Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

Director: Adam Marcus

Cast: John D. LeMay, Kari Keegan, Erin Gray, Allison Smith

Have I Seen it Before: Never. It’s definitely one of those horror movie posters that captures the imagination of a kid who didn’t know any better. Did Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) always have some kind of weird snake demon living behind his hockey mask? Why haven’t the films been more about the snake demon this whole time?

I guess that’s a pretty good poster, if there’s more mystery on display there than anywhere else in the film.

Did I Like It: Knowing that the fanbase of the series views this film with a great degree of suspicion, I had to catch myself before expecting something great, or even above average from the ninth in the series.

While the Friday the 13th series started as a cheap, calculated knockoff of the Halloween franchise, something simultaneously interesting and depressing happened as the series progressed. As its classier ancestor almost immediately weighed itself down in a glut of mythology and continuity, eschewing whatever made it unnerving in the first place, the purveyors of the semi-annual outings with Jason Voorhees were content to just give the people that would pay money to see a Friday the 13th movie exactly what they want. Pre-marital sex, and chopping. Continuity is meaningless. At one point I think Corey Feldman was meant to play the Jamie Lee Curtis of the series, but it never took. Jason could die in all sorts of pretty conclusive manners, and the next film isn’t even going to address what might have happened. I think any number of films began with him at the bottom of Crystal Lake several times over the course of these films, but I honestly don’t remember a single ending of a film that involved him being thrown in that lake.

And as this film opens up, things appear to be still on the the “who gives a shit” track. While Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) ends with hockey man melting in the nightly rush of toxic waste pumped under Times Square, he’s back to his whole self here. No explanations needed, offered, or particularly wanted.

But then things fly off the tracks. Jason isn’t Jason, he’s the evil that lives within him. That evil can be reborn fully with the help of a blood relative, or it can be destroyed forever with the help of that blood relative…

Now where have I heard that before?

Does he got to hell? Is this truly the final Friday? You can guess the answers to that with some accuracy. I’m just disappointed the snake demon thing is only arguably part of the film.

Friday the 13th - Part VIII: Jason Take Manhattan (1989)

Director: Rob Hedden

Cast: Jensen Daggett, Scott Reeves, Barbara Bingham, Kane Hodder

Have I Seen It Before: Never. For some reason, I felt like I had to subject myself to the rest of the films in the series before I could finally fulfill the ambitions of a five-year-old.

I remember the ad campaign for the film in that heady age of the summer of 1989, helped considerably by the fact that I captured—while recording Batman (1966) on VHS—the 30 second spot that opened with “New York, New York”* before becoming about Jason Voorhees (Hodder, returning from the last film). That thing so captured my imagination as the kind of scary movie that true grown ups, sophisticates that they are, go to the cinema to experience.

Did I Like It: I’m a man now. I guess. I’ve seen it.

This film is reviled by the fanbase of the series. Never mind that there is a fanbase for this series, and they almost certainly have to be populated by the kind of people you never hope to encounter down a dark alleyway. I submit this question to you: Aside from possibly being in search for a more accurate title, is the film really any worse than the rest of the series? I’m serious, I think most complaints would vanish in vapor if the film was called Friday the 13th - Part VIII: Jason Goes On A Cruise, After Which He Spends An Abbreviated Third Act, Mostly In Times Square, Which Nobody Really Counts As Manhattan Anyway, Oh. Yeah. Also, Jason Melts In The Daily Midnight Flood Of Toxic Waste That Flows Under Times Square In The Days Before Giuliani.

But that would lack poetry, wouldn’t it?

*At least, I think it had that. It very well could have been “Rhapsody in Blue”, but it feels like that would be just a hair to esoteric for the audience who might be into seeing an eighth film in this series. Memory is a funny thing, isn’t it?

Friday the 13th - Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

Director: John Carl Buechler

Cast: Lar Park Lincoln, Kevin Blair, Susan Blu, Kane Hodder

Have I Seen It Before: Maybe? I’m honestly so tired of answering this (self-inflicted) question for this film series.

