfully tinkers with the series mythology.
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