Final Destination: Bloodlines/Final Destination 6 – It’s All Because of Grandma

Final Destination: Bloodlines is a decent outing for the franchise. The storyline is interesting and a very different plan for our favorite menace, death. The cast is a surprisingly loveable group in a franchise known for characters that no one is sad to see lit aflame and dragged down the road by a tow truck. I thought the family dynamic was a fun change of pace and, to top it off, this one was the funniest. And I can’t neglect to mention Tony Todd’s appearance as Bloodworth. He has a tearjerker of a speech about appreciating each day of our lives. Yes, I cried a bit. You’ll be missed Tony.

The downsides were there too. This disaster was overcomplicated. It wasn’t shot as well as some previous ones and didn’t have the same impact of individual death scenes. But the real problem was the CGI. There was way too much. People’s heads popped like balloons and any up close deaths ended up being very cartoony. I had the thought the 2000s had better effects, and that’s never a good place to be. Overall, I had a great time. The connection to previous films was fun and the fan service was just right. Don’t expect any elevated cinematic masterpieces when you head to the theater and I think you’ll have a good time.

Spoiler time. Jump out until after you’ve seen it!

Welcome to the 70s. I think. I don’t know cars that well. Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones) and his date Iris (Brec Bassinger) are headed to the Skyview for a very fancy date on opening night. Skyview is a restaurant 494 feet in the air with way too many windows. Absolutely not. I’m safe from this disaster already. The cram into a too full elevator that can only be used to travel to hell. And look, it doesn’t even close properly. I feel safe.

Once they arrive, Paul’s reservation is cancelled for more elite patrons, but Iris is cool. She walks him over to the bar very casually. She grabs a rose from a table a puts it into his pocket. A cut blooms on her finger. We know what that means around her. Death has arrived. But at least she doesn’t lick it.

The dance floor is made of glass. That’s horrifying. How is anyone on this thing? A bit of the chandelier falls and cracks it. My god what is it made of? Iris is feeling sick, we think because she is standing on glass far too high in the air, but it turns out she’s pregnant. The singer comes back to the bathrooms to check on her son and clocks the sickness as that pregnancy kind. Iris confides that she hasn’t told Paul yet.

Paul takes her to the roof. I guess the dance floor wasn’t high enough, and there’s some dumb kid throwing pennies off the side. One gets lodged in the vent system. Paul ignores him and proposes to Iris! She tells him about the baby, but he is thrilled. It’s all very adorable but given this is a Final Destination movie and not a love story, I have concerns. A beam below them shoots out some screws. My concerns mount.

They head inside to dance. The glass is cracking everywhere as the dance to shout. How does no one notice this? I would stare at it. The penny from before flies through the vents and punctures a gas line. I’m sure that will be irrelevant. The dance floor gives way and so many people fall to their deaths. Paul hangs on to a chunk of glass for a bit, but it doesn’t last. In the panic, a woman, probably wearing way too much hairspray, gets too close to a flaming pan and lights on fire. She runs by the gas leak and explodes. The room explodes.

People run to the stairs. The penny kid pushes everyone and gets down first. As the others go, the stairs collapse. So let’s try the elevator! They cram at least 900 people into this one elevator and it is not rated for that, so it falls. Things are terrible now but death is not done! The broken beam gives out with half of the circular room bending. It sends everyone on that side sliding into the windows. Those hold until the piano falls down, smashing them open. The penny kid from before just reached the bottom when the piano falls on him. But he was annoying, so no one really cares.

Iris and the singer’s son are the only ones left. They fall but are hanging onto a ledge by Iris’s ring. Her finger degloves and they fall to their deaths. And zoom, into…some college girl’s eye. Apparently, she has been dreaming about this for weeks. Her name is Stephani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), and she thinks the dream is about her estranged grandmother. It is so bad that she wakes up screaming every night, and she is failing her classes.

She decides to go home and find out what she can about grandma. She can’t ask her mom because she ran out on them some time ago. Her brother Charlie (Tio Briones) is headed over to their cousins and she tags along. Her dad (Andrew Tinpo Lee) warns her not to ask Uncle Howard (Alex Zahara) about Iris because he will be very upset if she brings up his mom. I’m confident Stephani is going to listen to this sage advice.

But I’m wrong. She says hi to her cousins Erik (Richard Harmon), Julia (Anna Lore), and Bobby (Owen Joyner). It’s right over to Aunt Brenda (April Telek) and Uncle Howard then. She asks about old Iris and Howard tells her she was a crazy woman who constantly told them they were going to die horribly and sent them graphic death photos. They had to cut her off. Everything was okay until after their father died. Howard will not help Stepani, but Brenda feels bad for her, failing school and all, so she tells her where the old letters are.

