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“Final Destination Bloodlines”

Warner Brothers Pictures

Directed by Zach Lipovsky & Adam Stein

Starring Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Tony Todd, Richard Harmon, Owen Joyner and Brec Bassinger

Rated R

 

3 Stars

 

The “Final Destination” movies all operate under the same story idea. Somebody has a premonition of death and convinces others to stay away from an upcoming disaster. This warning saves their lives, but the Angel of Death will not be denied his bounty. He tracks down the survivors and kills them off one by one.

That idea holds true for the sixth film in the franchise, “Final Destination Bloodlines,” which opens with a young woman (Brec Bassinger) on a date at a fancy sky-high restaurant. She has a vision of Death’s plan to cull the guests, which is shown in full in a fabulous opening set piece.

That first sequence is so good that it elicited laughter and applause from the audience at the press screening. It’s always a good sign when the crowd breaks into the movie to cheer just as things are getting started. It’s an even better sign when even the row of cranky film critics decides to join in the cheering.

It’s a great start, and I’m pleased to say that the filmmakers manage to maintain this goodwill for most of the movie’s running time. I won’t go into specifics about the bloody mayhem that will be visited upon the actors cast in this installment, but I will say that the death scenes prove to be a nice mix of carnage and humor. Not to be too dark, but many of these killing scenes are laugh-out-loud funny.

Unfortunately, I can’t really go into detail without spoiling the fun. Suffice it to say that I rank these sequences as some of the best from the franchise. Nothing is quite as memorable as the log truck from the second film, but these come close. And given the advance in computer graphics over the past twenty years, they all look completely real, that hasn’t always been the case.

I don’t think that the cast fares as well, but they are mostly in the movie to be the latest victims. Still, I did enjoy Kaitlyn Santa Juana as the young woman with the premonition, as well as Richard Harmon, playing her snarky tattoo artist cousin who thinks that he can outwit Death. These two are memorable, the rest are just marking time before they go splat.

The one exception is horror icon, Tony Todd, making his final movie appearance in the movie. I’m thrilled that he got such an enjoyable movie for his cinematic send off.

As you can tell, I liked “Final Destination Bloodlines” a lot, which is a bit surprising as I’m not really an ardent fan of horror comedies. I suspect that the real fans of this franchise will absolutely love this movie. I’m not sure why it took fourteen years for this latest sequel to hit theaters, but going by early reaction, I suspect it won’t be long before Death comes calling in a seventh movie.

 

Movie reviews by Sean, “The Movie Guy,” are published each week in The Port Arthur News and The Orange Leader.  Sean welcomes your comments via email at sean@seanthemovieguy.com You can get more of Sean’s reviews by subscribing to the 2 Movie Guys podcast.