Final Destination Bloodlines (2025) revolutionizes the long-running horror franchise by introducing a new hereditary dimension to Death’s design. The film suggests that the ability to foresee catastrophic events, along with the subsequent targeting by Death, runs in families like a genetic curse. Returning to theaters after a fourteen-year hiatus, this sixth installment goes beyond the franchise’s familiar formula of strangers narrowly escaping death. Instead, it explores how Death’s vengeance haunts multiple generations of the same bloodline. Through the story of Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) and her recurring nightmares about her grandmother Iris’s (Gabrielle Rose) fatal experience at Skyview Tower, the film establishes a chilling new premise. Premonitions and Death’s pursuit are portrayed as inherited traits that bind family members to a shared, inescapable fate..
The film’s exploration of intergenerational trauma resonates beyond familiar horror tropes. When Stefani uncovers that Iris experienced similar visions decades earlier and lived in isolation while documenting Death’s patterns, Death becomes more than an abstract force, as it is framed as an ancestral adversary. This narrative shift adds emotional weight, especially through Stefani’s estranged mother, Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt), who abandoned her children after recognizing the hereditary nature of Death’s pursuit. Reviews praise Bloodlines for revitalizing the franchise’s elaborate death sequences while grounding them in complex family dynamics. In doing so, the film becomes more than a sequel. It evolves into a meditation on legacy, trauma, and the impossible question of whether we can escape what’s written in our blood.
Skyview Tower Premonition
The story begins with a young couple deeply in love, Iris (Brec Bassinger) and Paul Campbell (Max Lloyd-Jones). To celebrate a special occasion, Paul surprises Iris with dinner at the grand opening of the Skyview Restaurant, perched atop their city’s tallest skyscraper. Paul scored exclusive tickets for the event. When they arrive, they find the elevator packed. Despite Iris’s hesitation about getting in, Paul convinces her, and they squeeze inside, pushing it over capacity. The Skyview Tower opened five months ahead of schedule.
Upon reaching the restaurant, their plans quickly fall apart. The staff member meant to arrange their table was fired that morning, leaving them without a reservation. Undeterred, the couple sneaks into the bar area, where they pause to take in the breathtaking city views. While Paul goes to get drinks, Iris suddenly feels a sharp pain in her stomach. She’s two months pregnant with Paul’s child but hasn’t told him yet, worried about how he’ll react. A kind singer with her young child (Jayden Oniah) notices Iris’s discomfort and offers comfort.
Later, needing some fresh air, Paul suggests they head up to the building’s roof. Once there, a series of strange occurrences, such as a woman’s hat caught by the wind and a child carelessly flipping a coin over the edge, create an increasingly eerie atmosphere. Paul proposes to Iris. Caught off guard, Iris feels compelled to reveal her pregnancy. Contrary to her fears, Paul is thrilled at the news, admitting he’s always wanted a child. Overjoyed, Iris accepts his proposal, and the couple shares a moment of pure happiness. They celebrate on the dance floor, unaware that a fallen glass panel has compromised the floor’s structural integrity beneath them.
Suddenly, Iris feels the ground shifting beneath her feet. Chaos erupts as the floor gives way, creating a horrific scene where people plummet from the tower. Among them is Paul, who desperately clings to a shard of glass before losing his grip and falling to his death. Fires break out, explosions rock the building, and the main staircase collapses as terrified guests try to escape. Amid the chaos, the child who had tossed the coin somehow survives the initial collapse. In a desperate bid to escape, a group of survivors packs into the already damaged elevator, which, now severely overloaded, crashes, killing everyone inside.
Iris frantically searches for a way out as the catastrophe escalates, with the massive building dramatically splitting in half. For a brief moment, the fractured structure seems to stabilize, but this precarious calm shatters when a piano, dislodged by the impact of the child’s previously tossed coin, comes crashing down. Thinking she’s completely alone, Iris is startled to find the singer’s young child hanging precariously from the wreckage. She makes a valiant effort to save the child, but both end up dangling amid the debris until they lose their grip and fall.
Grandmother’s Deadly Legacy
However, this entire harrowing sequence turns out to be a vivid nightmare experienced by Stefani Reyes, a college student. This recurring dream has tormented Stefani for two months. She confides in her roommate, noting the strange coincidence that the woman in her dreams, Iris, shares the same name as her grandmother. Stefani’s personal life has collapsed, as she has been suspended from school for failing grades. Feeling lost and overwhelmed, she decides to head back to her hometown for a while to reconnect with her family.
