[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for ‘Final Destination Bloodlines.’]
The secret to directing the Skyview from “Final Destination Bloodlines” hides in plain sight. But for Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky, striking the right tone was as much about the big picture horror as it was the funny little details. The pair met while making Steven Spielberg’s “On the Lot,” a reality competition show from 2007. Now, they’re on-track to deliver the highest-grossing chapter in a treasured 2000s franchise.
“What make the guys so successful is casting that wide net and seeing what they get,” said editor and frequent collaborator Sabrina Pitre. Fresh off another victory with Eli Craig’s “Clown in a Cornfield,” she’s already hard at work cutting Lipovsky and Stein’s next film, “Freaks 2.”
Pitre says the directors’ knack for truly valuing talent is what helped capture so many moments that make “Bloodlines” feel special. Warner Bros. and New Line’s triumphant sequel is a win for so-called “fans” of freak accidents everywhere — and a testament to the style Stein and Lipovsky have been developing since before “Final Destination” went dormant.
“They trust us all as professionals and they want all of these different departments to give their A game, so we can all bring something new to the table and find things they otherwise wouldn’t have thought of,” Pitre said.
Kicking off in 1968, “Bloodlines” opens on a high-rise restaurant disaster. The structural collapse at the Skyview is in strong contention for the all-around best massacre of the series — featuring an ocean of slapstick visual effects and essential backstory that makes the core of the movie. Yes, the scene boasts some outrageously entertaining kills, but also anchored in a pitch-perfect showing from star Brec Bassinger, it’s more emotional than the sum of its “Looney Tunes”-like parts.
“We have all sorts of different ways that we like to keep the performances feeling fresh,” said Lipovksy. “Whenever possible, we always shoot the movie as written, and we’ll also do takes where we let them say other things in the moment. There’s a lot of that in this movie. We have really funny jokes and things that came from improvs, but we also do silent takes where we run the scene and no one talks.”
Fan-favorite character Erik Campbell sees the magnetic Richard Harmon ripping through one-liners faster than you can pull a Prince Albert piercing through flesh — but Bassinger’s dreamy first impression as a scream queen was essential to the entire script’s success. Introduced and killed off over the course of “Bloodlines,” Iris Campbell (also played by 70-year-old Gabrielle Rose) steps in as a legacy final girl à la Jamie Lee Curtis for a universe that’s never had a main character.
“We would do an improv take, where they’d be like, ‘Don’t say any words! Just say what you’re feeling,’” Bassinger told IndieWire. “Then, we would do a silent take, which I had never done that before. I’d never even heard of that, where we do the entire scene, but we didn’t speak.”
Dovetailing Iris’s “Final Destination” debut with the late Tony Todd’s bittersweet exit, Bassinger found her character’s most important beat during a silent take. “Bloodlines” hinges on a soap opera-like investigation into a family tree that only exists because Iris, her husband Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones), and their unborn baby escape the Skyview. Her premonition also saves jazz singer Evie (Natasha Burnett) and her son — the legendary William Bludworth. (5-year-old Jayden Oniah plays Todd’s iconic role here.)
“There’s this moment where Evie catches me about to throw up and she’s like, ‘How far along are you?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m not pregnant!’ And then there’s a moment where I look down, I see that my hand is on my stomach, and then I look back up,” said Bassinger. “It feels silly, but in the moment when you’re taking away the words and you’re just focused on the intent, I think there are some really great moments created from that.”
“There’s so much power behind an expression,” said Pitre. “There’s a tendency with dialogue to over-explain things and not let the audiences figure it out for themselves. Silent takes allow that. They allow the actors to get outside of their heads and live in the moment, and as an editor, I really pick up on that. They’re little bits of gold, honestly.”
She continued, “I’m constantly searching in an edit during the dailies to try and find pieces that I can use where I can have these moments of stillness. When you get them given to you like this, you can’t ask for more.”
Not too uptight but still plenty exacting, “Bloodlines” boasts an almost bouncy scare style and an intuitive pop-comic feel. Speaking on Death’s Design as an opportunity to show off the craft of directing, Stein said, “What comes for these characters are little insert closeup shots that all connect to each other in this mousetrap Rube Goldberg way, which is so much fun as a filmmaker because it’s really the filmmaking that’s coming for the characters.”
“It’s the way the shots are designed and planned that creates the suspense that leads to the deaths,” he said. “It was such a joy as a director to get to play in that sandbox.”
Bludwurth’s farewell speech was original dialogue too, spoken straight from the heart of the actor. Asked about working with Todd, Lipovsky noted the Candyman was nothing like his often-menacing character. Stein confirmed that with another spur-of-the-moment story.
“His favorite thing about being on set was meeting his mom and the kid who played the younger self,” Stein said. “They weren’t shooting that day, but they came to meet Tony because he so wanted to meet them. He was like, ‘I get to meet my mom today!’ It just tickled him so much and he was so excited. He was a little kid.”
From Warner Bros. and New Line, “Final Destination Bloodlines” is now in theaters.