Did I Like It: Has anyone ever made an improvised slasher movie? I’m not talking about something like Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)* that brings comedy to the genre, I’m talking about forgoing the idea of putting together a script, and just planning on hitting a loose list of beats. It’d be easier on everybody. This was purportedly written by two writers, but what could it possibly matter? Do you remember what happened in Friday the 13th - Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)? Does it have anything to do with the waif of a telekinetic (Lincoln) who might be finally able to put Jason Voorhees (Hodder) in his final grave**? I don’t known, and this film isn’t giving me any inspiration to go as far as to look back on my review to see if there is some connective tissue. One wonders if those writers watched the last film, either. If they did, this is less a film and more the lashing out of the abused.

Before we conclude that I have nothing positive to say about the film, this is the first film to feature Kane Hodder in the role which made him moderately famous, and with which Jason is most commonly associated in fandom. He’s good. He brings a bewildered physicality to the role which against all odds moved the man with the hockey mask beyond the category of the cheapest of Michael Myers substitutes to… a moderately cheap substitute of Michael Meyers.

That ain’t nothing.

*God bless the predilection of horror movies to over-stuff their titles. They’re saving me from having to pontificate on this film for too long before hitting my word count.

**She won’t be able to, in case you were wondering. The series at this point is still cheap enough that Paramount could only stop making them if they lost interest in making money. Which apparently they did in the 90s and aren’t likely to get over it any time soon.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

Director: Tom McLoughlin

Cast: Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, David Kagen, Renee Jones

Have I Seen It Before: I’m reasonably sure that I haven’t. But a TNT marathon in the 90s might have drifted across my consciousness.

Did I Like It: Is there anything to say about this series this many movies in? It’s never been anything more than the poor-man’s slasher franchise*. It never attached to anything resembling a long-term story. Even Corey Feldman is a little bit ashamed of his association with the movies.

Is it enough that there’s a little humor injected into the proceedings? People groan about getting into another mix-em-up with the Man in the Mask**, and children ask each other what they thought they were going to be when they grew up… before it became clear they had parents content to send them to Camp Crystal Lake, by any other name. It is as if they were the first horror movie characters who have ever actually seen a horror movie. That might be revolutionary, but its far more likely giving the film too much credit. Anybody who insists that this was somehow a precursor to Scream (1996) or the far-better Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) are the same kind of people who have A Lot Of OpinionsTM about Jason.

The series is going to have to take a lot of big swings to get a reaction out of me. Thankfully or horrifyingly, I’ve still got Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) and Jason X (2001) by which I can get properly nauseated.

*That feels like the kind of incendiary that will get people Mad On The InternetTM but I don’t think I’m particularly frightened by anybody who has any kind of strong feelings for Jason Voorhees.

**“He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)” the… love theme…? from the movie is probably Alice Cooper’s worst song and sounds more like something that would form the basis of a sketch on “I Think You Should Leave.”

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

Director: Danny Steinmann

Cast: Melanie Kinnaman, John Shepherd, Shavar Ross, Corey Feldman

Have I Seen it Before: I dunno… Maybe? The odds of me drifting to this thing for a few minutes on cable at some point in the 90s are nowhere near zero.

Did I Like It: Had I watched the entire movie, one would think I wouldn’t remember it much. I had a sort of mildly above negative reaction to Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), in as much as the series had spent any number of movies wandering around a concept, only to become what the uninitiated might recognize as a movie with Jason Voorhees (here played by no one; I’ll probably get to that in a minute). As this movie opens, Feldman returns and it feels like the series will drift into a comfortable pattern.

