Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

When I watch I'd expect to hate it and it's not all that bad. I say it's my forth favorite of the series. Good story, good characters, not the best acting but I accept it, and very interesting. This is the Halloween III season of The Witch (1983) of the series and yeah I know part 5 did but we're not talking about that right now. I don't care what most people say I like this movie.

Almost all the Jason movies I've seen have left me entertained, and the Final Friday is no exception. It has all the Jason style murders that you look forward too but not overly graphic too except for one or two scenes that show Jason's attempt to exit from bodies that he inhabited, uggh! There's good suspense, twists and the end is an unexpected surprise. But the performances are mostly forgettable except for John LeMay as Steven who tries to save his wife & kid from Jason or Steven Williams as the bounty hunter Duke. There's some nudity too but again, not quite in the face either. If you've been a fan of Jason movies, you'd like this one no matter if some of the scenes seem outright ridiculous.

During the 1980s, only two years passed without an entry in the Friday the 13th series. That's eight films in ten years, and while the quality usually betrayed those short production times, they always felt like kin. Spiritual relatives. It took four years for a ninth chapter to see the light of day, plus a switch from Paramount to New Line Cinema, and somewhere along the way there was a great disconnect. A true B-grade picture in every sense, Jason Goes to Hell is the worst Friday yet, and one of the most desperate, flailing, pointless films I've ever seen. Though veteran blade-swinger Kane Hodder has returned to the role, this Jason bears little resemblance to the cool, creepy psycho killer of the earlier films. Inflated and deformed, at this point he's basically a roid-raging leper in a twisted, vaguely-familiar hockey mask, but he's changed in more than just a physical sense. The story revolves around his black heart, literally migrating from host to host to inspire fresh killings after Jason himself is blown to bits in the opening scene. We've swallowed some absurdly stupid plot devices over the course of this franchise, including a similarly lame-brained "fake Jason" angle in 1985's A New Beginning, but this one sets an awful new standard. It plays like cruddy straight-to-video '90s gimmick horror, not the quaintly under-produced slasher material that had typified the series to this point. Needless to say, the acting hasn't improved (somehow, impossibly, it's actually grown much worse) and the production values, which enjoyed a well-deserved bump in Jason Takes Manhattan, are once again cut-rate and pitiful. Not a good look for New Line, proving right out of the gates that they don't understand what they're making and don't honestly care, one way or the other.

This supposedly "final" entry in the series (although yet another has been recently, unwelcomely made) wisely takes the theme in a different direction from the repetitive stalk-and-slash antics of the previous entries. Unfortunately for us, the film decides to takes its inspiration from that underrated classic THE HIDDEN, turning Jason into an evil being that swaps human bodies by sliding from mouth to mouth! Sadly the producers still see fit to throw in a few moronic teenagers, plenty of dumb characters, and stupid dialogue. But they also make one of the slimiest, ickiest entries in the entire series and in my book, that deserves points. Whether we're watching the human vessels that Jason travels in being shot to bits, impale,d and generally destroyed, or witnessing the truly disgusting "body melt" that occurs after he leaves the body of one of his hosts (ROBOCOP has nothing on this), the special effects are pretty damn good.Although the general acting of the cast leaves something to be desired, as a bonus point for cult fans we get the appearance of Erin Gray (Wilma Deering from BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY) who shows up in a small but important role as a waitress who becomes one of Jason's victims. The male lead, who looks a lot like Ted Raimi, is actually quite good in his role, and the female lead isn't too bad either. However, the truly psychotic Steven Williams manages to steal every scene he's in as a sadistic bounty hunter following Jason's trail - just witness his totally unnecessary snapping of a man's fingers just for the hell of it. Of course fans of cult TV will no doubt recognise Williams as being the guy who played Mr. X in THE X-FILES, and the two characters are very similar: they shout a lot, throw their weight around and are generally fun to watch.So, for a Friday film, this offers us up a lot of action and violence, which is most welcome and makes things easier to take, a silly plot seemingly written on the back of a beer mat and designed to give Jason a motive (when they mentioned that Voorhees had a secret sister I groaned), and surprisingly good special effects. There are also a couple of in-jokes for movie buffs too, including the appearance of the Necronomicon from EVIL DEAD 2 and Freddy's gloved hand from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. The crazy finale sees Jason being dragged into the ground by a load of giant hands which are supposed to represent the demons of hell - I was expecting more from this, especially with the build-up, the title and the fiery box art, and thus left disappointed. This isn't bad stuff though, just not particularly original. It could be worse - just try watching numbers 2, 4, 5 and 7 in this series instead. It would have made a good conclusion if they'd just decided to leave things alone after all, but when there are bucks to be made, you just know they're somehow going to contrive a reincarnation, no matter how absurd it might be...