I could spend hours ruminating on all of the ways the Final Destination franchise shaped me as a lover of film from childhood, but eventually I would bore you with my stories of being afraid of the Final Destination 3 trailer at age nine, but still torturing myself with searching the film online every chance I would get, anticipating the release of The Final Destination on the IMDb forums (R.I.P.) as an adolescent, and myself and those cohorts graduating to our own forum for the release of Final Destination 5. I remain in contact with many of the people from those forums to this day on Facebook. I became a super-fan of the franchise, and while a part of me thought that I might have grown out of it for a minute simply because we never got any more Final Destination material of any kind after Final Destination 5, that was proven to be patently false once the marketing campaign for Final Destination: Bloodlines ramped up. I had my major doubts about the then-upcoming installment into the franchise as New Line Cinema was taking a chance on the directors behind the film as Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky had only directed one horror feature prior, 2018’s Freaks, as well as the live-action, made-for-TV adaptation of Kim Possible for Disney Channel. On top of that, the film’s crew was made up of unrecognizable names with few major credits to their name, and the cast contained no majorly recognizable names for anyone who didn’t watch The CW or Nickelodeon in the last five years. On top of that, director Jon Watts was producing the film, and after how much I hated Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), I wasn’t jazzed. I admit, I was being harsh on the film, but once the first teaser trailer dropped, focusing on Richard Harmon’s Erik being targeted by death in his tattoo parlor, I awoke like a Russian Sleeper Agent. I realized at that point that it was pretty likely that the film was in good hands, at least for myself as a viewer, but I was unaware of just how good these hands were in convincing critics and the general public how back Final Destination was.
A scene from New Line Cinema’s FINAL DESTINATION BLOODLINES, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. © 2025 Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
In the before times, Final Destination fans were in the absolute trenches when it came to being respected by critics with not a single film ever bursting into the “Fresh” category on Rotten Tomatoes until Final Destination 5 did with a meager 60%. The scores have risen a good amount in the years since due to retrospective reviews being far kinder to the series than the reviews were upon initial release, but having only one film break 40% on the aggregate site made us realize that the critical world was not with us. Enter Final Destination: Bloodlines, a film I expected to have a similar breakdown as previous entries, and that even if the film was able to maintain a 60%, I would’ve assumed a good chunk or reviews would be heavily steeped in nostalgia and major critics would still shrug the film off as splattery trash. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever have expected to see a Final Destination film ever reach and maintain a 93% with major critics lauding the film for its understanding of what it is people watch Final Destination films for, while still managing to improve many of the lesser qualities of previous films such as weak dialogue, stilted performances, and laughable visual effects (I’m a fan of the series, but I’m not oblivious). Never count out an old dog learning new tricks, sometimes they just need some time and a new trainer.
Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) is a gifted college student who is tormented by a recurring nightmare experiencing the destruction of a high-rise restaurant tower in 1969 called The Sky View from the eyes of a young woman named Iris (Brec Bassinger) who, herself, dies at the end of the dream. With the dream taking a toll on her well-being, Stefani returns home to her family in Cloverdale, New York, where she learns that her estranged grandmother’s name was Iris. The dream Stefani is having is based on Iris’s own experiences in 1969 where she had the same premonition of the collapse and managed to prevent the disaster from happening, allowing every person in the tower to cheat death. Her family refuses to give Stefani any information about Iris as her erratic behavior in the years after the premonition, as death began coming for each survivor and the families they were never supposed to have, resulted in the fracturing of their own family. Finding Iris on her own, boarded up in a death-proof house in the middle of the wilderness, Stefani must race Death’s design before it claims the lives of her entire family including little brother Charlie (Teo Briones), mother Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt), uncle Howard (Alex Zahara) and cousins Erik (Richard Harmon), Julia (Anna Lore), and Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner).
Final Destination: Bloodlines immediately eschews itself from the typical Final Destination formula of our protagonist having a premonition of a high-casualty accident, said protagonist saving a select few from death, and then said select few plus our protagonist find out the hard way that you can’t cheat death by dying in hilariously gruesome Rube Goldberg-style accident deaths. There have always been little twists on the formula throughout the installments (e.g., Death’s order moving backwards in Final Destination 2, Wendy’s yearbook camera containing clues to her classmates’ impending deaths in Final Destination 3, Nick having really stupid and pointless dreams alluding to the forthcoming deaths in The Final Destination, and the introduction of murder as a way to steal time back from Death in Final Destination 5), but never anything that completely upends the formula of the franchise like this. At first, I wasn’t sure how to feel about such a massive change to something so familiar to me, but with this tweak and subsequent revelations stemming from said tweak opening up the Final Destination franchise to so many new connections and bits of lore throughout the series so effortlessly, basically giving New Line Cinema an infinite money glitch to continue making films in this series until the cows come home, giving us a rare situation that’s both narratively engaging for the audience and financially beneficial to the studio, so we all win. Personally speaking, the most exciting element of Final Destination: Bloodlines is the introduction of the idea of a Final Destination period piece. My vote goes straight for a Regency-era Final Destination film where 19th century English high-society is taken down in a bevy of hilariously brutal and topical ways of the early 1800s.
While there are death scenes that I enjoy more from other films, or single performances that stand out with more for me, or perhaps even endings I found more engaging, I’d argue Final Destination: Bloodlines is easily the most consistent entry in the entire franchise. If it isn’t doing something the best in the franchise, it’s at the very worst operating in the top three, and as a whole, has its points average stand above the rest. Especially with its screenplay and characterizations put forth by the cast, I’d say that this is easily the strongest cast of characters to date (even if Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s singular performance in Final Destination 3 is still the strongest).
