FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES. Over the weekend, a horror-loving friend and I scooted to the center of the middle row at the Mill Creek Cinema in McKinleyville with a bag of popcorn between us just as the real previews began. Despite the name, the Final Destination movies could very well continue into perpetuity, assuming the AI robots let us entertain ourselves with goofy gore. But this is likely the last movie I’ll see at Mill Creek, which is slated to screen its last June 1. It was Saturday night on the opening weekend of a big, splashy horror movie, and the theater was mostly empty.
The revival of the schlocky franchise has a lot going for it: nostalgia for the early aughts, a reliable formula and the weird relief of laughing at the comically awful at a time when real-world awfulness is suffocating. That it didn’t manage to draw a crowd is telling. We’re broke, movies are expensive, streaming is convenient and maybe we’ve seen too many CG logs decapitate too many C-list actors.
The Final Destination movies take the oldest of premises — that you can’t run from your destiny (shoutout to Sophocles) — and applies it to plane crashes, pileups and other tragedies with high death tolls. Death, an invisible entity with surprising shortcomings, runs down survivors rescued by premonition or chance, and deploys Rube Goldberg endings for them. Those who figure it out — typically hot teens and 20-somethings — dodge the slings and arrows and forks and lawnmowers as best they can by reading the signs of Death’s approach. (Evidently, this frequently involves windchimes.) Each death has gratuitous splatter and a Bugs Bunny/Wile E. Coyote wackiness. A falling anvil? A piano? Ten little accidents in a row that end with a house exploding? The more improbable the better.
Just as splatter movies render the horrific mundane, the Final Destination movies render the mundane threatening. We wince, watching the cursed target tying a shoelace on the curb, climbing a rickety ladder or, sweet mercy, lighting the stove for a cup of tea. We grimace, giggle and count down to the final cast member as the group is picked off, one OSHA violation at a time. The big accidents get disaster movie treatment, but it’s the little things — like stepping on a tack — snowballing into outlandish gore that are the signature of the franchise.
A refresher on the oeuvre: The original begins with a plane full of high school kids exploding; the second is a highway pile-up starring a logging truck; the third installment has a roller coaster accident; fourth is a rough day at a racetrack; and the fifth in the series has a bridge collapse. The great Tony Todd shows up throughout as Bludworth, the creepiest of coroners, dispensing sage, if unsympathetic, advice for the cursed.
Final Destination: Bloodlines begins in the 1960s, with young Iris (Brec Bassinger) heading for a swanky Space Needle-like restaurant for dinner and dancing on a glass floor. A vision of the whole place coming down in a burning, shattered heap, killing everyone, spurs her to clear everyone out. Decades later, her college student granddaughter Stefani (Kaitlin Santa Juana) is plagued with nightmares of Iris’ vision. Stefani returns home to her family, minus her estranged mother (Rya Kihlstedt), and tries to track down Iris (Gabrielle Rose), who’s also estranged from the family because of her wild theories and paranoia about Death coming to get her. When Stefani visits Iris at her junkyard/fortress/hideout, she gets a whole TedTalk about the rules of the game. Death, Iris informs her, has been picking off every survivor and each of their descendants in grisly ways. Now, only Iris and her progeny remain, so she passes Stefani her scrapbook of obituaries, notes and tricks for keeping the Grim Reaper at bay. Like Stefani, her family takes some convincing (read: witnessing hideous bloodbaths), but soon they’re off to thwart their fates. Results are mixed.
The Ancestry.com of it all has its flaws (how long does Death wait?), but ultimately, it delivers the cringing, fake-outs, gross-outs, inventive ends and black humor it promises. (It may also ruin piercings for the faint of heart.) It’s a goofy, bloody time at the movies for those of us who can stomach it, with none of the emotional intensity of more haunting horror. It’s a genre that has its place — that place just won’t be at the Mill Creek much longer. R. 110M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400 or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Bluesky @JFumikoCahill.
NOW PLAYING
THE ACCOUNTANT 2. Ben Affleck as the autistic underworld accountant/investigator, now reunited with his hitman brother (Jon Bernthal). R. 132M. BROADWAY.
FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES. The Rube Goldberg machine of death follows a cursed family tree in the latest installment of the horror franchise. R. 110M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.
HURRY UP TOMORROW. Things get weird for an insomniac musician (The Weeknd) when he crosses paths with a strangely familiar woman (Jenna Ortega). R. 115M. BROADWAY.
THE LAST RODEO. A rodeo rider takes one turn in the saddle for family in this Christian drama. PG. 118M. BROADWAY.
LILO AND STITCH. Live-action remake of the space alien adventure in Hawaii. PG. 108M. BROADWAY (3D), MILL CREEK (3D), MINOR.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE. Trapped in the blocky video game with Steve. Starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa. PG. 102M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FINAL RECKONING. Tom Cruise reprises his superspy role to battle AI evil because you people won’t stop asking Chat GPT things and feeding the robots. PG13. 169M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK, MINOR.
SINNERS. Ryan Coogler directs Michael B. Jordan as twins battling the undead in the South during Prohibition. R. 137M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK, MINOR.
THUNDERBOLTS*. An international assortment of Marvel antiheroes banding together to fight baddies. Starring Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh and David Harbour. PG13. 127M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.
For showtimes call: Broadway Cinema (707) 443-3456; Mill Creek Cinema 839-3456; Minor Theatre (707) 822-3456.
This article appears in ‘God Looking Back at You’.
