This year's SXSW saw a $28 million increase from 2012.
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KVUE — The 2013 South by Southwest Festival poured $218 million into the Austin economy, an increase of $28 million from last year's conference.
The official numbers were released by economic firm Greyhill Advisors on September 18.
According to the City of Austin, the 2013 impact analysis represents the seventh consecutive study to fully assess the unique nature of SXSW and its beneficial economic impact to the city. The economic impact of SXSW has steadily increased over the past few years from about $95 million dollars in 2007, to $113 million in 2010, and up to $190 million in 2012.
“SXSW continues to be a truly remarkable event for Austin,” said Austin Chamber President Michael Rollins. “This festival not only brings the world’s attention to Austin’s strengths in community, creativity and commerce, but also provides opportunities to spotlight and support our small businesses which work tirelessly to prepare for – and engage with – the festival’s record-setting attendance of over 155,000."
Kaitlyn Santa Juana in Final Destination: Bloodlines.
On the surface, the Final Destination films really shouldn’t work. There is no villain other than the concept of death itself, and nearly every death that occurs is foreshadowed so heavily that it removes the normal suspense that comes in horror films. And yet the franchise was successful enough to spawn five films over 11 years in the early 2000s, and now a reboot, Final Destination: Bloodlines.
A fantastic opening sequence set in the 1960s sets both the tone and the plot of the film, in which Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) has a recurring nightmare about a disaster that her grandmother, Iris (Gabrielle Rose), helped to avert. A visit to the reclusive Iris convinces Stefani that she and her family should not exist, and that each one of them is destined to meet a grisly end in the near future.
Met with resistance from her family members, Kaitlyn is unsurprisingly proven right as the film goes along, with different people dying in a variety of bizarre ways. A visit to William Bludworth (the late Tony Todd), a mortician who’s been the one constant in the series, provides a glimmer of hope that they can cheat death. But will they figure it out before it’s too late?
Directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, and written by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor, the film does not try to reinvent the wheel for the concept. The entire point is to get as creative as possible with the death scenes, and the filmmakers take that mandate seriously, with each successive death becoming increasingly gruesome. The Rube Goldberg-like manner in which each death occurs makes the scenes come off as entertaining instead of off-putting.
The idea of Death hunting down an entire family line due to the actions of the family elder is a solid twist on the series’ central premise, and that change keeps the film from feeling repetitive. The story also introduces the possibility that the entire series is connected due to Iris’ actions, with the character possessing a scrapbook that references well-known incidents from previous films, a fun Easter egg for longtime fans.
The creativity of the kill sequences does not carry over to the overall story, though. Almost every character in the film only exists in order to meet a horrific end, so anything that they have going on outside of being stalked by Death is purely window dressing. Consequently, it’s hard to really care about anybody, even if they are all related to one another.
Because characters are so easily dispatched in the film, the cast is devoid of well-known actors. This is by far Santa Juana’s biggest role to date, and she does well enough to want to see more of her in the future. Adults like Alex Zahara and Rya Kihlstedt are character actors who bring some history with them, while the younger group is composed of people still trying to make names for themselves.
Final Destination: Bloodlines is a solid return for the franchise, even if it feels more like a one-off film rather than a justification for more stories in the future. But given how easily the concept can be adapted into new circumstances, don’t be surprised if another movie pops up in a couple of years.
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Final Destination: Bloodlines opens in theaters on May 16.