Erik Campbell (Final Destination)

Erik Campbell is a character in the supernatural horror film Final Destination Bloodlines (2025), the sixth installment in the Final Destination franchise. He was created by Guy Busick, Lori Evans Taylor, and Jon Watts and portrayed by Richard Harmon. Erik is introduced as the son of Howard and Brenda Campbell, being the oldest of their three children. In 1969, his paternal grandmother Iris had a vision of a high-rise restaurant tower collapsing and was able to prevent the disaster, saving herself and numerous other people. As Erik and his family were never supposed to exist, Death itself targets Iris' bloodlines, killing them in order of lineage. When his younger sister is killed, seemingly out of order, Erik learns he is not a biological descendant of Iris, being borne out of his mother's affair with another man. While attempting to help his brother Bobby cancel out Death's list, Erik dies by getting sucked into a malfunctioning by a wheelchair that crushes and impales him.
In developing the cast of Bloodlines, director Zach Lipovsky stated that they wished to avoid creating one-dimensional characters, wanting to feature ones with layers to them instead. The reveal about Erik's parentage came from the crew wanting to subvert audience expectations regarding the order of the characters' deaths; one discarded concept involved twins whose birth order was uncertain. Initially, Erik was envisioned as an online streamer who died while livestreaming a virtual reality game. A lifelong fan of the franchise, Harmon was cast as Erik eight months after his first audition, with the delay being due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Harmon helped influence many of his character's scenes and dialogue by improvising his lines and actions or making suggestions to the production crew. From the beginning, Lipovsky and co-director Adam Stein hoped to feature a death scene involving an MRI machine, but were unsure where to place such a sequence in the film; they also questioned its ethical implications. In the end, they included the concept as it received a positive response from the production team.
Following the release of Bloodlines, Erik became a fan favorite. Critics often singled out Harmon's performance as among the best in the film, recognizing him as a scene stealer and praising him for adding comic relief. Erik's fake-out death scene at his tattoo parlor and his actual death involving an MRI machine were also praised by critics, with the latter deemed the best death scene in Bloodlines. Erik's death was also analyzed for its accuracy by scientific experts.
Fictional character biography
Erik is introduced as the eldest son of Howard and Brenda Campbell, and older brother of Julia and Bobby, living with his family in Cloverdale, New York. Stefani and Charlie Reyes are his cousins through his aunt Darlene, Howard's younger sister. All of them are descendants of Iris and Paul Campbell, Erik's paternal grandparents. In 1969, Iris had a vision of an accident occurring at the Sky View high-rise restaurant tower, killing everyone present. Thanks to her vision, Iris prevented the disaster and saved everyone. As those people were meant to die, Death came after the survivors and their descendants, who were never supposed to exist, putting the Campbell-Reyes family in danger.
Due to recurring nightmares involving Iris' vision of the Sky View disaster, Stefani returns home and finds Iris, who warns her about Death coming after their family, before allowing herself to be killed to convince her granddaughter. Following Iris' funeral, Erik and his family host a barbecue to celebrate Darlene's return, after she had left her family years prior. During the event, Howard trips on a shard of glass and has his head shredded by a lawnmower. Stefani tries to convince her family that Death is coming for them, claiming that following Howard's death, Erik is the next one fated to die. Rebuffing her, Erik goes to work at his tattoo parlor.
At the tattoo parlor, Erik finishes applying a tongue piercing to a client and is told to lock up by his boss. While alone and listening to music, Erik starts a chain reaction that leads to a hanging ceiling chain near a ceiling fan dislodging and attaching to his nose piercing. As the chain starts coiling around the fan, forcing Erik to stand on a glass display, some cleaning fluid that had spilled on the floor catches fire. As he tries to unhook his piercing from the chain, the ceiling fan detaches and Erik falls onto the fire, but is protected by his leather jacket.
The following day, Erik runs into Stefani and Charlie, who are still convinced that he is the next one to die. While the three of them are talking, Julia is knocked into a waste container that is picked up by a garbage truck. Despite their attempts to stop the driver, Julia is crushed by the truck's compactor. Questioning why Death would skip over Erik and go for Julia, Brenda reveals that Erik is not Howard's biological son; having marital problems at the time, Brenda had an affair with a neighbor named Jerry Fenbury, and Howard decided to raise Erik as his own. As Erik was not a descendant of Iris, he was not targeted by Death.
Stefani, Charlie, Darlene, and Bobby plan to go to a hospital in the hopes of getting answers from JB, a friend of Iris. Erik joins them in the hopes of saving Bobby's life. There, they learn JB is William Bludworth, who works as a forensic pathologist. Bludworth informs them that Iris saved his life as a young boy at the Sky View. Having often encountered other groups of survivors, he explains that the only way to defeat Death is to either kill someone and be granted their remaining years or experience clinical death and be resuscitated, bringing up Kimberly Corman as a successful example. However, he warns that interfering in Death's design can have dire consequences.
Deciding to use the second strategy, Erik takes Bobby into a room with a with the plan to have Bobby flatline by eating a snack containing nuts, which he is allergic to, so that doctors can revive him. Unbeknownst to them, the MRI machine gets turned on, which proceeds to rip Erik's piercings out. The machine then causes a wheelchair behind Erik to push him inside, which crushes and impales him. Following his and Bobby's death, Stefani deduces that Erik's intervention is what put him on Death's list.
