Entertainment site Blavity broke the internet last Monday when they revealed a first look at New Line Cinema’s upcoming horror movie, Final Destination: Bloodlines. They also broke countless hearts while they were at it.

The first cracks across the coronary arteries came with the unneeded reminder to older horror fans that this sixth installment of the Final Destination franchise coming out this year will mark the 25^th anniversary of the original film’s release. They didn’t just go see it in theaters a mere handful of years ago.

However, the hardest blow landed on a spot that still hasn’t healed for most, and that one was from the single solitary image that has been shared from the movie.

It has been five months since the passing of the late/great actor Tony Todd, but the ache is still fresh inside of those who feel the giant void in this world that followed his departure from it. The universally beloved horror icon’s final onscreen performance will be of him reprising his role from the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 5^th Final Destination movies, that of the ominously mysterious funeral director, William Bludworth. 

The reaction from this exclusive sneak peek was a bittersweet mixture of joy, and excitement that his legacy will be officially stamped with him giving one more lecture about “Death’s Design” to a group of doomed souls, but with it also comes the morbidly bleak realization that Tony Todd has reached that final destination himself.

 “Thank You, Tony Todd for 25 Years of #FinalDestination,” writes ROBERT ANTHONY on X.

“Love this series, love Tony Todd’s,” exclaims Shudder’s The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs producer/music composer, Johnny Brennan, on his X account.

“[We] still haven’t recovered from this wound. Now there will be a new wound incoming,” says the Spicy memes with the cold facts on X.

Every film in the series has the same plot that involves a group of people who’ve managed to escape their fated and collective demise after one of them has a vision of it all happening moments beforehand, but only to start dying one by one soon after. Bludworth acts as a herald for Death who shares insight into the nature of their situation and the grand “Design” they have altered.

This posthumous role is sure to cast a dark shadow over the entire movie and along the spines of fans who go see it. It is a fitting sendoff for a horror great who has haunted our film screens for decades, but it also carries the grim and ironically meta caveat that none of us can escape Death’s Design, whether it be in film or real life.

Final Destination: Bloodlines stars Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore, Rya Kihlstedt, Brec Bassinger, and the dearly departed Tony Todd. It will come tolling into theaters on May 16th, and here’s the teaser trailer to ease the passing of time (and hopefully nothing else!):