FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES is a bloody horror thriller about a family that tries to stop Death from killing everyone in it in bizarre ways. Stefani is a college student having nightmares about a premonition her grandmother, Iris, had 50 years ago about the gruesome deaths of many people at a glass enclosed, revolving skytop restaurant. Iris saved the people, However, through the years, death eventually came for all the people who didn’t die, leaving only Iris and an elderly black man whom Iris saved. Stefani visits Iris, but Iris dies in a gruesome freak accident in front of her. Stefani warns her family, but they refuse to believe her. However, when two of them also die gruesome deaths, the remainder band together to find ways to stop Death.

Despite its pro-family sentiments, FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES has extremely gruesome violence and contains lots of strong foul language. Also, the story personifies Death, and he seems more powerful than God. In addition, Death shows no mercy whatsoever in FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES. So, the movie has a strong, abhorrent pagan worldview that’s very superstitious.

(PaPaPa, AbAb, FRFR, OO, B, LLL, VVV, A, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Very strong, slightly mixed, pagan, superstitious, unbiblical, and false worldview/theology/philosophy that personifies Death or the Angel of Death, making him more powerful than God, characters repeatedly say that if people mess with Death they will make him more angry, and he’ll fight back even harder to kill you in gruesome and horrifying and bloody ways, there is no mercy in this depiction of Death, plus two women have occult premonitions of terrible fatal accidents but try to stop them from happening, family decides to stick together and thwart Death’s intentions to kill them all, but they fail (also, they never appeal to God or Jesus in the movie for any help);

Foul Language:

At least 34 mostly strong obscenities (including at least 16 “f” words), one profanity mentioning the name of Christ, one GD profanity, and nine light profanities;

Violence:

Lots of extreme and gory scary violence plus lots of strong scary violence such as multiple people are smashed by heavy objects, multiple people are impaled in the head by some objects (such as a flying wooden object), woman gets lots of blood on her face in one scene while standing next to one victim whose face is crunched by such a flying object, a new restaurant in a spinning building high in the air resting on a large spire has a see-through glass dance floor, and the floor gets a small crack that ultimately expands as people jump up and down to the song “Shout,” the glass dance floor eventually cracks totally, and people fall to their death below, people catch on fire horribly during restaurant death sequence, a woman is impaled when she falls from a high pinnacle onto a spike, a man’s head is accidentally chopped up by a falling lawnmower that accidently started, young woman is crushed by a garbage truck when she accidentally falls into the trash pit, a chain wraps around a ceiling fan in a tattoo parlor and gets accidentally attached to a tattooed man’s nose ring, the chain starts to pull him higher and higher (he eventually gets loose, but the place is in fire), young man is crunched by an MRI machine’s powerful magnets because he wears metal objects and has had his nose and ears and breasts and sex organ pierced, a young man’s head is impaled by a flying metal coil, young woman is trapped underwater and almost drowns, but her younger teenage brother revives her with CPR, a building is destroyed by fire, a house on fire explodes, a train derails and runs rampant through a suburban neighborhood;

Sex:

No Sex;

Nudity:

No nudity;

Alcohol Use:

Brief alcohol use at a family BBQ;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Young man has tattoos, the same young man doesn’t believe his cousin’s story of Death coming after him so he mocks and taunts Death to kill hm.

FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES is a bloody horror thriller about a family that tries to stop Death from killing everyone in bizarre ways when a grandmother, then a granddaughter 50 years later, have premonitions about the gruesome deaths. FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES has extremely gruesome violence, contains lots of strong foul language and personifies Death that he becomes more powerful than God and has no mercy whatsoever.

Stefani is a female college student who has nightmares about a premonition her grandmother, Iris, had 50 years ago about a restaurant grand opening ending in the accidental deaths of many people, including herself and her fiancé. Iris had the premonition before entering the restaurant and saved many lives. Stefani’s nightmares have led to many sleepless nights and endangered her academic scholarship. So, she goes home to find her grandmother, who became paranoid about Death trying kill her and all the people she saved and became a family pariah.

Stefani finds Iris hiding in an isolated cabin surrounded by all sorts of objects that tried to kill her whenever she stepped outside the cabin. Stefani hears her grandmother’s fears about Death trying to come for her and her family, including her children and grandchildren. The story is too crazy for Stefani. She tries to leave, but the grandmother follows her outside, trying to give Stefani a book she’s compiled about how to survive Death’s attacks. A freak accident kills Iris right in front of Stefani, spraying her face with blood.

