May Streaming Guide
‘Sinners’
‘The Last of Us’
‘Warfare’
‘One to One: John & Yoko’
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have
confirmed access, the full article content will load.
Critic’s Pick
‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ Review: Born to Die
The sixth installment in the horror franchise might be the most self-consciously silly of the
bunch — and it’s all the better for it.
Listen to this article · 4:15 min Learn more
Share full article
A woman in a dress stands in a room filled with overturned furniture and flames, looking over
her shoulder as fire blazes through large windows in the background.
Credit...Eric Milner/Warner Bros.
By Beatrice Loayza
May 15, 2025
Final Destination: BloodlinesNYT Critic’s PickDirected by Zach Lipovsky, Adam B.
SteinHorrorR1h 50m
Find Tickets
When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an
affiliate commission.
It’s no surprise that the “Final Destination” franchise — a schlocky, spectacularly gory series
of horror films that kicked off in 2000, spawning a total of five movies — has staying power.
Unlike most horror properties, there’s no big baddie (à la Jason Voorhees or Leatherface) —
or at least not one capable of getting old and seeming played out. The villain is Death itself,
and both onscreen and off, it’s coming for us all, though in the “Final Destination” movies this
unseen force is a shameless showboat.
That’s no exception in the new, sixth installment, “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” which
begins with a terrifically tense set piece in and around a Space Needle-style glass tower in
the 1950s. Iris (Brec Bassinger) is on a date with her beau on the building’s opening night
when she experiences a vivid hallucination of their imminently brutal deaths by towering
inferno. The vision allows Iris to escape her grisly fate and save everyone around her. In this
regard, “Bloodlines” follows the template of all the “Final Destination” movies (the first movie
saw its characters escaping an airplane explosion, the second film a highway pileup and the
third a roller coaster malfunction).
But as things go in the “Final Destination” universe, Death doesn’t like being cheated — and
it’ll take its lives, one by one, in what has become the franchise’s claim to fame: ingeniously
choreographed kill scenes that turn everyday settings and objects into potential murder
weapons. Consider some of the series’s greatest hits: death by tanning bed; by
head-mashing weight machine; by, uh, slipping on spaghetti and getting your eyeball pierced
by a falling fire-escape ladder.
“Bloodlines,” gleefully directed by Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky, offers a compelling tweak
on its predecessors by introducing — with a wink and a shove — the element of inherited
trauma. The opening glass-tower tragedy, it turns out, happened decades ago and the
premonition takes the form of Iris’s granddaughter’s nightmares. Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa
Juana) is flunking out of college because of these recurring visions, leading her to return
home and reconnect with her long-estranged grandmother (Gabrielle Rose).
Of the dozens of people who were supposed to die that night, Iris was nearly the last. Death
proceeds in the intended order of the original blood bath, meaning it has taken years to work
through all its victims — including the children those people were never supposed to have.
Iris is now something of a doomsday prepper, having single-handedly fended off Death’s
wrath by sheltering in a remote cabin. Her family thinks she’s nuts, but it’s not long before
Death works its way down the family tree, making conspiracists out of all of them.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit
and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2025 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy
PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapCanadaInternationalHelpSubscriptions
Manage Privacy Preferences
