If you avoid driving behind log trucks or decide against getting LASIK surgery, you’ve probably got the Final Destination movies to thank.

There’s a strange thrill in seeing someone trisected by a flying barbed wire fence or watching how poor decisions led to getting grilled inside a tanning bed. They say watching movies is an act of escapism, but for over two decades, the franchise has become the capital of blending horror and hilarity that bleeds into our real-life choices. Since its debut in 2000, the series has gained a cult following, with their latest installment Bloodlines already certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and breaking global box office records. 

Part of the appeal lies in the neurological hit we get from scary movies. According to psychologist Dr. Katherine Brownlowe (2019), watching frightening or shocking events can trigger the body’s “fight or flight” response. This rush releases dopamine and endorphins, which not only flood our system with a sense of alertness, but also treat us to a calming effect post-threat. It’s like we’re flirting with the idea of death. It’s a controlled simulation of chaos, where we can face death without consequences. 

But Bloodlines flirts with a new type of deadly omens: generational trauma.

With five prior movies establishing Death’s rules and mechanics, this latest installment can rely on more than broken glass shards and Rube Goldberg setups. Instead, it unfolds into something more intimate and emotional that includes family drama, that “passed-down shit” no one talks about until it tries to kill you and your whole family. 

For a franchise first, the disaster movie-esque opening sequence, known as the premonition scene, doesn’t loop back to the beholder Iris Campbell. Instead, it zooms out into her granddaughter and our protagonist Stefani Reyes, who has been haunted by that same vision for months. Bloodlines introduced a new rule to Death’s design—offspring of those who cheat death are also on his hit list—but the ripple effect funneled more than just impending doom and visionary powers.

The imminent death of her husband Paul sparked a long fuse of pain that stained Iris’s motherhood, turning her into an overprotective mother to Howard and Darlene. Her trauma-fueled actions rendered her a family scapegoat, a secret tucked away in bottom drawers, after trading her home for a fortified, isolated, Death-proof cabin (a nod to Alex Browning and Clear Rivers from the first and second films) in an effort to keep her lineage alive.

As the vicious cycle goes, Darlene did the same thing once she had her own children, Stefani and Charlie, adopting the paranoia-driven parenting she was raised on. It doesn’t stop there; Stefani herself, no matter how much she distances herself from Darlene, is proven to inherit that same exact mentality when she estranged herself from brother Charlie and their three cousins Erik, Julia, and Bobby. Death proves to be a fucked-up version of matriarchal generational trauma trickling down from one woman to another, because when no one else wants to deal with pain, the one who sees it clearly ends up looking like the problem.

As the saying goes, nothing brings families together like a wedding or a funeral. And it’s the gnarly deaths that brought Stefani’s family together, closer than ever. Her quest in saving the lives of her loved ones allowed her to reconnect not only with her brother, but also her mother. Even Erik and Bobby managed to find solace in their strengthening, tender brotherhood, hitting a home run of emotional depth that no other Final Destination film has had. It hits even harder with the final, posthumous appearance of the franchise’s iconic Tony Todd, who plays William Bludworth as a sendoff for not just the character, but also the late actor.

What started with Iris didn’t end with her. Whether dead or alive, her fear and pain stayed, sneaky and loud in all the wrong ways, and this film’s ending proves that. While we come out of our theater seats with a sigh of relief, humming as if we’ve survived a near-death experience, Bloodlines doesn’t just let us off the hook; it plunges straight into our hearts. Between the chaos and the terror, the emotional bonds that these characters built while trying to save each other marks an uncharted territory for the franchise, one explored excellently without a doubt.

So, no, perhaps you’re not a psychopath for enjoying a movie where your family members die one by one.

You’re probably just human, wired to seek thrills and laugh at the absurdity of trying to avoid the sly death, and trying to escape the vicious cycle of generational trauma as a side quest, while trying to heal everything you’ve inherited along the way.