It has been almost 14 years since a new Final Destination movie has hit theaters. Now, we have “Final Destination Bloodlines” from Warner Bros. arriving in theaters this week on May 16! 

I got to attend a virtual college press roundtable for “Final Destination Bloodlines” where I had the opportunity to speak with the directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, as well as cast members Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Rya Kihlstedt, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner and Anna Lore.

Santa Juana and Briones play the children of Kihlstedt’s character. As their characters start out in the film, they are a bit cold to each other but quickly you start to see their familial bond, and as an audience member, I really believed them as a family. I asked the three of them about their dynamic, and whether or not that reflects them feeling like a family as actors while filming.

“It was literally the easiest thing,” Santa Juana told me. “We haven’t seen each other in a couple months now, and it still feels that way. You ever had those friends that you’re like, I haven’t seen you in years, but you just kind of get it back right then and there, and then you can never really be mad at them? It’s so hard to be mad at them!”

“We fell into it so fast,” Briones said. “We all clicked right away. The chemistry was really effortless.”

“Which doesn’t always happen!” Kihlstedt added.

The Final Destination movies are notorious for their death scenes, which are always very elaborate and intricate. Since these scenes are always so particular and complex, I asked Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein if when making the film, did they in the post-production process have any room to move shots around or change up the beats of the scene.

“Filmmaking in general is a highly iterative process,” Lipovsky explained. “So you’re all the way through, from the screenwriting to the planning to the editing, you’re constantly changing it, making improvements. And in post, I would say the biggest thing that we’re changing is moving the order of things around to keep it surprising.”

Lipovsky described how one of the key things you notice when you start showing a movie to audiences is that they’ll sometimes get ahead of the story, which is not what you want. The goal is for them to feel like they are ahead, but then be surprised by something that is inevitable. He said the biggest thing in post was that they would take certain shots and maybe move them to later, or add new shots as a misdirect to distract the audience from where they were actually heading. to mislead the audience a bit and keep the real direction hidden.

I was also able to ask the pair of directors which scene in “Final Destination Bloodlines” was the most challenging to make, to which they responded with the flashback scene at the beginning involving a huge building being destroyed and a lot of people being killed.

“We spent a massive amount of time on that sequence, probably a third, maybe even more than a third, of the entire shoot of the movie was just that first fifteen minutes,” Lipovsky shared. “We had to build an entire restaurant. There’s probably maybe five other sets that all make up that restaurant, as it kind of goes through different versions of falling to pieces.”

So much happens in this restaurant sequence: everything is on fire, people are on fire, people are crashing through windows. Lipovsky described bringing all these complex things to life, and how they wanted to have as many of these elements be practical at the center of the frame, and then extend beyond that with visual effects. With so much being as practical as possible, it makes it feel more real. The more real it is, the more visceral the horror of it all would feel.

Speaking of these complex sequences, a lot of the actors in this movie had to do some stunts and get pretty physical. I asked Richard Harmon, Anna Lore and Owen Patrick Joyner about their scenes and from their perspective how long some of those stunt-heavy days can take.

“I had to run in a half-circle, and I could not do it,” Lore humorously stated. “I just could not land in the right spot.”

It certainly motivates you to go above and beyond,” Joyner explained, “even when it’s really physical. You want the best result for everyone, and there’s a hundred people on set helping you do this one little scene. So I feel like you don’t really think about the physicality going into it.  You just want to get a good product.”

“It’s fun!” Harmon added. “A ton of fun.”

“Final Destination Bloodlines” is out in theaters on May 16.