The Final Destination movies have one shared goal: to make us terrified of absolutely everything; log trucks, tanning beds, hell, even swimming pools (IYKYK). But the grisliest kill scene in Bloodlines not only unlocks a fresh fear, but you won’t see it coming.
And that’s saying something. The first Final Destination had the element of surprise on its side, and so each entry that followed had to out-gross itself in elaborate, ironic, and often darkly funny ways.
We’ve seen unwitting victims cooked alive, crushed, impaled, shredded, and disemboweled in ways so intricate they’d leave Jigsaw out of a job. Even the later entries satisfied that grisly itch. Who could forget the gymnast folding like origami or the laser eye surgery from hell in Final Destination 5?
But with Final Destination: Bloodlines arriving 14 years after the previous chapter, it had to do something special. Something horrifying. Something that turns the mundane into a bone-crunching meat grinder. And boy, did it deliver. Warning: spoilers ahead!
Death is metal in Final Destination: Bloodlines
The death of Erik Campbell – one of lead character Stefani’s cousins – is a case of saving the best ‘till (nearly) last. The short version is he’s crumpled and crushed like a sheet of paper, but there’s far more to it than that.
You see, in Final Destination: Bloodlines, Stefani learns about the Campbell family curse, which starts in 1968, when her grandmother Iris has a premonition of a truly gruesome disaster at the Skyview Restaurant Tower.
She manages to save the attendants, including a young William Bludworth (Tony Todd). But death is not too happy with her interfering with its design. Over the years, it’s been working its way through the guests’ descendants.
Much of the new horror movie consists of Stefani trying, and failing, to save her blood relatives. Eventually, she meets with William, who tells her there is a way to cheat the system: one of them needs to die and be brought back to life.
Since Erik finds out he’s not actually blood related to the Campbells, he decides to enact the plan through his brother Bobby, who’s deathly allergic to peanuts. They’ll purposely give him a nut-based product, and then Erik will revive him with an EpiPen.
And, as they’re doing this at a hospital, it’s totally safe… right? Oh, wait, no, of course it isn’t. What the brothers don’t realize is that the room they choose to do this in contains an MRI scanner, which Erik accidentally sets off.
The machine malfunctions, causing it to reach the highest power levels possible. There’s two horrifying details to this equation: firstly, Erik is covered in body piercings, and secondly, MRIs contain powerful magnets.
It’s his earrings that go first. But before he can act, his nipple piercings are ripped from his chest, followed by the most excruciating of all – his Prince Albert (a ring on his manhood, for the uninitiated).
Finally, the magnets suck in the nearby wheelchair, pulling Erik in there with it. He’s folded in half like a human pretzel (à la In a Violent Nature), but it’s the sound design that really makes it – metal clanking, bones crunching, and blood squelching combine to make a stomach-churning symphony.
What makes the death even worse is the cruel irony of it all. Erik wasn’t even supposed to die according to the chain. He’s not blood related to Iris, he’s just an unfortunate soul caught in the crosshairs.
Yes, it’s unfair, but it makes for a helluva scene, one that proves death is petty, death is creative, and, apparently, death really hates piercings.
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