Richard Harmon in Final Destination: Bloodlines
FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES
It takes ingenuity to pull off a falling-dominoes killing involving a battery-powered tree trimmer, a leaf blower, a soccer ball, a rolling garbage can, and pickup day. It takes nerve, confidence, and wit to stage that fatal “accident” – for laughs! – as an out-of-focus background event that even the victim's nearby relatives don't notice.
Fourteen years have passed since horror fans were last treated to a Final Destination, and as one of their number, I have to ask: What the hell took so long? This routinely inventive series that began in 2000 may have been gasping for breath with 2009's fourth entry, its title *The* Final Destination (asterisks mine) misleadingly suggesting a franchise finale. Yet while the comically cringey jolts came roaring back with 2011's terrific, numerically accurate Final Destination 5, Death and Fate must've had better things to do between then and now than knock off blandly pretty pals in preordained, ludicrously gory style. I consequently need to thank whomever at New Line Cinema (and now also Warner Bros.) not-so-fast-tracked the release of Final Destination: Bloodlines. Not only did I have a ball – one far less lethal than the ball employed for directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein's funniest demise – but I was reminded why the FDs constitute my all-time-favorite fright-flick franchise that doesn't feature H.R. Giger xenomorphs.
What makes these movies, even the series' lesser efforts, so compulsively watchable is that they're an ideal blend of wild convolution and elegant simplicity. They all tend to begin the same: Someone has a premonition about an impending disaster (usually the result of shoddy equipment and/or maintenance), warns their skeptical friends, and saves the gang when persistence leads to avoiding said catastrophe. Death, though, doesn't like having its plans upended, and proceeds to knock off everyone on its original hit list in the order in which they were supposed to perish. Rather than dispatch a masked maniac with a chainsaw, however, Death accomplishes its murderous feats through ordinary objects – a spilled drink, a wad of chewing gum, a barbecue grill, a tanning bed – that, in combination, result in horrific (and traditionally hilarious) tragedy. It's like the board game Mouse Trap with a body count. That's the franchise's convolution. Its simplicity is, well, simple: Death always wins. Always. Consequently, we're able to enjoy the FDs as the ultimate in sick-joke horror, partly due to the killings being so dementedly constructed, and partly to the folly in anyone even trying to devise paths toward survival. Much as we may root for the tortured characters, they won't survive. Why? Because none of us do.
That may sound hopelessly fatalistic and grim. But the films' secret sauce lies in their guiding principle – “Death will get us all, so we may as well laugh about it” – and the nervous laughter of Bloodlines starts in its prelude. Set in the late 1960s, this protracted introduction finds 20-something Iris Campbell (Brec Bassinger) invited by her beau Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones) to the official opening of Skyview, a restaurant located at the top of a Seattle Space Needle-esque tower. Long before the unimaginable happens, Lipovsky, Stein, and their cinematographer Christian Sebaldt zero in on the seemingly unrelated pieces that will kick this particular Rube Goldberg machine into motion: a creaking elevator; a crystal chandelier; a flambé; a cracked glass floor; a penny. (That traditional symbol of good luck will make another undeniably bad-luck appearance at the finale.) Final Destination devotee that I am, I was wincing and giggling with every new signpost. Yet even series novices might find the comic tension close to unbearable when all of these unsubtle hints of future terror begin to converge during a cover band's rendition of the Isley Brothers' “Shout.” It's when everyone is getting “a little bit louder now” that the rug is pulled out from both the Skyview patrons and the audience – the former with their mass execution through hideous coincidence, and the latter with the realization that everybody's death, even newly engaged Iris', was just a dream. Or rather, a past premonition.
Everything we witnessed, you see, was first witnessed by young Iris, who acted on her premonition, warned the clientele and staff, and actually saved the lives of everyone in that mid-air restaurant. But now, nearly 60 years later, that “What if?” scenario is haunting the dreams of Iris' present-day granddaughter Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), and we soon learn why. Not only did Death, in true Final Destination fashion, eventually come for the Skyview masses, but now it's coming for all of their younger blood relatives, as well – those who wouldn't have been born had their parents or grandparents died the way they were originally fated to. Considering the number of individuals now marked for the kill, that's an awfully heady setup, and while Bloodlines restricts itself to following the plights of Iris' clan, you can easily imagine the franchise continuing for 100 movies more solely by documenting the sad fates of one “I survived the Skyline!” family tree after another.
