Since its inception, the Final Destination franchise hasn’t entirely had a strong rate of survival for any of its characters. While audiences hope they can connect with the characters in each film, these connections make it all the harder to say goodbye, but if characters manage to escape Death, it almost feels like a disappointment. With Final Destination Bloodlines, audiences are getting not only a fresh batch of faces who attempt to avoid Death, but we also get insight into Death’s design, both for this film and for its predecessors. Final Destination Bloodlines is set to hit theaters on May 16th.
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“People were very excited about mine,” Anne Lore shared with ComicBook about the film’s deaths. “People were excited to see mine because of how many contraptions they made for it.”
She added, “Well, when you read something like that in a script, you’re like, ‘Oh, the writers were just having a fun time writing stuff.’ I’m going to sit here and think about what it would feel like … You just sit there and really imagine, ‘So what are the emotions? How fast is it happening?’ and think through it. So, a little traumatizing.”
Of the death she was most looking forward to witnessing, Brec Bassinger noted, “Because I’m in what we call ‘Movie A’ — there’s Movie A and Movie B, because I never acted with my fellow Final Destination actors — and there was one day in particular, I wanted to go to set because I wanted to see how they were going to do it. I’m so glad I did because I’m worried, when I watch the film, like it’s still gonna give me the heebie-jeebies, but had I not known how it was filmed, I don’t think I would have been able to watch it. It’s related to an MRI machine. While we were filming, I had to go get an MRI just for this random thing. I didn’t think I was gonna be able to do it. I was having a full-on panic attack in the MRI machine. They’re like, ‘It’s fine. Why are you this scared?’ I’m like, ‘You don’t even know. You don’t know what I’ve been through.’ So I know that’s gonna connect with people and give them the fear of MRI machines. It’s gonna be the new log truck, I’m calling it now.”
In a sense, it’s a badge of honor to get to have a memorable death in the series, with Alex Zahara expressing his acceptance over his on-screen death.
“[Directors] Adam [Stein] and Zach [Lipovsky] told me I was dying in the movie pretty soonish. It’s obvious because of the bloodline that goes by, but my character’s a bit of the emotional backbone of the film,” Zahara noted. “He’s really trying to bring the family together to have the good times that he didn’t have as a child, or the sister and he, didn’t have. I knew it was coming, but my death is essential. My character’s death is essential. Because after my mother, I’m next, but it helps the whole thing get going, and helps get the whole storyline rolling. I do represent the family coming together, and now death is a threat of tearing it apart.”
Dying on screen is easier said than done, with some of the performers breaking down that practical process of filming such scenes.
“I had the effects team, they were really, really good,” Owen Patrick Joyner shared. “They were able to throw stuff on really quick and make it look great, but it was pretty brutal. I knew I was going to have it on for two days, like 12 hours apiece, and it was brutal. It would keep my eyes shut, so I couldn’t really see, so I tried to just go into a sweet place and listen to smooth jazz or something. Something to keep me calm. And then I thought we were all done, and they were like, ‘Oh, we didn’t get one shot. Do you mind if we put you…?’ And, of course, you had to go right back into it. I had just torn it off.”
Bassinger added, “I think when you’re looking at someone — even though in your brain you know they’re fine, they’re safe — when you see someone who’s actually on fire, everything goes out the window, and you’re like, ‘Fear, scared, scream, run.’ So any time they were practically putting people on fire, there was no acting involved.”
The stars of the sequel also expressed what the process was like bringing their diverse characters to life, as they all seem to be facing their own challenges and cope with them in different ways.
“Well, it’s so funny because I noticed that, she’s so down all the time,” Kaitlyn Santa Juana admitted of playing a character who is stressed out from nightmares and visions from the film’s start. “What was interesting is between takes, we would just immediately be laughing and chumming it up on the side. So I still had a blast, and it was great. It was hard, but everybody in the crew, everybody on the set just made it so easy.”
Lore and Richard Harmon play siblings, along with Joyner, who are a bit more antagonistic about everything going on around them.
“I’m not thinking about not being obnoxious. So any non-obnoxiousness is just happenstance, I think. I find motivated ways to be obnoxious,” Lore pointed out of finding the right tone for her character. “I think I’m protective of my brothers. Their relationship’s really specific. I’m very loyal to them, and I think [Juana’s] Stefani is talking crazy to me. She’s bringing all this stuff about death, and I’m rolling my eyes at the whole thing.”
Harmon joked, “I feel like I never intended him to be antagonistic, I think that’s just my face.”
Joyner’s character, on the other hand, went through a bit of a transformation from what appeared on the page.
“If Bobby wasn’t just a total — he’s a little bit of a wuss. I think it’s how everyone feels. He’s so anxious. He needs someone to hold his hand through the whole process,” the actor expressed. “In the original script, Bobby was supposed to be like a full-on jock, pumping iron in the driveway. There was a scene where we were pumping iron, there was a scene where I was calling Stefani into the house for a beer, so Bobby certainly morphed as time went on.”
In Bloodlines, Rya Kihlstedt plays the mother of Juana’s Stefani and Teo Briones’s Charlie, with her own mother’s ominous warnings of death causing her to leave her family behind.
“I think that the trauma that Darlene grew up with, with a mother who became so super focused only on death and obsessed with it, and the ruined childhood. If anything, there is terror and fear that my daughter is actually closer to my mother, and that is one thing that she never hoped for, wanted, would wish on anybody,” Kihlstedt admitted of her character’s complex backstory. “But I also think it made it really clear, I think Darlene understood that this is real. Because it was real for her mother, and now it’s real for her daughter, so clearly this is a real thing. This is not my mom’s just crazy, and so is my daughter, because I know you’re not.”
Despite the long legacy of the series, not everyone was a fan before getting involved in the production.
“If I’m honest, I hadn’t seen any of them. I missed that window,” Kihlstedt confessed. “I was 30 when the first one came out, and having babies and staying at home. And horror is a hard genre for me, so when I got this, I then sat down with a girlfriend who loves them, and we made bowls of popcorn and for two days sat down and watched all of them. So I had a crash course.”
Lore continued, “I actually didn’t watch the films until I booked the movie, so shame on me. I remember the rollercoaster. That was the big one when I was younger. Everyone, they’ve seen this rollercoaster, there’s a rollercoaster accident. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh,’ but I didn’t watch a lot of horror growing up. I saw The Eye with Jessica Alba, and I was like, ‘That’s the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.’ That was the peak for me.”
She added, “The nice thing about this movie is that it’s not people doing bad stuff to each other. The gore is like, ‘Oops!’ So it’s a little bit easier to watch. It’s not vindictive or anyone’s trapping anyone, so it’s fun.”
Final Destination Bloodlines hits theaters on May 16th.
Are you looking forward to the movie? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!
