The Twilight saga has a surprisingly low body count for a set of movies about vampires and werewolves at war, but how many characters actually die in the action of each franchise outing? Author Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight novels proved a huge hit with young readers in the early ‘00s, and soon after their success, a movie adaptation became an inevitability. However, even after the success of the source novels, few commentators and critics could have predicted what a massive success the Twilight movies would become.

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, 2008’s Twilight was a massive hit that soon spawned a string of sequels and solidified the already-successful saga’s status as a full-blown pop culture phenomenon. However, Meyers’ original novel was high on emotion and low on action, meaning Hardwicke’s Twilight movie adaptation added a murder mystery subplot to keep the story moving and ensure viewers stayed invested. This soon proved a canny decision, as the critically derided sequel New Moon showed that the novels did not feature enough plot to drive a movie adaptation alone.

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However, while Hardwicke may have made the clever call to imply add a death into the plot to liven up proceedings, the later Twilight movies were forced to be more faithful to the novel series. As a result, for a five-movie saga, the Twilight series has shockingly few deaths since its action stays close to that of the teen-friendly source material. That said, while the gore pales in comparison to other werewolves vs vampires movies like the Kate Beckinsale vehicle Underworld, there are a handful of demises in each of Twilight‘s cinematic outings. So, who are the (named) characters killed off by the Twilight movies, and how do they die?

Twilight

The original novel that Twilight is based on features a body count of exactly one, with the central villain James being killed at the close of its action. Twilight’s movie adaptation amped up this plot by adding the unfortunate local Sully, who is briefly seen speaking to Bella’s dad Charlie early on in the movie’s action. Soon after, he is murdered offscreen by James, Laurent, and Victoria as the trio of villainous vampires take him down. Other than that, the novel-faithful death of Cam Gigandet’s villain James is Twilight’s only other demise. After a brutal battle between him and Edward, James is killed by Emmet and Alice Cullen in Twilight’s climax. It is a slight deviation from the novel version of events, wherein Emmett and Jasper kill him, but otherwise fairly true to the source material.

New Moon

While an unnamed vampire is torn to pieces by the Volturi in New Moon, the sequel is otherwise the least bloody of the Twilight saga. The original Twilight villain Laurent is killed by the werewolves at the end, but other than that, every fatality in New Moon is meted out to a minor, unnamed character. This lack of action did not help the reception of New Moon, Twilight‘s weakest franchise outing according to both fans and critics. However, its relative unpopularity did lead the series to completely change its approach in time for the third movie in the series.

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Eclipse

Easily the bloodiest Twilight outing, 2010’s Eclipse saw 30 Days of Night helmer David Slade take over directorial duties for the franchise. As a result, the body count soon shot up, although almost all of Eclipse’s many deaths belonged to minor background characters like the entire army of vampires that Victoria amassed. However, Eclipse did manage to off the young vampire Bree Tanner, the hot-headed vampire Riley, and recurring series villainess Victoria, as well as killing off Royce and three of his unnamed friends in a flashback to Rosalie’s dark Twilight backstory. While these flashbacks hardly count as part of the franchise’s body count, the sheer brutality of this standout sequence means few viewers of the Twilight franchise will be able to forget the unexpected injection of gore any time soon.

Breaking Dawn Part 1

After Eclipse surprised fans by ramping up the bloodletting to previously unseen levels, Breaking Dawn Part 1 saw the Twilight series return to the anodyne non-action of New Moon. A slow story, Breaking Dawn Part 1 only kills off two characters in its lengthy runtime, and the second of these (series heroine Bella Swan herself) is soon revived as a vampire by the end of the movie. As such, in terms of permanent canonical deaths, minor character Bianca is the sole character killed in the first half of the ending. With Eclipse’s underrated action out of the way, the Volturi’s offscreen offing of Bianca is Breaking Dawn Part 1’s only death and seemed to serve as a harbinger of the brutality that the final film would feature—or so viewers thought.

Breaking Dawn Part 2

Although almost half of Twilight’s recurring cast are killed off by the brutal, bloody finale of Breaking Dawn Part 2, almost all of these deaths are undone by the saga finale’s goofy ending twist. When it transpires that all of the death and destruction seen in the third act only took place in the mind of Alice Cullen as she forecast a potential future, the kill count drops down drastically. In reality, Breaking Dawn Part 2 only kills off two characters in the movie’s considerable runtime, both of them being very minor figures in Twilight’s overarching story. Toshiro is one of few vampires who doesn’t make it to Twilight’s plot-hole-ridden saga ending, being killed by the Volturi after revealing what Carlisle Cullen and his family are planning.

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After that, the ending battle begins with Maggie Grace’s vampire Irina being set ablaze and killed by the Volturi’s Caius. The ploy is intended to enrage her surviving sisters and start an inevitable battle, but since the skirmish doesn’t actually ensue, Irina ends up being the only other character added to the saga’s kill list in Breaking Dawn Part 2. A surprisingly bloodless end to the series, Breaking Dawn Part 2 kills off these two minor characters but steers clear of offing any of the primary cast. As such, it’s a happy ending to the Twilight franchise, which as a whole is one of vampire cinema’s least bloodthirsty series.

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Cathal Gunning
(1434 Articles Published)

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies and TV online since 2020. His obsessions include The Simpsons, Stephen King, the Scream series, and the horror genre in general. He has spent more time thinking about Stranger Things than the writers of Stranger Things, and he has never seen a Star War.

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