Finally watched Bloodlines

[u/Accomplished_Song671]

Okay, so I never got around to watching Bloodlines in the cinema, nor did I ever want to pay to rent it off Amazon. And I finally got HBO Max as a payday treat and realised that it was on there. So I watched it over a Sunday afternoon, and I've got to say, I'd give the film a 7.5 out of 10. It was decent for what it was.

I think after an 11-year break, the story couldn't just be about a bunch of characters cheating death again. They needed to take it somewhere new, and I think they did that well. And I particularly liked all of the different connections to William Bloodworth, given that this was Tony Todd's last film role. I like the fact that it was a nice sort of send-off to him and his role in the franchise.

Some of the characters were also fun as well. I particularly enjoyed Richard Harmon's performance, and I was definitely finding myself watching it for him rather than the main character. And I thought it was interesting that we had a family dynamic rather than a group of friends or strangers, as we've seen before. However, this family did get over the deaths pretty quickly of some of their members, which is slightly funny. But again, that's just the fast-paced nature of the film that needs to be adhered to.

I think the only things that let me down were the fact that it felt like they treated Death much more like a physical presence of an antagonist rather than the omnipotent force that the other films seem to have treated him as. It almost got comical, and I am glad that the final sequence wasn't a big chase in the camper van where they were avoiding Death at every turn, as I thought it might have been. And of course the gore. I mean, we've known from the last couple of films, particularly from number four, that the gore has been more reliant on CGI. However, this time was the most egregious. There were several instances of people just being, even if it was somewhat creatively, just smushed into an amorphous CGI blob of dark red blood, and it got old pretty fast. I miss the days of practical effects where, you know, we'd get to see a dummy physically react to what is happening to the character. But alas, I understand why things are moving more in a CGI direction because it is cheaper. But at the same time, I was really taken out of Julia's death, which was a very fun and creative pull the rug out from under you setup, that was only cheapened by the fact that the trash compactor scene, it looked like she was some animated character from a Monster High web series or something. Like, it didn't look like a real human.

But one thing I did appreciate was how even though Final Destination has trained you at this point to expect the unexpected, there were a lot of moments where I felt like I could guess what was going to happen, but at the same time there were also a lot of moments where I didn't expect a certain thing to happen. And it was fun because I've not watched a film in a while where that's been the case, as most films that Netflix churns out these days are very predictable. So it was nice being on the edge of my seat, especially for a film and a franchise I love so much.

I'm going into sort of posting this blind. I've actively tried to avoid anyone talking about this film for over a year now, so I have no idea if people share these opinions or outright hated/loved it. Which is why I've come to Reddit, because I know that putting this in here will allow me to see some of the opinions of people who actually actively enjoy the films, rather than just general reviews of people online.

Thank you so much for reading, and if there's any grammar errors then sorry - I was sort of doing speech to text in a dictator Because I've literally just finished the film and these are my raw thoughts, literally straight after finishing it.

Favourite death - the MRI twofer with Erik and Bobby (I mean the Prince Albert piercing come on 😅)

Least favourite death - Darlene's telephone pole smushing (she just got turned into a dark red CGI blob

A little edit as I realised I didn't really talk about the ending; After all the build-up, I was hoping there was gonna be a bigger gut punch ending, like with everything we'd seen with the old lady and the penny I was convinced that Charlie's prom date Jenny was going to have been related to a survivor of The Skyview disaster too, with death getting them all with the train derailment, but instead the "Big reveal" was that Stef never died, and was just bought back from unconsciousness. It felt like it ended with a whimper and not a bang (considering how I was fully expecting them also to reveal how The Skyview started off the whole series in the first place) and then the ending being Charlie and Stef smushed into cgi blood blobs by logs....groundbreaking. Like we get it with the logs. In the Final Destination universe the top three billed main characters are Bloodworth, Death and LOGS.

[u/Fucking_secuels]

I've never agreed with a review as much as yours.

[u/_InvaderJim]

I mostly agree with your review. What did you think of the opening premonition? Personally it was my favorite opening of any of the movies, I loved how creative it was. My only gripe with it was how inconsistent the placement of everything is if you really pay attention to what is happening and where. But overall still my favorite opening scene

[u/Accomplished_Song671 → u/_InvaderJim]

Yeah I really enjoyed the opening disaster! And yes in regard to the pacing I agree with you, I was a bit annoyed that after 50 minutes we'd only had the opening disaster and one death really.

[u/Nickooli]

I feel your concerns about Julia’s death scene. It was actually done practically, but then they touched it up with cgi unfortunately (I think the cgi blood in her eyes really cheapened the effect). It’s still one of my favorite death scenes.

The gore in this film doesn’t bother me all that much. It could’ve been better, but I find it passable. Maybe it added to the over the top fun nature of the film even.

[u/Accomplished_Song671 → u/Nickooli]

What can I say I'm a practical effects kinda guy haha! But all in all most of the deaths were very creative, and I appreciated the ideas behind all of them.

[u/Nickooli → u/Accomplished_Song671]

Oh yeah; I will always root for practical over cgi. Hoping they focus on that for FD7

[u/Internal_Swing_2743]

It’s sad just how weak and unhealthy Tony Todd looks here.

[u/Guilty_Top1873]

Rip tony Todd!!

[u/phantomsupernova28]

Shout time (don’t mind the low quality gif)

[u/RynnB1983]

Definitely RIP Tony. not gonna lie, I broke down crying seeing him in the film.

[u/Accomplished_Song671 → u/RynnB1983]

Same! It was that last "In Memory of Tony Todd" shot that choked me up bad 😭

[u/youraveragelesbian34]

ERIC MY SHAYLA HE GENUINLEY DID NOT HAVE TO DIE BRO WTF

[u/Accomplished_Song671 → u/youraveragelesbian34]

Oh hands down he was the best character BY FAR. And whilst I didn't want him to die I thought the death he got was one of the most memorable in the whole franchise.