When she arrives, Stefani is greeted by her father, Marty (Tinpo Lee), and her younger brother, Charlie (Teo Briones). Over dinner, she opens up about her persistent nightmares involving their grandmother, Iris. Charlie, however, remains distant and withdrawn, barely engaging with Stefani. Later, when she drives him to their cousins’ house, the tension between the siblings remains palpable, highlighting their strained relationship. At her cousins’ place, we meet her cousins, Erik (Richard Harmon), Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner), and Julia (Anna Lore), as well as their aunt Brenda (April Telek) and Uncle Howard (Alex Zahara).
Here, Stefani notices that Charlie seems closer to Julia than to her, which adds to her unease. Stefani explains that her grades have tanked because of her relentless and disturbing dreams about Grandma Iris. Uncle Howard quickly shuts down the conversation, describing Iris as unstable and blaming her for Stefani’s mother Darlene’s problems. He recounts how Iris became increasingly reclusive and overprotective, which ultimately damaged her family relationships. Aunt Brenda sympathizes with Stefani’s distress and gives her a collection of letters from Iris, which lead Stefani to a secluded cabin.
Following the clues from the letters, Stefani travels to a remote location and discovers a heavily fortified cabin equipped with surveillance cameras. She introduces herself as Iris’s granddaughter, which prompts a cautious Iris to allow her inside. Once there, Stefani explains that her mother abandoned the family when Stefani was only ten years old. She goes on to describe a recurring nightmare in which Iris dies during a catastrophic Sky Tower disaster.
At that moment, Iris reveals something shocking. Stefani’s nightmare is not merely a dream, but a reflection of a premonition Iris experienced herself in 1968 at the Skyview Restaurant Tower, where she foresaw its collapse. Iris explains that she has spent her life evading Death and has documented her experiences in a book she now wishes to pass on to Stefani. Although skeptical, Stefani questions her grandmother’s story. In response, Iris calmly walks outside the cabin. In a swift and horrifying turn of events, just as described in her book, she is fatally impaled by a falling weather vane.
Pattern of Death Emerges
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Traumatized by the sight, Stefani helps bury her grandmother. At the funeral, Darlene appears unexpectedly after years of absence, leaving Stefani deeply hurt. The family tension escalates when Charlie confronts Stefani, pointing out that she barely kept in touch with the family during her time away at college, suggesting her criticisms of Darlene are hypocritical. Back home, Stefani immerses herself in Iris’s book, desperate to understand the terrifying reality her family now faces.
Meanwhile, at Uncle Howard’s house, the family gathers for a barbecue. Darlene arrives with peanut cookies, tragically unaware of Bobby’s severe allergy to nuts. Elsewhere, as Stefani studies Iris’s book, she begins to recognize a chilling pattern. The pages describe past tragedies in which survivors died one by one under mysterious circumstances. This realization brings the danger into sharp focus and makes her fear that her own family could be next. Just then, she is struck by a gut feeling that someone at the barbecue is about to die.
Back at the party, a casual conversation unfolds as Howard offers Darlene a place to stay at their house instead of her trailer, but Darlene politely declines, not wanting to impose. While kids are jumping on a trampoline, Darlene notices a garden fork lying dangerously underneath it and quickly removes it, preventing a potential accident. Soon after, Stefani arrives, and for a moment, everything seems normal. That sense of calm vanishes when Howard steps on a shard of glass, loses his balance, and falls. As he hits the ground, the garden fork—previously moved by Darlene—falls in just the wrong way and accidentally triggers the lawnmower. The machine roars to life and runs over Howard’s head, killing him instantly.
The family is thrown into shock and disbelief. Stefani tries to explain the horrifying pattern she’s pieced together from Iris’s book, warning them that their entire family is marked for death. According to her understanding of the sequence, Erik is next, followed by Julia, then Bobby. After them, Death will come for Darlene, then Stefani herself, and finally, Charlie. Erik and Julia, however, dismiss her warnings as delusions, refusing to believe her grim theory. Darlene tries to comfort Stefani, insisting that the recent events are just tragic coincidences.
Meanwhile, Erik is at his tattoo shop, blasting music as he cleans up. Still reeling from his father’s death, he tattoos a tribute to Howard on his arm. While struggling with a tangle of chains, he climbs up to sort them out, unaware that flammable liquid is pooling below. When Erik doesn’t answer her calls, Stefani rushes to the shop with Charlie. They find Erik shaken but alive, standing near scorched equipment and reeking of smoke. His fireproof jacket had protected him from what could have been a fatal accident.
Despite the close call, Erik brushes off Stefani’s concerns about Death’s design. He even jokes that something as harmless as a kid’s ball won’t be the end of him. As he continues to taunt her, a garbage truck rumbles into view. Moments later, in a horrifying twist, Julia is out jogging when she trips and falls directly into the path of the same garbage truck. The driver, distracted by loud music, remains completely unaware of the accident.