Stephani heads to grandma’s house. It’s basically like Lori’s in the last 3 Halloweens. There are spikes everywhere. It looks like a death trap, and I have no idea how she is still alive. I’d die from my own clumsiness if I set foot on this property. But fine, grandma (Gabrielle Rose) has made it work.

We find out she had the premonition right before the proposal. Iris is a pretty impressive problem solver. She grabs the penny from the kid, snuffs out the pan and uses the microphone to get everyone off the dancefloor. She saved hundreds. That is a record for this franchise. Usually it’s like 7 people. She has spent years keeping a book of her visions and potential death traps to stay alive. But it’s too late now and 2 months ago she was diagnosed with cancer. That’s about when Stephani’s dreams started. Spooky wind blows by. Grandma knows all about that shit.

Stephani does not believe her. She is rushing out of the creepy compound. But the wind has foretold. We see pages from Iris’s book showing a weather vane, fog, and a fire extinguisher. Iris is afraid to follow Stephani out of the house to force her to take the book, but she does. Stephani still tries to give it back but Iris says seeing is believing. The wind blows, knocking the weathervane onto the fire extinguisher, which breaks shooting the weathervane through Grandma’s face. Well, now you know.

Stephani’s mom, Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt) shows up to the funeral. Stephani is pissed off and refused to go to the BBQ after because of it. Instead, she goes home to read Grandma’s book while everyone else celebrates at Howard’s. We see drawings from all the disasters in the Final Destination franchise in grandma’s book. Feels like she’s the OG vision haver. (I think there is a book that has one in the like 20s??? But work with me here) She even notes that JB knew someone who survived. I was like BLUDWORTH (Tony Todd)???? and kicking my feet at this point. Stephani feels the spookies, but no one is answering her calls.

Darlene is a little death paranoid like her mom. She sees a rake under the trampoline and moves it before Howard gets hurt. But when she tosses it, she turns on the hose and that knocks over so many other lawn tools. A glass broke into the ice and that shard is in someone’s glass. Good thing they tossed it into the yard, right? Bobby falls through the tramp, but he’s good. Howard was checking on him and didn’t see the glass he was about to step on. He falls over. Those lawn tools that fell over turned on the lawn mower. It heads off on its own…and mows off Howard’s head. Just as Stephani rolls up.

After 2 deaths now, Stephani is ready to present Iris’s work. Turns out she tracked down the hundreds of people she saved and how they eventually died. Death went in order, but it took so long that some of them had kids, or grandkids, by the time it got to them. So to clean up this mess it went survivor, oldest kid, that kid’s kids in order, then onto the next oldest kid and so on. So it could be with one family for a while. Basically, Howard was after Iris, then Erik, Julia, and Bobby before it would move on to Stephani’s mom, Darlene.

Death has a hell of an excel spreadsheet going on. The family does not believe her. In fact, they’re kind of mad she is turning Howard’s death into this crazy mad circus.

Erik is at the tattoo studio. He’s feeling pretty upset about his dad so he does a little self tattoo that says dad. It looks pretty good, considering he was crying while he did it. His sad mix music knocked a little bobble head off the speaker and that caused a chain reaction where the cleaning bottle spilled everywhere. While he’s cleaning, a chain from the ceiling falls down and hooks onto his bullring. It’s getting wrapped around the fan, so he is being pulled higher and higher until he is almost hanging by his nose. He breaks a bunch of stuff trying to keep his nose attached and the floor is on fire now. Cleaning products are often good fire starters. Do with that what you will. He finally detached the chain and falls into the fire as the room explodes.

Stephani is freaking out. She can’t get in touch with Erik. She’s been annoyingly texting him over and over. Charlie says he hasn’t heard from him either, so they head to his house. On the way, they find out the tattoo parlor burned down. They arrive to find…Erik. Just chilling. Apparently, his leather jacket protected him from the flames. He’s fine. Stephani points out anything could still kill him. Like that tree saw could fall and hit the guy blowing leaves and they could go into the eyes of the kids playing soccer and then the ball could hit him in the face! He’s unconcerned. Going so far as to lick a garbage truck. Gross. Death by bacteria.

Julia comes out and tells Stephani they are sick of her shit. She heads out for a run. The tree saw falls over and hits the guy, blowing leaves and the leaves go into the kids’ faces and they hit Julia in the face with the soccer ball so she falls into the garbage can. The truck dumps her into the back where she is crushed. I guess we got the order wrong.

The family sits down after another funeral where Stephani says it’s all her fault for getting the order wrong. But. Brenda has something to say. Erik wasn’t Howard’s son! He is devastated. I don’t know when would be the time to say this, but it doesn’t seem like now is it. Bobby, who is next, would really like the group to focus on the problem at hand. They can go to therapy later. I agree. You can’t go to therapy dead. Or maybe you can. I’ll probably not be done with it by then.