Development
Creation and casting
The 2025 horror film Final Destination Bloodlines was directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein and written by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor, based on a story developed by Busick, Evans Taylor, and Jon Watts. Having the film's plot focus on a family hunted by Death came from Watts, who pitched the idea to New Line Cinema.
According to Busick, having one of the characters be revealed as not a blood relative of the Campbell family was an idea the production team had early into the making of Bloodlines. Producer Craig Perry stated that with the film following a family and the order of death being established early on, they considered different ways to subvert audience expectations. At one point, it was considered for two members of the Campbell family to be twins, with the characters being unsure about which twin was born first, until they both died. However, Perry viewed the concept — which would have been a "double kill" in a "double sequence" — as being tonally "problematic" and it was abandoned. Once the concept involving twins was discarded, it was decided to implement the idea of having a character's parentage be revealed as different than what the Campbells and the audience initially assumed, which Perry viewed as the best way to "take the family structure and lean into family conflict". According to Stein, during an early draft of Bloodlines, Erik was to be a live streamer — instead of a tattoo artist — and he would die while playing a virtual reality game during one of his live streams.
Richard Harmon found out about Final Destination Bloodlines being in production through his agent, who informed him via email that he had an audition for the film. Harmon's involvement was officially announced alongside the rest of the film's cast in March 2024.
Characterization
Following the film's release, Harmon noted that critics often described Erik as "a bit of a dick".
Tattoo parlor accident
The scene at the tattoo parlor involving Erik's nose piercing getting hooked to a chain took five days to shoot and occurred during the second week of filming. According to stunt coordinator Simon Burnett, the crew struggled with figuring out how to have Erik hang by his nose; one option included the use of magnetic chains. Despite the difficulty of the stunts involved, he enjoyed filming the scene, describing it as one of his favorites in the film.
MRI machine death
According to Lipovsky, having a death scene involving an MRI machine is something the crew conceived early on during production of Bloodlines; however, they were uncertain over where in the film such a scene should be placed. Moreover, Lipovsky and the crew also "debated the ethics" of placing such as scene in Bloodlines, recognizing that previous films had impacted viewers and consumers concerning certain objects or activities; such as Ashley's and Ashlyn's deaths involving tanning beds in Final Destination 3 (2006). According to Stein, the crew found that while most accidents did not involve human injuries, there were several instances of objects such as "oxygen tanks or gurneys get sucked towards MRIs". For Erik's death where the wheelchair begins to impale him, a torso duplicate of Harmon got created that was folded in reverse and had "breakaway tattooed skins and an elaborate rig to tear it apart". Also writing for ComicBook.com, Spencer Perry opined that Erik was the most interesting character in the film. Rafael Motamayor of /Film praised Bloodliness focus on a family as it gave the film an "emotional undertone"; he highlighted Erik's attempt to save Bobby despite the reveal he was not targeted by Death and them being half-brothers as an example, arguing that this plot point made it "hard not to get emotional and feel bad for the characters". Foreman also described Erik as a tragic figure in that he tries to help his family but ends up dying for his actions. Perry and Jonathan Sim of ComingSoon.net both highlighted Harmon as one of the best actors in the film. Todd Gilchrist, writing for Variety, praised Harmon's performance as "surprisingly thoughtful", with The Guardians Radheyan Simonpillai, who commended the entire cast, also singling out Harmon's portrayal of Erik. Harmon was also described as a scene stealer by Ridgely, /Films BJ Colangelo, and Jacob Oller of The A.V. Club, with Foreman describing him as "magnetic". Beatrice Loayza of The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter writer Frank Scheck took notice of Harmon's comedic talent in the film.
Several critics highlighted Erik's near-death scene in the tattoo parlor. Katie Walsh of The Seattle Times praised the scene for its execution, with NMEs Jordan Bassett describing it as a "fabulously nasty set-piece". Jesse Hassenger of Paste also recognized the scene for being humorous. Vulture writer Bilge Ebiri describes Erik's fake-out death scene as "hugely elaborate", also viewing his survival as surprising. Relating to this, Jamie Graham of Empire praised the reveal that Erik is not a descendant of Iris, and thus not hunted by Death, for managing to subvert audiences' expectations.
Erik's eventual death scene involving an MRI machine was praised. Scheck viewed Erik's death as the best one in Bloodlines. George also viewed Erik and Bobby's love for each other as making their deaths "poignant".<ref name"Den of Geek"/> Relating to this, Oller praised Harmon's chemistry with Joyner.<ref name"AV Club"/>
His death was also analyzed by experts for its scientific accuracy. Ben Inglis, physicist and manager at the University of California Berkeley Brain Imaging Center, and Wintermark spoke with The Today Show writer Sarah Jacoby, informing her that most MRI machines are incapable of increasing in magnetic power; whenever there is a change in the strength of an MRI machine's magnetic field, its magnetic pull will become weaker, rather than stronger.<ref name"Today Show"/> However, Inglis did acknowledge that the magnets within MRI machines are strong enough to pull various types of metallic objects in them, with Jacoby noting different instances of metallic objects — like oxygen tanks and wheelchairs — getting sucked into such machines; some incidents even leading to patients getting injured.<ref name"Today Show"/>

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