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Jason Goes to Hell: The Final
Friday (1993)
Plot
After being set up
and then blown apart by an FBI ambush, the body of Jason Voorhees is taken
for an autopsy. However his spirit still lives on and he possesses the body
of the coroner, forcing him to return to Crystal Lake to continue his
murderous rampage. It is up to one of his blood relatives and a bounty
hunter to finally put him to rest.
Review
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes
Manhattan was both the most expensive and least profitable entry into
the series. Not only were audiences sick of seeing Jason slice his way
through armies of drunken and promiscuous teenagers but they were sick of
the sub-genre in general. During a restructuring exercise, Paramount opted
to sell the rights to the series and they were picked up by New Line, who
owned one of the other 'big three' slasher franchises in the form of the
A Nightmare on Elm Street series. After Freddy's Dead: The Final
Nightmare in 1991, New Line let him rest up and decided to give Jason
his first outing under their banner. What eventually came out of the studio
is Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, a total franchise killer if
ever there was one.
People may argue about the merits of each
individual installment all they like but surely common consensus must lay
the title of 'Worst in the Series' to Jason Goes To Hell: The Final
Friday. After being axed
in the head, electrocuted, drowned, shot, stabbed with a machete, buried
under collapsed buildings and then washed with toxic waste, you'd have
thought the guy wouldn't want anymore. But New Line clearly tried to reboot
the franchise by injecting some fresh life into the story by completely
re-writing it! Jason Goes To
Hell: The Final Friday starts promisingly. A young female in a cabin in
the woods. Brief nudity. Jason then trying to kill her. A quick chase
through the woods. It's all of the staple ingredients which made the
previous films so successful and it is condensed down into a nine-minute
sequence (minus the gore since no one dies). But then Jason gets blown up!
Literally just blown up. I can appreciate the logic in the script with the
FBI taking note of Jason's mass slaughter over the years and deciding to do
something about it. It makes perfect sense as it's exactly what would happen
in real life. But it makes for terrible viewing. The film rapidly goes
downhill from here on and it turns into a body swapping horror film as
Jason's spirit hops from one body to the next. The explanation that Jason is
some kind of small creature which possesses human bodies is absurd, comes
out of nowhere and makes a mockery out of the previous eight films. Jason is now in the bodies of other
people and you won't see much of your favourite hockey-mask wearing killer,
only other characters pretending to be him. This is not only a shame for the
story but for Kane Hodder, the actor who has played Jason in the previous
few films. Apart from a few moments in the infamous mask, Hodder is
consigned to a throwaway cameo. You'll miss his hulking Jason stomping
around woods slaughtering teenagers. How anyone could green light the idea
that Jason, some massive undead zombie-like killer, is actually a tiny
creature which needs a host body is beyond me. But the script is happy to
throw in whatever it wants to keep the film moving - the introduction of
Jason having some previously unmentioned long lost relative just smacks of
desperation.
At least the film
doesn't skimp on the gore and it's one of the bloodiest entries in the
series with the best kill being a woman having sex with her boyfriend in a tent when
Jason rams a pole through her back, out of her chest and then proceeds to
tear her in half upwards. Some editions of the film have the money shot cut
out but track down the film uncut and you'll be rewarded with one of the
best kills of the series. There are other gory kills too so it's good to see
some of the hallmarks of the series have remained untouched. Not only are there
graphic deaths but the heart-eating moment early in the film is pretty
nasty. In order for Jason to swap bodies, he needs to transfer his tiny body
orally which leads to all manner of silly 'making out' moments which rank
high on the gross scale and low on the common sense scale. Being the only
one who knows this information at the start of the film, Creighton Duke, the
bounty hunter, is one of the best characters of the entire series. Played by
Steven Williams, he makes for a great adversary for Jason and, should there
have been a direct sequel to this one, he'd have made for a welcome return.
Swaggering around the screen like some horror version of Shaft,
Williams is clearly better than the material he's surrounded by. Apart from
Williams, the highlight of the film and the most talked about moment comes
right in the last shot with the appearance of Freddy Kruger's glove -
hinting at a mouth watering confrontation between Freddy and Jason which
would take a staggering ten years to make.
Verdict
Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday is
the worst of the series by a long way. Yes, it's good to see a series try
and reinvent itself and try something new (Halloween III: Season of the
Witch anyone?) but when it's executed as poorly and sloppily as this,
it's not worth the effort. Skip the film and just watch the Freddy bit on
Youtube.
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