---

Release Date: May 16, 2025 (USA)

Runtime: 110 minutes

Rating: R (for strong violent/grisly accidents and language)

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Production Companies: New Line Cinema, Practical Pictures, Freshman Year, Fireside Films

Budget: $50 million

Final Destination Bloodlines (2025)

Directors: Zach Lipovsky & Adam B. Stein

Screenwriters: Guy Busick & Lori Evans Taylor

Starring: Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Rya Kihlstedt, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, Gabrielle Rose, Tony Todd, April Telek, Tinpo Lee, Alex Zahara

A strong, bloody comeback—and a requel done right.

After nearly 15 years in the grave, Final Destination: Bloodlines marks a bold and blood-soaked return for a franchise that shaped an entire generation’s irrational fears—of log trucks, rollercoasters, tanning beds, and now, MRI machines, garbage trucks, and lawnmowers. With a built-in fanbase and a legacy of elaborate death sequences, this installment manages to reinvigorate the series while honoring the formula fans have come to love.

There’s never any mystery about what you’re getting into with a Final Destination film. It’s not the what—it’s the how. Bloodlines succeeds by leaning into the series’ core tension while refreshing the formula with visual elegance, clever thematic callbacks, and a more emotionally driven approach to character.

One major evolution? The characters. This time around, they’re more layered and connected—not just to each other, but by blood. While past entries paired strangers or friends against death’s invisible hand, Bloodlines challenges that setup by tying its characters together through family. That simple tweak deepens the emotional stakes and gives the film a compelling throughline.

Kaitlyn Santa Juana shines as Stefani Lewis, capturing the generational paranoia of the franchise’s past leads while also carrying the emotional weight of her estranged grandmother, Iris Campbell (Gabrielle Rose). Iris, once shunned by her family due to her fixation on death and her agoraphobia, becomes the film’s haunting emotional anchor. Her tragic backstory—including a vivid, beautiful premonition involving a restaurant tower—adds unexpected depth.

And what a premonition it is. Brec Bassinger plays young Iris in the standout opening scene, set atop a scenic tower where she’s being proposed to. It’s tender, idyllic—until the dread kicks in. This sequence might be the most visually stunning in the franchise, juxtaposing romance and beauty with catastrophe. While highways and collapsing bridges lack aesthetic value, this scene subverts expectations by letting horror creep into something joyful and picturesque.

The supporting cast—including Richard Harmon, Teo Briones, Owen Joyner, April Telek, Rya Kihlstedt, Anna Lore, and Andrew Tinpo Lee—successfully sells the “family” dynamic, which adds real emotional weight when death comes knocking. Each character brings something memorable to the table, creating a more suspenseful “guess who’s next” than previous films. But this time, it’s not just about watching them die—it’s about caring if they do.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Final Destination without Tony Todd, who makes his final franchise appearance before his real-life passing. For years, his character—William Bludworth—was an enigmatic presence. Bloodlines finally gives him definition. In a twist tied to Iris’s survival of the premonition decades earlier, we learn he’s been alive all this time because she saved him—and, unknowingly, herself. Their fates were entwined: the final two on death’s list.

Todd’s farewell is powerful and poetic. His character, once a cryptic figure of doom, delivers what feels like a parting sermon: appreciate your life, cherish your time, and accept the inevitable. With Iris’s death, his survival ends too, cementing a chilling but satisfying mythology that gives weight to his decades-long mystery.

True to form, the film leans heavily on symbolic cues—songs, pennies, elevators, flickering flames, cracked crème brûlée. A blood-pricked finger becomes a chilling motif, echoing past films and foreshadowing doom. Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” playing over the restaurant collapse is both ironic and inspired. The generational trauma woven through Iris’s story—not just in her paranoia but how it bleeds into her daughter and granddaughter—adds thematic heft. And when Iris is revealed to be pregnant during the original premonition, it deepens her connection to Bludworth and reshapes the series’ metaphor of death and birth.

The film’s final moments bring everything full circle. Just as you think the surviving siblings are safe, Stefani pricks her finger and realizes what fans already suspect: death doesn’t quit.

Ultimately, Final Destination: Bloodlines delivers exactly what fans crave—elaborate deaths, suspenseful build-up, a jaw-dropping premonition, and a few cheeky misdirects. But it also offers something more: emotional resonance, intergenerational stakes, and a fitting tribute to Tony Todd. As a requel, it strikes a rare balance—honoring past entries while giving the franchise new life.

Whether you’re a longtime fan or a casual horror enthusiast, Bloodlines makes you think twice about your daily routine—and reminds you, once again, that death doesn’t skip a generation.