As for its 4K Blu-ray presentation, there isn’t a ton to complain about if you happened to have seen the film in a standard movie theater or a premium venue like Dolby Cinema, 4DX, RPX, or XD. However, if you’re like me and saw the film in IMAX, because the film was shot with large format IMAX cameras, you’ll be disappointed to find out that the scenes shot with said cameras do not retain the IMAX aspect ratio seen in those theaters, rather maintaining its constant 2.40:1 aspect ratio for the entire runtime. While I’m not particularly surprised by this, as Warner Bros. rarely ports over IMAX aspect ratios for its home media releases unless shot in 65 mm IMAX or films already presented in 1.85:1 (films like Dune: Part One (2021) and Part Two (2024), Blue Beetle (2023), Creed III (2023), Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) all lack these aspect ratio changes), I was sad to see that I wouldn’t be able to experience what the filmmakers intended the film to look like ever again. Warner Bros.’s 4K presentation for Final Destination: Bloodlines is a stunner regardless of whatever aspect ratio it’s presented in. While it’s not a particularly rich or filmic image like what you’ll find with a film like Sinners (2025), this is a sleek, clean, and clearly digitally-shot image that utilizes both bright, cheery set pieces to put you at ease, and dimly-lit, sinister back hallways and shadowy cabins of death to remind you just what type of film you’re in. The opening disaster of the Sky View collapse is of particular note with its surprisingly good use of LED Volume walls, and a beautifully moody decision to set the disaster during the twilight hours of dusk, bring a warm and inviting feeling to the whole piece, luring you into the trap Death has laid out for you.
Also incredibly impressive is the Dolby Atmos audio track that fills the space wonderfully during the sequences where it matters most. Filling Tim Wynn’s (Freaks) full-bodied score through all the available channels and pumping Death’s heinous designs all around in squishy, crunchy, splashy fashion. In the film’s quieter moments, the soundstage is admittedly not as bold, but presents a strong, clean audio track primarily situated in the front speakers, but never once poorly mixed or hard to understand. One of my favorite audio cues in the film does actually come from the film’s quieter moments whenever the film focuses on the motif that is the Penny of Death™. This penny, rolling wherever there is death to be found, is a small but buggery little thing that rolls back and forth across the soundstage with a hilarious precision that always ends in a bloodied carcass of some sort. It’s a delight.
L-R: Co-Director Adam Stein and Co-Director Zach Lipovsky with actor Kaitlyn Santa Juana on the set of New Line Cinema’s FINAL DESTINATION BLOODLINES, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Eric Milner. © 2025 Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Thank goodness Warner Bros. didn’t completely wuss out of including any special features on this Blu-ray release, even if it doesn’t even come 1% as close to the exhaustive supplements included on Final Destination 3’s “Choose Their Fate” edition of its DVD release which included multiple featurettes, a making-of documentary longer than the film itself, an audio commentary, trailers, TV spots, and an entire alternate cut of the film with a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style of play where audiences get to make decisions for characters, altering the way the film and its death scenes play out (this feature was removed for its Blu-ray release which maintained all the previous supplemental material). While there’s no “Choose Their Fate” or anything close to that here, we still get a few good looks into the making of the film with the central and most valuable special feature being Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky’s audio commentary included on the disc. Getting to hear them giddily explain their references, inspirations, and ties to previous bits of Final Destination lore was an absolute delight for such a nerdy fan, and I hope more studios take note that something as simple as an audio commentary can boost a film’s physical release value immensely. These two guys clearly get and respect the Final Destination franchise.
The full suite of special features includes:
- Audio Commentary with directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein
- Death Becomes Them: On the Set of Final Destination Bloodlines – A brief rundown of the on-set experience of shooting the film, as well as many of the cast and crew’s history with the series. Pretty plain, but worth a watch.
- The Many Deaths of Bloodlines – What we all came for, a look inside the visual effects utilized for the film’s many death scenes. It’s very short at just 7:26, but it still gives a decent look inside the very fun world of horror film effects.
- The Legacy of Bludworth – A tribute to the final major film role of Tony Todd before his death last year from stomach cancer. With many interviews waxing poetic about the legendary genre actor who made the Final Destination series as iconic as it is. While short, it’s incredibly touching and a must-watch.
I suppose apart from the film nixing the IMAX aspect ratios in its video presentation, the only other majorly disappointing element of this Final Destination: Bloodlines 4K Blu-ray release is that it wasn’t accompanied by the long overdue 4K releases of the first five Final Destination films. Warner Bros. is acknowledging the series, releasing a six-film collection on standard Blu-ray, where the previous films have all been trapped for nearly 15 years, but this really seemed like the prime hour to finally give the older films the polish they deserve and debut them in an entirely new format. Alas, I suppose it’s being held for another time and will be another box set to buy. On its own, Final Destination: Bloodlines is a great home media debut for the already impressive entry in this franchise. While I can compare and contrast the special features to that of a DVD that was released nearly 20 years ago, I need to be grateful that, in the age of Warner Bros. physical media, I got anything at all. Video and audio quality are top-notch, and they even used the best poster for the film, ironically advertising the film being shot in IMAX, as the cover (the standard Blu-ray features the theatrical poster, and the 4K steelbook features the teaser poster. Even though I love a steelbook, the standard 4K I have has my favorite cover art). As a major studio physical media release in 2025, Warner Bros. has certainly done significantly worse in recent months (I’m looking at you, Challengers).
Available on digital June 17th, 2025.
Available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD July 22nd, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Warner Bros. Pictures Final Destination Bloodlines webpage.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
Share this:
Categories: Films To Watch, Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews, streaming
Leave a Reply