443 - Final Destination Bloodlines

The slasher series without a slasher returns for its sixth instalment, fourteen years after we last saw it. Where Halloween gave us Michael Myers, Friday the 13th, Jason Voorhees, and A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger, Final Destination made death the villain - perhaps more accurately, Death, but we never see a cloaked man wielding a scythe. Where the figure of the slasher killer could, in principle, be evaded and even beaten, Final Destination's Death, non-corporeal and omnipresent, carries a key threat of inevitability. Nobody escapes Death. In each Final Destination film, one character's premonition of catastrophe gives them the chance to save themselves and others from death, but Death won't take being cheated lying down, and sets its sights on pursuing its near-victims to the graves they're currently avoiding. How? Through elaborate, Rube Goldberg-esque accidents, of course. We discuss the ways in which Final Destination Bloodlines' set pieces work, how they focus on small moments and individual stories, and how they're a nightmare for the naturally anxious. José isn't shy of expressing his dislike of the film; Mike, the opposite, and he does his best to explain the appeal of watching so many people perish in such gruesome ways. We even ask whether a slasher series could be made with which José would see eye to eye, and imagine what it might look like. Recorded on 20th May 2025.