After nearly 15 years of waiting, Final Destination Bloodlines is bringing back the twisty design of Death, with a few nods to the franchise’s past. Developed by Jon Watts, Lori Evans Taylor and Guy Busick, the sixth installment in the horror franchise brings it back to its origins as it seemingly introduces the first person to ever have had a premonition, and secretly survived in the near-60 years afterward. However, her family subsequently finds themselves targeted by Death’s design, leading to a race against time to save everyone.

Led by Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, and Richard Harmon and featuring the return of Tony Todd as the mysterious William Bludworth, the sequel features a number of homages to the franchise’s past. Whether it’s characters nearly being run over by trucks in the way of Amanda Detmer’s Terry in the original, or Easter eggs offering further lore from the previous movies, Final Destination Bloodlines is garnering rave reviews from critics, currently sitting at a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In honor of the movie’s release, ScreenRant interviewed Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Rya Kihlstedt and Anna Lore to discuss Final Destination Bloodlines. The group reflected on what were the kills from prior installments that left them the most terrified, as well as what they think audiences will now be afraid of after seeing the well-received sequel, and the unique technicalities of filming the fake-out moments.

The Bloodlines Cast Have A Few Familiar Favorite Final Destination Deaths

“That’s A Tough One To Watch.”

Across its six-movie tenure, the Final Destination franchise has generally become known for two key elements, those being its elaborate opening death scene, and the Rube Goldberg-style kills that follow. While some installments have been received better than others, even the more disliked movies have memorable ways of killing off their characters, be it a decapitation from an elevator door or being ground up by the gears of an escalator.

In reflecting on the franchise’s bloody history, the Final Destination Bloodlines cast all had an interesting range of favorite deaths from prior films. Both Juana and Kihlstedt actually turned to two of the kills from the movie just prior to theirs, with the latter specifically pointing to Final Destination 5‘s twist ending as being “so relatable“, while the former really enjoyed the “buildup” to Ellen Wroe’s Candice dying from her gymnastics accident, calling it “horrifying“.

Some of the cast also found themselves drawn to some of the more underrated, or less-talked-about, deaths from the franchise. Both Briones and Lore turned to Final Destination 3, with the former describing the scene in which Texas Battle’s Lewis has his head crushed by two weights in a weight machine at the gym as “tough to watch“. Lore, on the other hand, humorously admitted to frequently changing her mind during the Bloodlines press tour, but at the time thought it was “horrible” watching Sam Easton’s Franki have a truck engine sent through his face at a drive-thru.

Joyner, Lore and Harmon were also reminded of the death of Nick Zano’s Hunt from the fourth movie, in which he was disemboweled by the drain of a country club pool. Lore admitted to feeling “haunted” by the scene without ever having seen it, with a friend instead describing the scene to her, while Joyner recalled seeing it recreated on 1000 Ways to Die and being shocked by it to the point that “I couldn’t go in the H๏τ tub“.

While the group had a range of favorites from the franchise’s past, Joyner pointed to one of the most iconic in the series, that being Final Destination 2‘s infamous log truck opening, in which A.J. Cook’s Kimberly foresees her, her friends and many others dying in a horrific traffic pile up after the logs on a truck break free. The Bloodlines star recalled watching the scene when he “was pretty young” and didn’t know it was from the franchise, but rather “just something that happened“.

Audiences Are Going To Be “Afraid Of Life” Walking Out Of Final Destination Bloodlines

“There’s A Litany Of Options.”

Though it features a few tweaks to the franchise’s iconic formula, Final Destination Bloodlines continues the series’ tradition of killing its characters through a variety of accidents and bizarre occurrences. Many subsequently left audiences terrified of everyday things, whether it was flying after the Flight 180 crash of the original film, the aforementioned log truck of its sequel, or rollercoaster rides after the third film.

With Bloodlines, the cast believe there will be “so many things” that viewers are going to leave terrified of after watching the sequel. Juana and Briones both agree that “garbage trucks” will be a source of new fear for audiences, with the latter also pointing to lawn mowers, as already previewed in the trailers for the film. Kihlstedt also pointed to both revolving doors and MRI machines as being a new source of worry, the latter of which Joyner and Lore also humorously agreed that viewers “are not going to love getting MRIs” or using “vending machines“.

Another major set piece from Final Destination Bloodlines that the cast were enthusiastic about discussing is that of the tattoo parlor, another showcased in the trailers as Harmon’s Erik seemingly falls into one of Death’s traps. Juana humorously warned viewers “getting a tattoo or getting a piercing, don’t do it“, while Lore also expressed her surprise that the Final Destination franchise had yet to turn a tattoo parlor into a place for Death to run rampant, calling it “a perfect location” for such.

Final Destination’s Fake-Out Scenes Are Both Harder To Film Than They Seem & Fun

“…It Sets You Up In A Different Way To Play Them.”

While the actual setup of the kills themselves is often what makes the Final Destination movies entertaining, there are also plenty of scenes in which the audience is faked out and someone other than the expected person is killed by Death’s trap. Though the script makes it clear to the actors who will ultimately come out of the scene alive, Lore acknowledges that it can be tricky to effectively pull off these scenes during the production.

“It’s so technical that you lose track of whether it’s a fake out, or if a thing’s going to happen,” Lore admitted. “You’re just worried. [Chuckles] Because a lot of shooting this movie is like, ‘Okay, hold that higher. Nope, lower, higher.’ It’s a lot of inserts, a lot of super technical stuff. You have to do some blue screen, that stuff can be hard. And then just practical effects you where you’re like, “Yeah, maybe.” For me, I was like running in a half circle. I had a really hard day where I had to run off frame and I kept doing that wrong.“

For some of the other Bloodlines cast, though, these scenes proved to be “fun” to get to shoot. Kihlstedt explained that “those moments are just in there for the audience“, giving them a chance to be surprised and yell, “Oh my God, no, she didn’t die!“, and allowing the actors “a different way to play” the scenes. “You have to lean into it so that everybody believes that the end is coming,” Kihlstedt shared.

More About Final Destination Bloodlines

The newest chapter in New Line Cinema’s bloody successful franchise takes audiences back to the very beginning of Death’s twisted sense of justice—“Final Destination Bloodlines.” Plagued by a violent recurring nightmare, college student Stefanie heads home to track down the one person who might be able to break the cycle and save her family from the grisly demise that inevitably awaits them all.

Source: ScreenRant Plus