MRI machines suck.
Not medically, of course (their usefulness is undeniable), but having to sit completely still in a dark, noisy tunnel is an upsetting experience.
That’s something the horror genre has known for some time. Their claustrophobic nature has been exploited in movies like Insidious: The Red Door and The Possession. Those scenes pale in comparison to the nightmares dreamt up by Final Destination: Bloodlines.
The new entry in the franchise known for its shocking, complex, and often wickedly funny kills one-upped itself with its best kill yet, involving none other than an MRI machine. And it doesn’t happen anywhere close to how you’d expect.
(Final Destination: Bloodlines spoilers ahead)
Bloodlines is a different telling of the standard Final Destination story. Instead of a group of disparate people avoiding death, this focuses on death’s mission to take out an entire family that never should have lived—a whole bloodline, if you will. Next on the proverbial chopping block is Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner), but his brother Erik (Richard Harmon) has an idea to have Bobby cheat death and stop the rest of the family from being killed in increasingly unpredictable ways.
The plan takes place at a hospital, and Erik brings Bobby into a random room that has an MRI machine in it. They barely even notice that they’re in the room with it—they’re here to pull off a very silly scheme, and just needed a quiet spot to do it.
Erik plans to have Bobby eat peanuts (specifically peanut butter cups; what a way to die), causing an anaphylactic reaction that’ll kill him. But since they’re in the hospital, Erik can immediately rush Bobby to medical help to be resuscitated, therefore breaking the cycle of death that looms over their family. It’s ridiculous, but that’s Final Destination, baby!
While this is all happening, something is going wrong with the MRI machine. Erik’s phone was accidentally pulled into it, sending the machine’s magnetization capabilities into overdrive. But they’re too focused on psyching each other up over their death-defying plans to care. Since Bobby is sitting in a metal wheelchair, it stands to reason that he’ll get pulled into the MRI and face a gnarly end.
Wrong. The MRI has a target, and it’s Erik. That proves to be the second big shock, as Erik narrowly escaped death at his tattoo and piercing studio earlier in the film (and again when a speeding car just misses him). He was expected to die that night, but he discovered that he’s not part of the bloodline of the family that’s being pursued by death; he has a different father. That should prevent him from dying—“should” being the operative word.
Let the carnage begin. Erik is covered in tattoos and piercings, the latter of which are disgusting cannon fodder for the MRI. The magnetization has become so strong that adjoining rooms in the hospital begin to shake, and there’s no chance Erik can escape, especially since he’s covered in metal. Finally realizing the power of the MRI machine (in fairness, he’s been distracted by his peanut-eating, slowly dying brother), Erik tries to leave, but he stops dead in his tracks.
That’s because the piercings on Erik’s face are torn out of his body and torpedoed into the MRI machine. First, the earrings are ripped from his ears, then his nose ring is wrenched out of his nose. Blood splatters, and Erik is visibly, understandably terrified. He was not supposed to be on death’s list, so why is this happening to him? To paraphrase what William Bludworth (the great Tony Todd in his final film appearance) said to Erik and company, things get crazy when you mess with death.
In a sinister and deeply troubling turn, Erik has more piercings than we can see on his face. Suddenly, two pieces of metal begin to protrude from his chest, as his nipple rings go flying off of a screaming Erik and—you guessed it—into the MRI. Finally, Erik’s penis begins to grow from his pants, as his genitals are pierced too. It’s got to come off, too. It’s gross.
It’s something of a specialty for Final Destination to present something so grotesque with such hilarious details, creating a queasy blend of laughter and hide-behind-your-eyes horror. Few moments in the franchise’s history have come close to achieving this as well as Erik’s pierced penis nearly launching through his sweatpants into an MRI. It’s a moment of revolting magic that only a film like Bloodlines can pull off, a b—rific reminder that these kills are why fans of the films flock to cinemas to see them on the big screen.
Things aren’t done for Erik. His now-shredded body is free of piercings, and he should be able to escape. Except Bobby’s wheelchair smashes him in the back, finally drawn in by the MRI’s unstoppable pull. Blood flowing from every imaginable orifice, Erik is smushed into the MRI, his body crumpled over itself like a balled-up piece of paper, in a moment eerily reminiscent of the gymnastics death in Final Destination 5.
It’s a vicious, violent demise that uses a familiar, frightening device like an MRI in new, previously unthinkable ways. In short, it’s Final Destination: Bloodlines to a tee.
And Bobby? After administering his EPI-PEN, the magnets draw in a vending machine spring—the same one they bought the peanut butter cups from—and it goes through his skull, sticking him next to Erik on the MRI. In other horror movies, you can outlast a killer, but in Final Destination: Bloodlines, you can’t escape from death itself.
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