Think about this latest FD for too long and severe depression is almost guaranteed. (It's easy to pity the eventual victims, but what about those poor souls who simply married into the family and are now attending one spouse's or child's funeral after another?) Better, then, to not think, at least not too much, and enjoy Bloodlines for the deliciously macabre means-to-ends that the directors and screenwriters Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor deliver. The introductory massacre is a legitimate show-stopper, and I loved that initially out-of-focus comedy of errors on a quiet suburban street – principally because of how Lipovsky and Stein trust us to pay strict attention to the thing we theoretically shouldn't be watching. Yet there are additionally juicy (in more ways than one) sequences involving, in no particular order, a backyard cookout, a tattoo parlor, an MRI machine, and a peanut allergy, some of them applause-worthy for the ways in which intended victims avoid their fates without a scratch. You know … for a while.
If there have been downsides to the Final Destination series since its inception, it's that the characters have tended to be one-note and most of the portrayals perfunctory at best; even the great Mary Elizabeth Winstead, in 2006's Final Destination 3, didn't emerge as much more than an expert shrieker. (Only series regular Tony Todd, who passed away in November and makes a moving final film appearance here, has reliably delivered the performance goods.) Yet this long-delayed installment happily reverses that trend, at least in regard to the acting, as character depth is apparently still out of reach. Santa Juana is effortlessly relatable and empathetic, the same can be said of Tio Briones as Stefani's brother Charlie, and among an admirably solid ensemble, I especially appreciated the alive-time spent with the amusingly sardonic Richard Harmon as the siblings' heavily pierced cousin Erik. (Too bad no one warned Erik to stay away from magnets.) I also quite liked Owen Patrick Joyner as the somewhat dimwitted Cousin Bobby, even though the 24-year-old's role maybe should've been played by someone younger. Like 14 years younger. It's a strange bit of casting, but no crazier than any of the gruesome ends played for yuks in Final Destination: Bloodlines, which manages to be funny, imaginative, upsetting, mildly profound, and even somewhat educational. Turns out that if you wanna remove a branch, the best way is with a log.
HURRY UP TOMORROW
Over the past few days, I have yet to come across a review of director/co-writer Trey Edward Shults' Hurry Up Tomorrow that doesn't reference Misery, the Stephen King novel-turned-film about an obsessive fan who keeps an artist – in King's case, a writer – as a bedridden hostage while espousing on his talent in between bouts of psychological and physical torture. I mean, I get it: Shults' film does find Jenna Ortega's off-kilter admirer going loony tunes on tied-to-the-bed musician Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye, here daringly cast as Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye. What I can't understand is why more of these critiques don't include a lowercase, non-italicized inclusion of “misery,” because God knows that's what I was feeling during nearly every minute of this dully insufferable ego trip disguised as … what, exactly? A thriller? A life statement? A pricey “Dear Jane” letter? Whatever it is, it's atrocious, and could be labeled “laughably bad” if that didn't imply a tiny degree of fun that never emerges.
Because I haven't followed popular music much in the years since we were all worried about Y2K, I didn't know until recently that Tesfaye, under his Weeknd alias, had released a big-deal album titled Hurry Up Tomorrow this past January. Consequently, I'm in no position to suggest whether the film is any kind of “rendition” of that recording, or if similar themes are explored, or if the critically admired lyrics are as flabbergastingly terrible as the movie dialogue composed by Shults, Tesfaye, and collaborator Reza Fahim. What I do know is that the version we now have is at least partly based on a real-life incident in which Tesfaye lost his voice on stage – as well as, apparently, any sense of how to replicate that mini-humiliation in artistic terms. If the two or three of you who caught Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis last fall found it the ne plus ultra in non-pornographic cinematic masturbation, you truly ain't seen nothin' yet.
