Film review: Final Destination Bloodlines

Like a neatly lined-up series of unfortunate events and just-so ironic dialogue that lead to an exploded head, a new Final Destination movie was an inevitability. Twenty-five years since the original, followed by its log-tastic sequel, and 14 since the last, fifth, instalment, the number of weird and wonderful ways to fuck yourself up because of one, tiny, insignificant detail hasn’t diminished. Neither has an appetite to see it. Therefore, Bloodlines.

It begins following a woman on a date in a 1960s Space Needle-type skyscraper restaurant that, obviously, turns into a hyperreal disaster (Garth Marenghi voice: “It was the worst day of her life…”) Quickly, she spots hundreds of ways things aren’t totally safe in here. Inevitably proven right, she does her best to outrun death as the whole night goes south around her to a laugh-out-loud hilarious degree.

This all turns out to be a recurring nightmare in the head of college student Stefani Reyes. Connecting the woman in the dream to the grandma she never knew and about whom her family refuse to speak, she eventually arrives at the bunker-like house where it turns out granny really is the woman from the dream. She can, she tells Stefani, see death everywhere, the series of apparently mundane events that could set one another off and ultimately kill her. She hasn’t left her house in decades because of it.

Handing her a collection of her work on how to avoid dying, Stefani realises the reason grandma was kept away so long was she was breaking a curse that meant as long as she, the eldest of her line, was still alive, the rest of her family would be sa…

Stop there. The plot isn’t important. The plot is stupid. By God, is it stupid. Bloodlines is a slasher film where the bad guy is literally death – not a Grim Reaper figure, but the actual notion of dying ­ – who humans think they can outsmart and avoid by being more careful. In this, it makes Hollyoaks look like Ben Hur.

But that’s not what you came here for. The bits you did – cartoonish deaths that play out like a bloody, morbid version of Mouse Trap – are an absolute blast. Garbage trucks, hospital equipment, lawnmowers, pianos, ceiling fans, fire extinguishers, weather vanes, vending machines and play equipment all play their part brilliantly to turn people into mush and lumpy puddles. The setups are devilishly sharp, using suggestion and misdirection to keep you guessing which way and what part of someone is going to end up a gory mess. Oh look, here's Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash. Wonder if that's there for a reason...

As with Terrifier, the money shots all arrive as sick, whoop-worthy punchlines, having spun you around a few times first. It joins a notably short list of films that can make an entire cinema laugh as a kid gets splattered, and an even shorter one where the obvious horrific possibilities of a Prince Albert are exploited properly (not, for the good of the entire universe, in the same scene). Throughout, it brings an entirely new meaning to the phrase “look after the pennies”.

If it’s meant to make you reflect on how everything’s connected, it fails, because everything is connected like this only in hindsight. And if it thinks it’s a clever note on futility, making the characters try to defeat all of our eventual destinies, no. Which is why the actual story feels purposefully dashed off, instead nudging and winking its way to the next setup. It’s huge fun, Jackass where people don’t realise they’re in the stunt and will actually get killed through the face at the end of it.

Inevitable? Oh yes. A disaster? Surprisingly, no.

Verdict: 3/5

Final Destination Bloodlines is released on May 16 via New Line / Warner Bros

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