Her grandmother’s gruesome death convinces Stefani that her grandmother was right. She tries to warn her uncle, his three children and her brother, but they think Stefani’s gone off her rocker, just like Iris. However, when the uncle and his daughter die gruesome deaths, Stefani, her two surviving cousins, her brother, and her estranged mother band together to find ways to stop Death from killing them all.

Despite its pro-family sentiments, FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES has extremely gruesome violence and contains lots of strong foul language. Also, however, the story personifies Death, who becomes more powerful than God. In addition, Death shows no mercy whatsoever in FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES. So, the movie has a strong, abhorrent pagan worldview that’s very superstitious.

In reality of course, the Bible doesn’t teach that there’s a specific Angel of Death or some supernatural being called Death created by God. Some angels may take part in the destruction or death of people upon God’s orders, as in 2 Kings 19:35, but it is God who decides when to punish people with death or when to let people die, and how. Also, God can give people an authority, or enable, people and human rulers to kill other people. A person may ask, what about the references to Death and Hades in 1 Corinthians 15:55 and Revelation 6:8? In 1 Corinthians 15:55, the Greek word for death there is not personified, so, when translated into English, it is lower case, not upper case. Revelation 6:8 is the only biblical verse that seems to personify death, and that occurs only once, just before the Day of Judgment, where many people will be sent to Hades, also known as Hell or the grave, for eternal punishment. However, those who trust in Jesus Christ will escape such punishment and receive eternal life in Heaven.

Amid all of Casandra Ventura’s troubling testimony this week about life with Sean “Diddy” Combs and his “freak-off” fetish, don’t be troubled thinking about what might have happened between Combs and Justin Bieber, who was launched into the mogul’s circle when he was a teen.

Despite persistent speculation as footage of the two together has surfaced, Team Bieber said Thursday that nothing happened. Move along, nothing to see here.

The speculation comes at a time when Bieber has been worrying fans with photos showing him smoking — a shot posted Thursday had the self-declared former substance abuser sitting with a bong quite obviously in his lap — and “It’s a cult” rumors about the church he has been attending, Churchome in Beverly Hills. (Churchome pastor Judah Smith denies those rumors, by the way.) Bieber’s decision in recent years to sell his catalog for $200 million is said to have been motivated by the pop star allegedly finding himself completely broke despite generating many millions for himself and others while touring.

The new dad’s marriage is rumored to be in trouble as well, though on Friday the Biebs tagged wife Hailey in an Instagram story showing a male lion lovingly caressing a female lion with its nose and teeth.

Combs, of course, is on trial on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and more. This week in court has seen dramatic testimony from Combs’ former girlfriend Cassie.

But back to Bieber, who was discovered by Scooter Braun in 2008 and quickly signed to a label run by Braun and Usher. Usher was a Combs protégé who was sent by record executive and producer L.A. Reid to live with the mogul in the ’90s and maybe learn a few things. The “Yeah” singer was 15 when he moved to New York. Combs became Usher’s legal guardian.

Reid wrote in his 2016 tell-all memoir “Sing to Me,” via Rolling Stone, “‘Will you take this kid and teach him your swagger?’ I said. ‘Can you just give him some of your flavor?’ And so I sent Usher to New York for what I called the ‘Puffy Flavor Camp.’”

He added, “I was turning him over to the wildest party guy in the country at an age when I still needed to get his mother’s permission, but he went to New York for almost a year. I didn’t know whether I was being irresponsible or having an epiphany.”

Usher would tell Howard Stern in 2016 that he “got a chance to see some things” while living with Combs.

“I went there to see the lifestyle, and I saw it. I don’t know if I could indulge and understand what I was even looking at,” he said on Stern’s show. “I had curiosity of my own. I just didn’t understand it. It was pretty wild. It was crazy.”

Usher said he was mostly focused on making music at the time, no matter what “curious” things might have gone on around him.

So when Bieber and Usher connected, could a Combs meet be far behind?

Combs and the “Baby” singer made news with an interview on Jimmy Kimmel’s show after the “Justin Bieber’s 48 Hrs with Diddy” video was posted on YouTube in November 2009.