No Escape From Death
Stefani, now grieving the loss of three loved ones, is devastated and deeply confused. According to the book’s prediction, Erik was supposed to be next, not Julia. The shocking explanation for this deviation soon emerges. Erik is not Howard’s biological son but the child of Aunt Brenda, the result of an affair. This revelation means Erik was never truly part of Death’s list by bloodline, and Bobby is, in fact, the next intended victim. Desperate, Stefani remembers reading in Iris’s book about a man named JB who had somehow managed to cheat Death. Darlene recalls that JB was a friend of Grandma Iris and now works at a local hospital.
The group, including a reluctant Bobby who figures it’s safer than staying home, races to find him. Before they leave, Erik carefully checks Darlene’s car for any traces of peanuts, tossing out a jar of peanut butter to protect Bobby. Ultimately, Erik joins them too. During the drive, Darlene and Stefani begin to mend their broken relationship, with Darlene explaining that she left years ago because she kept seeing signs of Death everywhere and believed that distancing herself was the only way to protect Stefani and Charlie, hoping they could lead normal lives.
At the hospital, Stefani and her mother meet JB (Tony Todd), an elderly man who turns out to be the same child Iris once saved during the Sky Tower disaster. They soon learn that after the tragedy, Iris went into hiding to protect others from Death, and JB stayed by her side as a loyal companion. Now old and tired, JB explains that there are only two ways to escape the curse. The first is to take someone else’s life, which transfers their remaining time to the killer. The second is to die and be revived by doctors, essentially tricking Death by creating a temporary death. Since this second option is extremely dangerous and unpredictable, JB has accepted his fate and can no longer help them. Instead, he urges Stefani to treasure every second of her life, reminding her how fragile and precious it truly is.
Confusion and despair wash over the remaining family members, although Darlene does her best to comfort Stefani and Charlie. At the same time, Bobby and Erik have already slipped away. In a desperate attempt to save Bobby, Erik comes up with a reckless plan. He suggests allowing Bobby to temporarily “die” from his severe peanut allergy, with the intention of reviving him immediately afterward. For a brief moment, they even consider a far more horrifying option—killing a baby to satisfy the “kill someone” loophole—but their conscience prevents them from going through with it. Erik then tries to buy peanut-laced food from a vending machine to trigger Bobby’s allergy. However, the machine jams, and a metal spring comes loose in the process.
Continuing with their plan, they sneak into an MRI room. As they enter, a slamming door accidentally activates the machine’s powerful magnetic field. Erik steps out to find a wheelchair, planning to rush Bobby to the ER once the reaction begins. After some convincing, Bobby eats the peanuts and even jokes about how good they taste—until his throat begins to close from the allergic reaction. Meanwhile, the MRI’s magnetic force intensifies, pulling in any nearby metal objects. Erik is suddenly and violently crushed by a large piece of equipment. Struggling to breathe, Bobby crawls toward the EpiPen still clutched in Erik’s hand. Just as he reaches for it, the metal spring from the vending machine is sucked into the MRI and strikes him with lethal force, killing him instantly.
With both Bobby and Erik gone, only Stefani, Charlie, and Darlene remain to face Death’s relentless pursuit. Determined not to give up, they remember how Iris had managed to keep Death at bay for years by isolating herself in her fortified cabin. They decide to head there, with Darlene forming a selfless plan to stay behind, sacrificing herself to give her children a chance at normal lives. As they race toward the cabin, they pass an old woman stooping to pick up a coin—an ominous sign they’ve seen before. They arrive to find the gate locked, so they ram their car through it. Inside the vehicle, Stefani’s seatbelt jams, trapping her. The cabin is filled with gas, and a tiny spark ignites a massive explosion, hurling their car into a nearby lake.
Amid the wreckage, Charlie becomes pinned, but Darlene frees him, sacrificing herself to save her son. Charlie dives into the lake and pulls an unconscious Stefani from the submerged car, desperately working to revive her until she finally gasps for air. By bringing her back from the brink of death, he appears to have broken the curse. After the ordeal, Charlie feels a profound sense of closure. He confides in Stefani that he’s ready to move forward with his life and asks her to drop him off for a date with his dream girl. As they drive, the siblings share a heartfelt conversation. Stefani offers big-sister advice and reflects on the fragility of life. Their bond, strengthened by their trials, provides a brief moment of peace amid the chaos.
As they near the town, they spot the same old woman now dropping a coin onto the nearby train tracks—another unsettling omen. At the date location, they meet the girl’s father, a doctor, who explains that Stefani hadn’t actually died in the lake but had only passed out from water inhalation, which is why Charlie was able to revive her with CPR. Just as relief begins to settle in, Stefani is struck by a chilling premonition. Ominous signs emerge around them, suggesting Death’s design isn’t complete. In a final twist, a train derails after the coin damages the track, careening into the area—killing everyone instantly and bringing their desperate struggle to a tragic end.
