Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Final Destination Bloodlines.
After a fourteen-year absence, theFinal Destinationfranchise has been resurrected withFinal Destination Bloodlines.It’s a great return to form that also succeeds at surprising audiencesby doing everything a little bit differently. It’s also the last on-screen role for the legendaryTony Todd. From the moment fanssaw his frail body and heard his weakened voice in the trailer, we knew we were going to get a heartbreaking scene with the horror icon. Tony Toddwill always be best known for his titular roleinCandyman, but he also appeared in four of the six Final Destination films as mortician William John Bludworth. His character is the one our heroes end up going to for an explanation as they run from death, butinFinal Destination Bloodlines, with both Todd and the filmmakers knowing that the actor was dying in real life, they gave him a poignant send-off that will bring tears to your eyes in the middle of the mayhem.
William Bludworth Knows More Than Anyone About Death
The Final Destination franchise has been a successful one, but unlike most long-running horror series, these films don’t have a famous character that ties into them.Halloweenhas Michael Myers, andFriday the 13thhas Jason Voorhees, butin Final Destination, the villain is death itself, an invisible force with an unseen hand. It’s also an extreme rarity to have a returning character, so there is no popular final girl such as Halloween’s Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) or Scream’s Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell).The closest Final Destination comes to this is Tony Todd’s William Bludworth.
Bludworth appears in all but the third and fourth films, andalthough his role is small, it is very important. With his intimidating voice and his job working around death, he becomes not the physical form of the Grim Reaper but the one who understands it. He knows the rules of surviving after a premonition, from how death works in the order of those who got away to how to survive.InFinal Destination Bloodlines, we finally learn why he knows so much.
In ‘Final Destination Bloodlines,’ We Learn William Bludworth’s Backstory
Final Destination Bloodlineshasperhaps the best opening scene of the franchise. It’s 1969, and Iris Campbell (Brec Bassinger) and her boyfriend Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones) are going on a romantic date at the Skyview Restaurant Tower where, as we expect, Iris has a premonition of mass death. She is able to stop the event from ever occurring, and now, over the decades, death has slowly been collecting those that got away. In the present day, Iris (Gabrielle Rose) has been able to keep her family alive by staying in a secluded cabin, but when her granddaughter, Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), ishaunted by nightmares from 1969,she goes to her estranged grandmother for help.
‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Just Gave Us One of the Franchise’s Wildest Death Scenes And I’ll Never Feel Safe in a Hospital Again
New fear unlocked.
Going through her book of notes, Stefani reads about someone named J.B. who was once able to save someone from death.She and the rest of her family track down this J.B. at the hospital and find one William John Bludworth.Bloodlinesisn’t content to keep the character mysterious any longer. We now learn that he was the little boy Iris was shown trying to save in 1969, and over the decades he and Iris have been working together to help others in a similar situation. If they’re here, though,that means death is catching up.
Tony Todd Was Given the Freedom to Craft His Final Scene
William Bludworth reveals that he is not scared of death, but rather,he’s ready to retire and live life to its fullest. As he gets up from his chair, he tells the protagonists, “Life is precious. Enjoy every single second. You never know when.” After that, he walks through a doorway and disappears, the character and the actor never to be seen again. It’s already a powerful line no matter what, but to have it come from the gaunt frame of Tony Todd,who died back in November from stomach cancer, makes it even more touching.And he wrote it all himself.
In an interview withGamesRadar+,Final Destination Bloodlinesco-directorsAdam SteinandZach Lipovskyspoke about working with Tony Todd on what would be his final movie. They revealed thatduring the film’s development, Todd told them he was sickand didn’t know if he’d be able to be a part of it, but as Stein recalls, “He kept saying, ‘Do not write me out of this movie. I need to be in this movie.'”
The directors wanted to give the character a proper beginning and end, and because they knewhow long it could take to make a Final Destination sequel, they realized this would be Tony Todd’s last. Stein revealed:
“We wanted him to be able to say goodbye. We asked him in that final moment to put it in his own words. You know, put the script away. What do you wanna say to your fans? What has all this been about? You know, what is life about?”
You couldn’t have a better goodbye as an actor than to know your time on this Earth is coming to an end, and to get a chance to look right at the audience who has followed you and tell them how you feel. The Final Destination movies are all about death, but in this scene, we’re not hearing from William John Bludworth.It’s Tony Todd who is speaking to all of us, telling us not to focus on death, but to live life. May he rest in peace.
Final Destination Bloodlines
The premonition-based horror franchise returns in Final Destination Bloodlines. This entry acts a relaunch for the series with the formula remaining the same. Each Film’s protagonist is given a vision of a deadly event that takes several lives - by using this information to avoid their own death and the deaths of others, By doing this, death looks to claim those who’ve escaped by orchestrating bizarre accidents that kill them one by one.
