Breaking Down the Gnarliest Kills of 'Final Destination Bloodlines' with the Directors (Part 2)

Part 2 of David's conversation with Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky, the directors of 'Final Destination Bloodlines.'

A few weeks ago, I released part 1 of my interview with Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, the directors of Final Destination Bloodlines. We talked about why they wanted to tackle the Final Destination franchise and what it was like to make their first studio horror film.

This week, to coincide with the VOD release of Bloodlines, I’m sharing part 2 of the interview, which features some fairly SPOILERY discussion of some of the movie’s biggest kills. We also talk about what it was like to work with Tony Todd on one of his last films.

You can listen to the interview in its entirety right here. The below transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

David Chen: I live in Seattle, and there is a popular tourist destination here…called the Space Needle. And I noticed that in Final Destination Bloodlines there is a similar but legally distinct structure called the Skyview Tower. There's a big set piece that happens there. I'm curious, why was it so important to set a scene at something that looked like the Space Needle?

Zach Lipovsky: Of course, a Final Destination opening set piece is iconic. We really started from a place of looking at all the other set pieces that they had done and trying to think of the primal fear that we're preying upon. Fear of flying, fear of roller coasters, fear of driving. Those are very elemental, primal, relatable fears.

Adam Stein: I have a fear of heights. We started talking about, okay, where could we put them up high that would be where a bunch of people could die?

Zach: Plus, we know in the late 60s is when they started building all those buildings, all those rotating restaurants and retro, futuristic outlook type places. We knew we were doing a period piece, so that felt really great. Also, a restaurant itself is a very relatable place for horror, because everyone goes to restaurants. And we love the contrast of it being this romantic, beautiful day.

Adam: There was this element in the early script where the two characters are on a date. This young couple that's going to give birth to this whole family tree, they're on a date. Where could you do a romantic date up high? And we came up with this idea of a restaurant in the sky. Now, the Space Needle obviously is very influential in terms of the design. One little detail: When you go back and look at what the Space Needle balcony looked like when it was first built. It was really harrowingly unsafe. They have this tiny little banister, which we put into the movie. There's no grating, there's no protection at all. People could just lean right over. There was a lot of fun to be had there.

There's one set piece where a shard of glass gets stuck in someone's drink. Can you talk about how you put a kill like that together? Do you start at the end point of where you want the kill to end up and then work your way backwards? Or do you start at the beginning and then just explore from there? Talk a little bit about that specific kill.

Adam: We definitely had the idea of the shard of glass in the ice very early on. It was inspired by that screw on the balance beam kill of having a small object that feels dangerous and cringey that you just feel icky about. But we love the element of Russian roulette to it. Where you know someone in this family is going to die, but you don’t know who yet. Because that really added a new dimension to an FD set piece of the suspense of not knowing who's going to have the dangerous cup. In terms of what actually ends up killing him in the end, I think that came a bit later.

Zach: Yeah. What we're really proud about that sequence that you might not notice until a second watch is that all the family members do one thing to lead to the ultimate death. Each family member plays a role. If [any] one of them hadn't been there, it wouldn't have led to the way that the final character finally dies, which was a really fun extra level.

Adam: And they're all complicit. They can all blame themselves for what happened because they all had a hand in it.

Oh, wow.

Zach: As far as how you build these sequences, it's a massively complex, many year-long process of brainstorming. We work with the writers, we work with the producers, we work with the whole crew to constantly be throwing out ideas of, what are different objects? We're ruining a backyard. What's in a backyard? What are all the different things that could be there? How could those things interact? Okay, let's see if those things physically actually do interact in that way. Let's see, how could a rake touch the top of a lawnmower and hit the safety bar so that it pulls it down in a way? And why would that rake be moving?

And you just go around and around and around for years, trying to figure all those different pieces out. And then testing it with audiences to see at which point did they get too far ahead? At which point did they predict what was going to happen? So that you can then dial that down so that it's always right on the verge of being surprising, but inevitable.

Adam: The idea of using a shard of glass and then having him killed by not the shard of glass, but by something else. I think that's where we started with.

Incredible. When I was seeing the hose fill up, I was just [applauding]. I was just like, “This is incredible!” Because it's filling up in such a chaotic way. A hose does not fill up in an orderly fashion. So you just feel all this chaos unfolding in a way that's unpredictable.

Adam: The Jenga Tower was another element of that. There's nothing inherently dangerous about Jenga. But having Jenga, a tower, which evokes the opening tower. And then it's toppling and you're just feeling like, oh God, something's going to happen with this. I have no idea what. And then all the dominoes fall.

I want to talk about the other kill that's in the trailers where a guy's nose ring gets attached to a chain on the ceiling. How did that come about? Any thoughts on how you developed that kill?

Adam: Yeah. I think that one, that's actually one of our most traditional FD sequences, because it cuts to a guy alone in a dangerous location locking himself in. And then Rube Goldberg shit goes down. But we also, in that scene, wanted to have twists, and wanted it to be surprising. First of all, the song is a very important part of that scene.

You guys have some wild needle drops in this thing.

