I sit in with hosts Jim Richard on NewsTalk 1010 to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about Mike Myers’s first appearance on a Second City stage in thirty years and James Earl Jones’s new AI gig. We also talk about the gleefully grotesque “Final Destination: Bloodlines.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: Brutally choreographed kills return to the big screen in “Final Destination: Bloodlines.” The sixth film in the bloody franchise, now playing in theatres, sees college student Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) plagued by gruesome nightmares. Her search for answers leads to her grandmother Iris (Gabrielle Rose) and a deadly family secret. “I always knew this day would come,” says Iris. “I held him off for years. He’s a relentless son-of-a-bitch and won’t stop till he finishes the job.”
CAST: Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Rya Kihlstedt, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, and Tony Todd. Directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein.
REVIEW: You don’t go to a “Final Destination” movie for the tightly crafted story. The franchise is a vehicle for impossibly complicated Rube Goldberg-esque chain-reaction kill sequences, where one small thing sets off a domino effect that ends in a bloodbath.
The stories simply don’t matter much. They are a framework for the action. In keeping with franchise tradition, “Bloodlines,” the first “Final Destination” movie in fourteen years, has more of a premise than a story.
You don’t go for the story, you go to see terrible things happen to people.
More importantly, you go to feel the anticipation before the terrible things happen.
“Bloodlines” builds suspense, planting clues to the oncoming carnage with sound cues—pay attention to the songs playing on the radio—messages on street signs and clever foreshadowing. Directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein provide just enough information to allow us to sense what awful thing is about to happen but not enough to spoil the fun.
The result is an absurd good time at the movies that paints the screen with gallons of plasma, dark humour and a poignant send off to the late, great Tony Todd, a veteran of four of the franchise’s films.
“Final Destination: Bloodlines” is a crowd-pleaser. I wish it leaned into practical effects over CGI but the inventiveness of the action is merrily macabre enough to provide the dopamine hit you expect from the “Final Destination” series.
