Plagued by a violent and recurring nightmare, a college student heads home to track down the one person who might be able to break the cycle of death and save her family from the grisly demise that inevitably awaits them all. A film by Adam Stein & Zach Lipovsky, starring Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Rya Kihlstedt, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, and Tony Todd.
FINAL DESTINATION BLOODLINES
Adam Stein • Zach Lipovsky
(2025)
In 1969, Paul Campbell (Max Lloyd-Jones) surprises his girlfriend Iris (Brec Bassinger) by taking her to Sky View, a high-rise restaurant, on its opening night. As they enter the tower, Iris spots a security guard (Panou) scolding a young boy (Noah Bromley) for trying to take coins from the fountain, warning him it brings bad luck. The interaction makes Iris uneasy as they ride the elevator up to the restaurant.
Once they arrive at Sky View, the Maitre D’ (Bernard Cuffling) tells Paul the restaurant is at capacity and can’t honor his reservation. Paul explains he made the reservation through Jake and asks to speak with him, but the Maitre D’ reveals they fired Jake that morning. He dismisses Paul, asking him to step aside so he can attend to other VIP guests. Seeing Paul’s obvious disappointment, Iris quietly suggests they slip over to the bar while the Maitre D’ is distracted.
On the observation deck, Paul drops to one knee and proposes to Iris. She reveals she’s pregnant and tearfully accepts his proposal. When they return to the restaurant and join the other guests on the dance floor, Iris feels something is wrong but keeps quiet about her concerns. Suddenly, the glass floor gives way, sending several dancers plummeting to their deaths, including Paul.
The remaining guests panic and scramble to escape. In the chaos, a fire breaks out and the restaurant explodes. The structural damage proves too much for the tower, which eventually collapses, killing everyone.
The film cuts to present day, revealing that the horrific scene was actually a nightmare experienced by college student Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana). She’s been having recurring dreams about her grandmother Iris, reliving the tragic events in vivid, disturbing detail.
Unable to focus on her studies because of the nightmares, Stefani’s grades begin to slip. Determined to understand what she’s seeing, Stefani assumes the woman in her dreams must be her grandmother, even though they’ve never met and she doesn’t even know if Iris is still alive. The only connection she has is that the woman in her nightmares shares her grandmother’s name. Desperate for answers, Stefani decides to drive home to learn more about her family’s past. However, her father Marty (Tinpo Lee) refuses to discuss her grandmother Iris or even her mother Darlene, insisting he threw away all of Darlene’s belongings years ago after she abandoned them.
When her brother Charlie (Teo Briones) is about to leave to visit their cousins, Stefani offers to drive him there, seeing it as a chance to ask uncle Howard about Iris. Just before they leave, Marty warns Stefani not to bring up Iris with Howard. Stefani reluctantly agrees.
Stefani explains that she’s been having recurring nightmares about Iris and a restaurant called Sky View. Uncle Howard (Alex Zahara) and aunt Brenda (April Amber Telek) exchange startled looks when they hear “Sky View.” Howard tells Stefani that Iris is deeply disturbed and the reason Stefani’s mother turned out so troubled. Despite Stefani’s pleas that she needs to see Iris, believing her grandmother might know how to stop the nightmares, Howard explains that Iris had a complete breakdown after Paul died. She became obsessed with all the horrific ways people could die, until the state finally stepped in and removed him and Darlene from her care. Seeing Stefani’s desperation, Brenda quietly slips her a hint about where to find Iris’s contact information.
Stefani drives to her grandmother’s fortified house on secluded land near the mountains and finally meets Iris (Gabrielle Rose). Iris reveals that Stefani’s nightmares are actually her own premonition. She explains that she saw what Death planned to do and warned everyone before the disaster struck, saving many lives that night. But Iris soon learned that Death doesn’t tolerate interference with his plans. Over the years, he returned to claim the lives of everyone who was there that evening, one by one.
Iris has spent decades teaching herself to observe and anticipate Death’s moves, which has kept her alive all these years. However, she’s now terminally ill. Stefani doesn’t believe her grandmother’s story, thinking she’s delusional and that coming here was a mistake. To prove that Stefani’s life is in danger, Iris makes the ultimate sacrifice by stepping outside her house for the first time in 20 years to give Stefani her research notebook about Death. Death kills Iris right in front of Stefani. In that horrifying moment, Stefani realizes that Death is now coming for Iris’s bloodline, people who were never supposed to exist.
Directed by American filmmaker Adam Stein and Canadian filmmaker Zach Lipovsky, with a screenplay by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor, FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES is a supernatural horror film that serves as the sixth installment in the Final Destination series.
The narrative feels engaging and inventive, which is refreshing for a franchise that’s typically constrained by its established rules. The concept of inherited visions through bloodlines gives the first act a memorable quality, even though we later discover it never actually happened.
While I enjoyed the playful tone of the story, the screenwriters did a great job playing with our expectations, especially if you’re familiar with the Final Destination series. The film manages to surpass anticipation with multiple plot twists, keeping it entertaining from start to finish.
Some of the kills are truly inventive. That said, the death scenes feel less realistic compared to the rest of the series. At times, it’s like the characters’ bodies are made of jelly as they explode under the pressure.
FINAL DESTINATION BLOODLINES was theatrically released in the United States on 16 May 2025, by Warner Bros. Pictures.
