Tuesday, August 5, 2025

How Could Christians Have Made Final Destination: Bloodlines?

How Could Christians Have Made Final Destination: Bloodlines?




I saw Final Destination: Bloodlines in the theater a few weeks ago with a friend. It was very suspenseful, knowing the formula that Death stalks characters with Rube Goldberg-style, gory deaths; but constant twists and mystery created tons of suspense. The gore was shocking, but I enjoyed the movie overall. Before you watch it, read this review from MovieGuide, for guidelines on language, violence, one blasphemy and over a dozen f-bombs: 


Throughout the movie, I kept wondering; How could I as a filmmaker who claims to be a Christian have made this, and how would I have guided the story and its presentation differently? 


First of all, I have a pet peeve when a movie depicts characters facing life-and-death and no character even acknowledges God or mentions spiritual things or wonders what happens after death. This seems entirely unrealistic and inauthentic to me. Although, I suppose the Erik character is a blatant atheist, denying or defying fate or death. For starters, I would have at least one character represent some sort of faith or spiritual worldview, to contrast with the others. Then, I would consider comparing the devious, conniving, clever Death character with Death that’s personified in Revelation 6:8 who’s given temporary, limited authority to kill, but then meets its own death in the lake of fire in Revelation 20:14. Instead of making Death a final authority over who lives and dies with a certain chronological fatalism, I would allow at least one character to claim the authority that Jesus gives Believers in John 14:12 to do greater works than He did on earth. But, realistically, we all face the first death on a long enough timeline, unless the Lord returns first.


At the end, I remembered a story that I’d read about the first Final Destination movie, where characters live at the end and the test screening audience wasn’t satisfied because of genre expectations. Years later, I was influenced by that story to rewrite the ending of Prey for Mason (preyformason.com)


Sadly, “Whatever’s happened in the last 14 years, people have become incredibly bloodthirsty and just wanted way, way, way, way more gore than they did before.” So, I don’t really know how I’d make a Final Destination movie, but the deaths would likely be more implied, there’d be a Biblical worldview for contrast, and there’d be no blasphemy and no gore titillation and I usually can’t see an argument for any f-bombs, although they're ubiquitous IRL.


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How Could Christians Have Made Final Destination: Bloodlines?

How Could Christians Have Made Final Destination: Bloodlines ? I saw Final Destination: Bloodlines in the theater a few weeks ago with a...