At the start, a voicemail (recreated by Riley Keough) indicates that Tesfaye was a bad boyfriend. Tesfaye's constant stream of flooding tears indicates that he feels bad about that. (He's not just The Weeknd; he's the weaknd.) He wants to ditch his tour and make amends. His manager, played by a blessedly human Barry Keoghan, wants him to perform to throngs of adoring fans. Tesfaye relents. He loses his voice. He races off stage. He runs into Ortega's practiced arsonist Anima. (Her name, in Jungian philosophy, is defined as “the feminine part of a man's personality.” Oooo … deep.) They have a Lost in Translation night on the town. They hide out in a hotel. In the morning, evidently healed, Tesfaye makes plans to return to the tour. Anima won't let him. She knocks him out with a wine bottle. She ties him to the bed. She analyzes his discography – a whole two songs' worth. (“Blinding Lights” and “Gasoline,” to be precise.) She kills someone. She threatens to kill Tesfaye and herself. He cries again. While singing. Anima relents. We return to the tour. Tesfaye is sadder but wiser. Having sat through 100-plus minutes of this, we're sadder, too. But no wiser.
Happy as I am that I was able to save you 10 bucks just now, I seriously have to ask, again: What the f--- is this movie?! And why is this movie?! Is it some sort of apology to someone Tesfaye wronged, showing how guilty he feels about what transpired between them? If so, why is even the idea of this person discarded before the film is half-over? Is it an explanation, some kind of rationale, to potentially concerned Weeknd fans? If so, why is his effective sounding board Anima – The Fan to End All Fans – designed and played like a Gen Z Annie Wilkes? Why is Tesfaye such an arresting presence when he stares and such an amateur when he speaks? Why is Ortega working so strenuously hard for such minimal rewards? And why oh why is this visually show-offy project, with its repetitively aggressive lighting choices and seemingly requisite 360-degree camera spin from the inside of a car, so stunningly boring? The only honest compliment I can give Hurry Up Tomorrow is that it's fittingly titled, at least based on how many times, during my screening, I found myself muttering that very sentiment.
NONNAS
As of today, apparently, Nonnas was officially dethroned from its number-one position among Netflix's “most watched,” and that kind of surprised me, because director Stephen Chobsky's warmhearted comedy seemed like the sort of quintessential Netflix flick that would maintain its pole position for a lot longer than 10 days. (Granted, the movie that replaced it, 2018's Mark Wahlberg comedy Instant Family, is also pretty damned on-brand for the streaming service's list of favorites.) But being number two means an awful lot of viewers are still watching, and likely enjoying, this full-body hug for Italian-American caricatures that debuted a week ago Friday, and it's hard to blame them. Chobsky's movie isn't good; it isn't anywhere near the vicinity of good. But it certainly does its job, and even notorious Grinches such as myself can be swayed into sitting through anything with a principal cast boasting Susan Sarandon, Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, and Brenda Vaccaro. Vince Vaughn, Linda Cardellini, and The Sopranos' Drea de Matteo show up, too, but all it took to convince my mom to watch it was the promise of Vaccaro. That 85-year-old with the eternally husky voice does have a fan base.
In the wake of his beloved mother's passing, Vaughn's middle-aged drudge Joe Scaravella spontaneously decides to open a restaurant dedicated to preparing and serving traditional Italian food with neighboring Italian women of a certain age – nonnas – as the house chefs. Beyond the cast list, that's really all you need to know, maybe aside from the fact that the story is based on truth, and Scaravella's restaurant Enoteca Maria (named after his mother) has now been in business for 15 years. Thanks to Chbosky's film, it'll likely be in business for 115 more. “Food porn” is such a crass description for what this nonthreatening (PG-rated) diversion provides. But it's there in every luscious image of sumptuous red sauce and flaky desserts, and if you make it through a viewing without an immediate need for an Olive Garden equivalent, you're made of stronger stuff than I. (Not wanting to travel for dinner, my folks and I, during a weekend visit, settled on a compromise: frozen pizza. Two of them, actually.)
If I were in a less-generous mood, I could rail on the film's failings for days: its rather noxious sentimentality; its obsession with stereotypes that should've died decades ago; its complete lack of narrative surprise; its insistence on employing Susan Sarandon, at age 78, for jokes about the size of her bosom. (Screenwriter Liz Maccie scores about a one-in-100 ratio on gags that are legitimately amusing.) Still, it's a pleasure seeing Vaughn in a suppressed, even somber comedic mood; his lightly humorous melancholy is as close as the film ever gets to genuine humanity. And while I wish they had more to do than play their one character trait apiece to the hilt, all props to Vaccaro, Sarandon, Bracco, and especially Shire for their enthusiastic Nonnas participation. Rumors about a potential Golden Girls reboot have been circulating for years. With all due respect to the Book Club and 80 for Brady ensembles, methinks we've finally found the winning quartet.