Adam: It was a big music budget. We're very grateful to Warner for it. But music has always been a huge part of the Final Destination because it's all about the omens, or those things that have double meanings. He turns the metal off and turns on his sad mix, which has, [“Without You.”] And you see this other side of this character. But, yeah, we had a lot of discussions about how to potentially kill someone in a tattoo parlor.

Zach: It was extremely difficult. That was probably one of the ones where for the longest time we just had no idea what all the machinations of it were going to be.

Adam: You can't really kill someone with a tattoo needle. They're not that long. They're very small.

Zach: Also, for a long time, it was that there was a garage door opener that had a bungee cord that got looped around it so that the bungee cord got hooked on his nose, and then the garage door started to close, which pulled him up. But it was just like, why is he standing under our garage door? It was just like, you're just standing in these places for years trying to figure out all these different-

Adam: All the mechanics of it.

Zach: But even physically how to hook someone by their nose so that it pulls on their nose but doesn't rip their nose off while you're filming is extremely challenging. And took weeks and weeks of R&D to figure out.

Adam: One night the producer woke up in his hotel room and scratched a little design for this rig on a piece of hostel stationary and brought it in the next morning like, “Eureka, I found it!” And he had thought of doing these nose plugs that swimmers use glued into the actor's nose and then hooking the nose ring into the plugs so that it could pivot, but you wouldn't see what was attaching it to him. And so that's what it was attached to.

Is the idea that it's difficult because if something goes wrong, you need it to come out easily?

Zach: Right.

Adam: And also, you can't actually pierce him, so it had to be somehow connected to his nose in a way that looked like it was connected to his nose even though it's not a real nose ring.

Zach: One of the things they did that was quite clever was putting a magnet within two of the links of the chain so that after five pounds of pressure the magnet would disconnect. But it was still a little too safe. There were a few key close-up shots where the actor said, “Take the magnets off! let's go full chain! We need to really sell this.!” When you watch the movie, we've had the pleasure of seeing a lot of the night vision of the audience watching it. Because when you're testing the movie, they always do night vision for all the audiences. And everyone in the audience is covering their nose while watching that scene, which is...

Adam: It's an involuntary empathetic response, they just grab their own nose. And a lot of people also said, when that teaser was released, like, “Oh, no, they're giving so much away.” I will say there’s a big twist that happens. And we always like the metaphor of why is death after this guy in this way? It's like a fisherman who goes fishing, and sometimes they don't kill the fish, sometimes they throw them back. And so, death hooking Eric and then throwing him back is like that.

Tony Todd is in the movie. [It’s] one of his final film appearances, and the movie is dedicated in memory to him. Just wondering if you can speak a little bit about what it was like to work with Tony Todd. It seems to me, and to other people who have seen the film, as though there's a meta component of what Tony Todd is saying in the movie. In the movie he comes to terms a little bit with the concept of mortality, and perhaps he as an actor was doing the same thing. Just wondering if you could talk a little bit about what it was like to work with Tony Todd, who obviously was instrumental in getting this franchise off the ground.

Adam: Yeah. We’re so honored and grateful that we got to work with him in the movie. He’s such a legend. And he had been sick for years, and we didn’t know if he would be able to participate or even would be interested. But he kept saying, “Don't write me out of this movie. I've got to do this movie.” He’s so passionate about it. And when he came to set, was incredibly joyful to be there. You could just see he was physically weak, but emotionally it was like a highlight of his final year. He was just so excited to meet all the other cast and to be on set again.

Zach: His mortality was very present within the room. And was present when we were writing it, knowing that this, at the very least, would be his last Final Destination movie. We obviously didn't know if it would be his last movie ever, but we knew these movies take so long to make that it would be his last Final Destination movie. So we had to create an opportunity for him to say goodbye to the character, or at least have this character say goodbye to the franchise. And as we were building the scene, that was our main focus.

He, in the scene, goes to the door and looks back at the characters and has this one last message. And we asked him in that moment to throw away the script and speak from the heart as far as, what is this all about? What has this franchise been all about? But also, what is your career been all about? Just speak directly to the audience about what’s on your mind with everything that is swimming around in your head.

Tony Todd: “I intend to enjoy the time I have left. And I suggest you do the same. Life is precious. Enjoy every single second. You never know when... Good luck.”

And the take that’s in the movie is what he said as an improv around, life is precious, cherish every second that you have, because you never know when. And the emotion that he's portraying in that moment, which is with a bit of joy he's almost saying it, he’s really meaning it. But then, of course, he gives us a charming good luck and a wink as he walks out — the class that he always brings to every role.

Adam: I think the audience could feel how heartfelt it was and how real it was. And that's also where the meta comment comes from, because it's really him doing it. It's him saying goodbye.

Zach: And we've heard from a lot of audience members that they came to Final Destination to scream and cover their eyes and laugh, and they weren't prepared to cry. And a lot of them get quite emotional in that moment because it's a unique opportunity for an actor to address their own mortality to an audience. And we’re really grateful to be a part of that.

Final Destination Bloodlines is out on VOD this week.