Culture Crash: Death Rides Again In “Final Destination: Bloodlines”

The Final Destination franchise is a horror franchise that never really gets very scary. Instead of using tension and terror, Final Destination almost gleefully depicts death and its design ruthlessly terrorizing groups of overzealous teens who have somehow escaped death once before. And the franchise’s trademark is that these teens are then killed, typically by long, convoluted, Rube Goldberg machine-like chain reactions that lead to a shocking violent outcomes. 

While other horror franchises, like The Conjuring Universe or Friday the 13th, seek to unsettle and scare its audiences, Final Destination is more like a gory, horror version of a Where’s Waldo book. What I mean is half the fun of an FD movie is in the audience trying to predict which items in a given scene could deliver a cinematic kill, and which character is next on death’s list.

If all of this sounds depraved and weird to you, then I can’t dispute that. Final Destination is a bloody and disgusting movie franchise that nevertheless keeps packing theaters. The latest installment is called Final Destination Bloodlines, and it managed to gross more than $50 million in its opening weekend at the domestic box office. The movie begins with a long introduction set in the 1960s that might be my favorite extended sequence in the franchise, then comes into the modern day where we see a family hoping to outrun death’s grasp. With the franchise’s trademark glee in hand, Final Destination Bloodlines goes on to show just how difficult the task of escaping death can be. Honestly, it all makes for a pretty fun watch.. If you’re into that kind of thing.

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