With a gigantic restaurant in the sky crashing to the ground (and the all-time-worst use of an MRI machine),Final Destination Bloodlineshas reinvigorated the long-strugglingFinal Destinationfranchise. DirectorsAdam SteinandZach Lipovskyareopen to doing a sequel, especially now thatBloodlineshas gently tweaked the formula of what aFinal Destinationmovie can be, but there are no concrete plans for a follow-up yet. Still, much like how thwarting Death’s design reverberates throughout generations in the movie,the impact ofBloodlinesis already being felt by the rest of the series.
Bloodlineslanded on HBO Max on August 1, joining the other five movies, and they all seem to be enjoying aBloodlinesbump. Four of the six movies are in HBO Max’s top 10, despite the fact that almost every one of them has lower than a 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Though, appropriately, the two not on Max’s top 10 are the two with the lowest ratings:Final Destination 3(the one withMary Elizabeth Winsteadand a roller coaster) andThe Final Destination, a.k.a. the fourth one (it’s in 3D and has the racetrack deaths).
Are the Final Destination Movies Good Now?
TheFinal Destinationmovies — which follow a strict structure where someone has a vision of a terrible disaster, avoids it, and then helplessly watches as everyone who was going to die is killed in some kind of absurd series of coincidences — have never been well-loved by critics, but even fans tend to think they’re pretty stupid. The first movie has a high audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it’s the only one untilBloodlines.So it seems unlikely that people are going back to the old ones because they’re all secretly “good”(in a traditional horror movie sense).
If anything, the greatest strength ofBloodlinesis that it’s less insistent than its predecessors on being “scary.” If anything, it plays almost like a dark comedy, leaning into the ridiculous mounting tension of the deaths rather than trying to frighten anyone. The movie doesn’t just allow you to watch it like the deaths are jokes, itencouragesyou to watch it like that (why else would a band play “Shout” while a crowd of dancers are jumping on a cracking glass floor?). That extends to the other movies, inviting viewers to flip on the iconic freeway scene fromFinal Destination 2and laugh rather than scream — which is made much easier by the fact that they’re all on HBO Max.
Final Destination Bloodlines
