Audiences were terrified of logging trucks after watching “Final Destination 2.” Now, thanks to “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” they’ll be afraid of MRI machines, too.
Richard Harmon, the actor whose character meets his grizzly end in the MRI scene, told Business Insider that he masterminded its most eye-opening moment.
The new movie, which is out now, follows Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), a college student who dreams of her grandmother (who is alive) dying in a skyscraper accident in 1968.
She realizes that her family wasn’t meant to exist, and that they’re being hunted by Death itself.
Richard Harmon plays Erik, Stefani’s cousin, a tattooist and piercer who is skeptical about the deaths plaguing his family. Toward the end of the film, Erik finally dies when an MRI machine is accidentally turned to the highest setting, ripping out all of his body piercings — including one on his penis.
Ahead of the film’s release, Harmon told BI it was his idea for the character to have his penis pierced.
“Looking at this character and the way that he’s tattooed and the way that he’s pierced, I said ‘there’s another piercing, you know,’ and they’re like, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I think you know exactly what I mean,'” Harmon said.
He added: “Then both of our directors said, ‘We actually had that thought,’ and I said, ‘Well why aren’t we doing it?’
“We discussed it, and then we put it in on the day.”
Craig Perry, who has produced every “Final Destination” movie, explained to BI in a separate interview that the MRI scene works so well because: “that’s something that people understand, and there’s such an unbelievable rich vein of danger in that machine and what it can do, and if you’re not careful about metal objects around it.”
Perry added: “This is a perfect opportunity for us to put some characters in a circumstance where there’s a rising level of magnetism and how it starts to slowly impact the world around them, until it starts impacting the world inside of them.”
Harmon assured horror movie fans that incidents like the one in “Final Destination: Bloodlines” are extremely rare, but had some important advice: “Don’t let our movie tell you not to go get an MRI. The chances of what happened in that scene are very slim… Just maybe take your piercings out first.”