But let’s be honest — Final Destination movies are only as strong as their kills. So, in true franchise fashion, it’s time to celebrate the carnage. Below is a ranked list of the most memorable, ridiculous, and bloodline-breaking deaths in Final Destination: Bloodlines — spoiler warning, obviously. From sudden splats to drawn-out suspense-fests, here’s how the Grim Reaper got creative this time around.

6. Shattered Reunion: Darlene’s Lamp Post Demise

Most deaths in the Final Destination universe carry a hint of irony, but Darlene’s feels like a somber punctuation mark. Reintroduced into her children’s lives after years of absence, she becomes a rare parental figure trying to outmaneuver death rather than deny it. As Darlene and Charlie race to Iris’s secluded cabin for safety, Stefani follows close behind in her RV. But death has other plans. A sudden explosion flips the RV into a nearby lake, launching Darlene and Charlie through the air. Charlie survives the blast, only to watch as a massive lamp post begins to fall toward him. Darlene leaps in to save him, determined to hold on for her children. But before she can finish her vow, the pole splits her in half. It’s a brutal, clean cut — and one that lands low on this list not for lack of emotional weight, but because the kill itself is visually underwhelming compared to the franchise’s gorier standards.

5. BBQ’d and Beheaded: Howard’s Lawnmower Meltdown

The backyard barbecue was never going to end well. As the film’s first major death following Iris’s, Howard’s demise sets the tone for the chaos to come. Amid rekindled family ties and a few too many red herrings (glass shards, trampolines, and rakes, oh my), it all ends in classic Final Destination fashion: a misstep, a cascade of unfortunate physics, and an unflinching end. When a trampoline tears mid-flip, Howard stumbles, stepping on broken glass before being knocked backward. A rake, dislodged earlier by his sister Darlene, activates the lawnmower, sending it straight for his face. It’s savage, mechanical, and inevitable. While memorable, the scene opts for restraint in gore, which keeps it from climbing higher in this death parade.

4. Granny’s Exit: Iris Gets the Point

Foreshadowed from the start, Iris’s death is less about shock and more about solemnity. After years of cheating death, Iris knowingly steps back into its crosshairs for the sake of her family. As Stefani storms out of her grandmother’s house, frustrated and skeptical, Iris hesitates at the door. She knows what awaits beyond it. Still, she ventures out to hand Stefani her book of meticulously documented research on death’s design. Before she can complete her act of sacrifice, a violent gust of wind sends a weather vane flying straight into her face. It’s sudden, brutal, and visually arresting, but it’s the emotional sacrifice behind the moment that gives this kill its lasting sting.

3. Family Logjam: Stefani & Charlie’s Log Truck Callback

Just when you think they’ve made it, Stefani and Charlie are blindsided by destiny. Returning to the film’s opening location, the pair piece together the truth behind Stefani’s near-death and the penny that doomed them all. A callback to Final Destination 3 unfolds as a train derails due to the cursed coin lodged on the tracks. They narrowly escape the wreck, only to find themselves in the path of a second homage: the iconic log truck from Final Destination 2. Logs crash over the scene, taking out both siblings in what can only be described as the most self-aware, darkly humorous death of the film. It’s layered in satire, legacy, and literal splinters.

2. Trash Talk: Julia’s Garbage Compactor Guts

Julia’s death is a masterclass in misdirection. As Stefani begins calling out increasingly absurd possibilities for how Eric might die, the film toys with us, stacking red herrings like a soccer ball and a tree trimmer. But it’s Julia who ends up paying the price. While on her way to jog, she unknowingly walks into the exact sequence Stefani sarcastically described. In a blink, she’s crushed inside a garbage truck compactor. The real punch? Stefani gets to Julia just in time to hold her hand as her face is obliterated in front of her. It’s graphic, cruel, and a brutal affirmation of Stefani’s abilities — or curses.

1. MRI Mayhem & Candy Carnage: Eric and Bobby’s Double Death

This death is a double feature of chaos, suspense, and sheer Final Destination insanity. As Bobby and Eric attempt to cheat death by temporarily stopping Bobby’s heart, the room becomes a battlefield of kinetic mayhem. The MRI machine powers on, turning into a high-powered magnet that rips every metal object off Eric’s body before pulling a wheelchair across the room, impaling him from behind. But the madness doesn’t stop there. In an earlier vending machine mishap, a peanut butter cup had jammed. Bobby, allergic and in cardiac distress, fumbles with his EpiPen — only to be struck in the head by the vending machine’s spring-loaded coil, sent flying in a final cruel twist of irony. It’s creative, grotesque, and emotionally devastating. In true Final Destination fashion, it’s a perfectly orchestrated ballet of death. This one earns its spot at the top.