final destination: bloodlines

FInal destination : bloodlines

IN 1994 I was at an innocuous Christmas party. It was a safe university space. Me anda friend went and got drunk like 19 year old boys do and went running through the corridors we felt were safe. A slip, maybe spilled drink, but a bannister and an unlocked double door led to me the next day being questioned by the police while my friend died by misadventure.

It’s something I say now over 30 years on. I think with the deaths, misadventures and others that come naturally to our middle age. It sits in the pile. But for my time of life death is accepted, illness is the fear.

But coming into this the final destination franchise at this point in time. I found it odd. The cinema was quite full and having no real idea how it would go, it was the fact that while initially starting with notions of intergenerational trauma, multicultural families in aspirational suburbia worked to an extent. It contemporised, well sure. But ultimately they were here to play columbo. We all know who did it. The big question to all watching is how. 

It’s weird watching a final destination film that has decided to forgo much of the pretence. I was shocked at the level of carnage but I’m a cosy horror man I suspect in 2025.

But it’s quite the spectacle. I found it poised in the right way. We know it needs to be earnest, otherwise it’s just a cartoon. However, By keeping the characters, as shreddie as they are deeply earnest bao8t the situation we allow the absurdity to flourish

I thought it was certainly visceral and emotional at the points to allow the jump to scare the right space. And with it. We see I think a new form of horror cinema. The unapologetic trad. 

With it maybe it’s a way to make comfort with death, to pet the beast and let its shaggy mane nuzzle us when the time comes. But known as life we do everything to kick it in the teeth before.

I would say the finale though was too much for me. I think with everything we have learned at this point the sheer physical recklessness of the characters built too much. But it is a journey given we know the final destination, and i would say worth getting your ticket punched for it.