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Final Destination: Bloodlines test screenings revealed that moviegoers were "bloodthirsty" and want way more gore than filmmakers expected
"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," says one of the directors of the latest Final Destination movie
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If the filmmakers behind the new Final Destination movie thought they knew what the audience was expecting, the movie’s test screenings changed their minds — and in a direction they didn’t see coming.
“Adam [Stein, co-director] and I were extremely excited to make a Final Destination movie because there’s a certain expectation of the level of gore you’re going to see. It has to be beyond what you would see in other movies or television,” Zach Lipovsky told Variety in a recent interview. “And so we went as far as we could when we were filming the movie. Even then, when we showed the film to audiences, they wanted even more.”
He continued, “It’s kind of interesting because horror has evolved a lot since the last Final Destination movie, and previous Final Destination movies did have to censor themselves … not for the MPAA, but for audiences. People would start to kind of turn off when it got too gory. In this installment, as soon as we started testing it, it was the exact opposite. 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.”
That’s not the only change in audiences in the past few years, it turns out.
“I think everyone would agree that this is also the funniest Final Destination when you watch it with an audience,” Stein explained. “It’s an extremely vocal audience experience. Everyone is screaming and shouting together at the deaths. They’re also uproariously laughing during certain parts of the movie, sometimes at the same time. It’s some of the glorious deaths that make people squeal in horror and laughter. We had the first test screening we did, and there’s a certain death that happens in the opening where a little boy gets killed, and we had people jump up out of their seats and fist-pump the air. There’s some kind of joyful catharsis when that kid dies, and when that happened, we realized, ‘OK, the audience is enjoying this.’”
If people were complaining about Minecraft audiences getting too raucous, just imagine what they’re going to make about vocal Final Destination audiences…!
Final Destination: Bloodlines is in theaters now. Prepare for gore and cheering, just to be on the safe side.
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