This is when we go to find JB. Darlene says he works at a hospital. They track it down and all the cousins and Darlene go. Erik hilariously saves Bobby from the peanut butter in the Darlene tailer. He calls it a nut check. Then he slaps his balls and calls that a nut check. Brotherhood knows no genetic bounds.

At the hospital, we find the one and only Tony Todd. He has upgraded. No longer is he in a weird cave, but this is a legit hospital morgue. He was the kid that Iris saved at the beginning. I always suspected he survived one of these things. Or that he was death itself. I really thought more the second one. Anyway, he says there are only 2 ways to survive. By killing someone and taking their life or by dying and coming back. So Kim survived. I really thought she bit it offscreen. He has cancer and it dying, anyway. It will be his turn once this family goes. He tells them, “Life is precious, enjoy every single second.” And I cried. Rest In Peace Tony.

In the background, Bobby asked Erik if he really believes this guy. Erik says yea, you can’t tell me he isn’t awfully charismatic! Love it. They plan to kill Bobby and bring him back and sneak out while the others are considering this new information. For a moment, they look at the nursery. Bobby is like, we will not kill a baby and Erik says no, no, of course. Don’t kill babies people. Or anyone. Instead, let’s feed Bobby peanuts! I feel there are many better ways to kill Bobby. Overdose perhaps, but sure, anaphylaxis is fun.

Bobby picks the peanut butter cups, excellent choice, and they break into a room to let him suffer for a bit without interference. When Erik shuts the door, he turns something on. It’s an MRI machine, but they don’t seem to know that. Erik promises to watch Bobby’s turtle if anything happens because they live forever. I know. I’ve had one for 17 years that will probably still be around after my kids are gone. It’s a sweet moment.

Bobby loves the PB cup. He has great taste. But he is panicking and trying to get his epi pen back from Erik, who won’t give it up because he has to die. In his panic he overrides something on the MRI and it turns way up. Erik has a face full of metal so that is getting ripped out of him. We find out he has much more unique piercings as they are ripped out too! But the problem is that the wheelchair is also made of metal. It hits Erik, pushing him into the MRI. Instead of just getting stuck there it keeps pushing folding him in half through the center and sending the poles through his body. So, yea, he’s dead.

Bobby is on the floor, struggling to get oxygen to his brain. He gathers enough strength to get to Erik and grab the epi pen. He instantly starts to breathe. The magnetism in the room is starting to pull things from outside now. A nurse notices and opens the door, asking Bobby if he’s okay…Does she not see the body in the MRI? He says yes, but then a spring from the vending machine outside breaks free and impales him. So I’d say no.

To keep the remaining 3 people alive, Darlene decides to live in Iris’s cabin. Stephani and Charlie take her there. As they get into the van, the evil penny drops from Iris’s book and an old woman picks it up. It has been evil for 50 years and isn’t ready to give up yet.

They get to the death trap/safe house. But since it has a gated entrance, Stephani uses the van to break it down. In the process, her buckle breaks and she’s stuck in the car. She sends Darlene and Charlie inside, anyway. But we have seen and heard the wind. We know death is making its move. As Darlene opens the door to the cabin, it explodes. Darlene is blown back, Charlie is trapped under debris, and the van is rolled into the water. Darlene manages to free Charlie. Just before a power-line falls and crushes her. He rushes to save his sister.

She passes out, but he pulls her free and gets her to cough up enough water that she comes to. This is the second time we’ve done this Final Destination. Try something new next time. So she is brought back and everyone is happy forever. Except that their family is decimated. So many people have died. I guess they get to take care of the turtle.

Charlie is on his way to prom. He looks dapper in his suit. Stephani has even come home from school to watch him go. She’s putting on his rose when she cuts her finger. It’s about to go down. We see the old lady from before drop the evil penny, which rolls onto the train tracks.

We meet Charlie’s date’s dad. Turns out he’s a doctor. He commends Charlie for his heroics in saving Stephani, who says he brought her back to life. The doctor corrects her and says well, actually your heart didn’t stop. You just passed out. Charlie’s date walks out wearing the same dress Iris wore to the Skyview.

The train derails and basically chases Charlie and Stephani down some random suburban road. It comes to a stop and they think they’re safe for a moment but a few more cars pile up. One with log trucks drops it’s cargo onto our final characters. A fitting end to the movie in a franchise most famous for the log truck scene.

What did you think? Did you like it? Hate it? Where would you rank it?

If you need a refesher go back and start at the beginning!

I’m not sure yet. I’ll probably go see it again this weekend before I decide!