Final Destination: Bloodlines

Stefani in a burning building

As witty and ingenious as the best of its predecessors, Final Destination: Bloodlines revives the old franchise after a 14-year hiatus, number six in the series keeping faith with an idea originating in a script for The X-Files that was killed off before making it to the screen. Which is appropriate, since the Final Destination franchise is all about death. Capital D Death, who will not be cheated when he comes for you. And should you by some chance manage to elude him, he’ll be back to reap his grim harvest, going to elaborate lengths to achieve his goal if necessary. We never see Death, so he could be a she or an … Read more

Candyman

Anthony looks in the mirro

Gory but not too scary, 2021’s Candyman is a direct sequel to 1992’s Candyman, which means it builds on the narrative and the lore of the first film rather than the 1995 and 1999 sequels. It also builds on the lore and narrative of Tony Todd’s Candyman, the first mainstream black horror whacko, someone to be pitched alongside Freddie Kruger or Leatherface in a nightmare beauty pageant. Clive Barker wrote the original story, The Forbidden, and set the action in rundown Liverpool. Bernard Rose relocated the whole thing to Cabrini-Green in rundown Chicago for the 1992 version he adapted and directed, reshaping the story to his liking – for example, in Barker’s version … Read more