In the video, Combs showed Bieber a silver Lamborghini and told him, “The keys is yours, you know, when you hit 16.” That was after Bieber pitched driving it right away with Combs in the passenger seat, because he had his permit. After staring at the kid for a moment, Combs simply said, “No.” Then he promised him the mansion when he turned 18. Combs didn’t have legal guardianship of Bieber like he did with Usher, he said, but they would be together for the next 48 hours.

“He knows better than to talk about the things that he’s done with big brother Puff on national television,” Combs said later in the Kimmel interview, adding, “Everything ain’t for everybody.” That was after he described Bieber as “a little brother” and “one of the greatest kids you could ever know” who could always call up and ask him for industry advice.

The two would continue to cross paths, including at parties for Combs’ vodka Ciroc, a brand the embattled mogul cut ties with in January 2024.

Bieber’s camp released a statement Thursday asserting that nothing untoward ever happened between the two.

“Although Justin is not among Sean Combs’ victims, there are individuals who were genuinely harmed by him,” a spokesperson for Bieber told TMZ. “Shifting focus away from this reality detracts from the justice these victims rightfully deserve.”

The Times was unable to reach a Bieber representative Friday.

Devil’s Double Next Level Movie Synopsis: A film reviewer gets trapped inside a movie by its vengeful director and must survive its deadly plot, controlled by a magical diary, to escape.

Devil’s Double Next Level Movie Review: If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to be trapped inside a YouTube comments section that somehow gained sentience and a film budget, DD Next Level offers a vivid, if not entirely welcome, simulation. Our guide through this experience is Kissa 47 (Santhanam), a film reviewer who wields ‘bro’ with the frequency of a machine gun, leaving the audience more shell-shocked by his vocabulary than by any on-screen jump scare. He and his entourage find themselves at an early screening for a film by the ominously named director Hitchcock Irudhayaraj (Selvaraghavan). The cinema itself looks like it was designed by someone with a personal vendetta against film critics, and before you can say “plot device,” Kissa and co. are unceremoniously zapped into the movie.

Now, the golden rule of logic-optional cinema is that if you’re going to play fast and loose with the plot, you’d better compensate with a relentless barrage of laughs. DD Next Level seems to have misplaced this memo somewhere between the script revisions. For a film headlined by Santhanam, a comedian usually capable of eliciting chuckles with ease, the actual laugh-out-loud moments are surprisingly sparse. Sadly, the movie relies too much on toilet humor and other easy jokes, which are just unfunny. The narrative, such as it is, bounces between settings – a cruise ship here, a mystical resort island there (think a cut-price White Lotus) – but the comedic spark remains stubbornly unlit.

The film leans heavily into the meta pool, with characters constantly winking at the camera about the filmmaking process, the nature of movie reviews, and the very fabric of their cinematic prison. A dash of self-awareness can be a delightful spice, but DD Next Level practically empties the whole jar into the pot. There are only so many times characters can exclaim, “Gosh, we’re in a movie!” before it transitions from clever to “yes, we gathered.” The excessive self-awareness kills the magic.

Santhanam himself, usually a whirlwind of comedic energy, feels somewhat constrained by dialogue that seldom lands a knockout punch, often defaulting to an endless stream of bros. One of the film’s more pleasant surprises is Mottai Rajendran’s Veenpechu Babu. His bewildered interactions, especially with Gautham Menon’s deadpan investigative officer (who communicates primarily in English to Rajendran’s blissfully ignorant nods), manage to mine some genuine humor. GVM, too, is in on the meta-joke, playing a version of his real-life persona, though like much of the self-referential humor, its success rate is variable. Meanwhile, the female characters are largely tasked with the thankless job of looking perpetually distressed, fulfilling the “scared ladies in a scary movie” trope with little room for nuance. It feels a bit like a Sundar C film sans the glamour and the usual masala.

On a technical level, the film isn’t without merit; the set designs are reasonably imaginative, and the VFX are competent. But these polished visuals serve as mere window dressing for a comedic structure that feels decidedly shaky. When the most memorable parts of your comedy are the awkward silences where the jokes were supposed to be, it’s a clear sign that the script might have needed a few more levels of refinement.

Written By: Abhinav Subramanian