But no. Somebody, and it feels like the Paramount brass looking out for their reliable low-risk ongoing investment have decided that their audience wouldn’t accept more entries of the series which just allow for the fact that Jason can die in one film and then reappear in the next*, so the sequel involves… some guy who wears a hockey mask. The film is supremely disinterested in any mystery regarding who has taken up Jason’ mantle, or in any kind of meditation on what Jason’s terror can do to the survivors**. It’s just interested in an array of boobs, a couple of axe and machete shots and… nothing. If those were the only things that brought you—whether enthusiastically or begrudgingly—to a Friday the 13th film, then you’ll get what you ordered from the Paramount warehouse. If you’re looking for anything else, you might want to skip the movie. If you’re looking for a lot more, you’re probably well-advised to skip the series entirely.

*The Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween series have been able to do this with far greater effect. Yes, I know. Don’t come at me with your Season of the Witch references, at the least that off-series interlude had the good sense to try and being completely divorced from the continuity before or since. None of them tried to do a sequel but forget to bring their antagonist with them.

**For a better shot at that, you’ll really have to go back to Halloween Ends (2022), a movie you all rejected and were, frankly, wrong in that assessment.

Friday the 13th - Part III (1982)

Director: Steve Miner

Cast: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Richard Brooker, Tracie Savage

Have I Seen it Before: Maybe? Don’t they all bleed together? At this point, I get more and more excited at the prospect of Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), just to get something a little bit different going on.

Did I Like It: That last sentence probably tells you everything you need to know. The best I can say about this series at this point is that they have managed to finally trip over some iconic imagery. Jason (Brooker) finally has his goalie mask*. So what? Not much of anything, really, but it is sort of a marvel that it takes three movies for a series to look like itself. If I’m going to reach for anything more nice to say, I can at least say that the film—unlike its predecessors—is no longer trying to shamelessly imitate other, better films. Even the Hermann-esque score of the first two parts is replaced by a disco riff that I can’t imagine made its way into dance venues in the late summer of 1982.

If things weren’t bad enough, the cinematography has taken a plunge. This film would have looked vapid if I was still able to see it in the originally intended 3D. Knives fly at the frame, other weapons are lunged in our faces, and even baseball bats that have nothing to do with the rest of the scene are all a prolonged practice in perspective that looks like someone just took an introductory drawing class.

All we’re left with is a dearth of tension (ingenues scream on cue, but otherwise don’t move or emote like someone facing a mortal dilemma) and mindless violences, cheaply and profitably produced.

*Although here he also sports a fashionably conservative jacket and khaki slacks. Minus the hydrocephaly and the machete, it almost reminds me of Kelsey Grammer’s fashion sense in the revised Frasier.

Friday the 13th - Part II (1981)

Director: Steve Miner

Cast: Adrienne King, Amy Steel, John Furey, Betsy Palmer

Have I Seen it Before: I dunno… Maybe?

Did I Like It: At the end of my review of Friday the 13th (1980) I lamented the prospect of watching the rest of the series. How much can they wring out of a willfully pale imitation of the Halloween series?

I’m sort of heartened as I finish the first sequel, if for no other reason than the adventures of Jason Voorhees are to the horror canon as Star Trek: Voyager is to the Star Trek canon.

Let me finish.

Voyager really isn’t all that bad, but it does have its challenges, but even during those long stretches where the show doesn’t seem the least bit interested in being an engaging series, it is wonderful white noise. I got an entire paper for grad school—with citations and the whole deal—while this movie was playing itself out.

That has to have some kind of value, right?

That certainly sounds like damning the thing with the faintest of all possible praise, and I’m even having a hard time arguing against that conclusion. There just isn’t a lot of “here”, here. Betsy Palmer returns for a spell to be be Jason’s (Steve Daskewisz) hallucinations of his mother, although it would have been even better if the best actor of the series (sorry, Kevin Bacon) had decided to play the severed head of her former character, but that probably would have been too much to ask from a franchise that doesn’t yet realize it is going to have to be far, far weirder than this to survive.

But, really? A burlap sack is the best they could do as they launch their marquee maniac into our cinematic hearts? Here’s hoping that they come up with something a little bit better for the next movie.

Friday the 13th (1980)

Director: Sean S. Cunningham

Cast: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Kevin Bacon

Have I Seen it Before: Sure… Probably? iTunes had a sale on all 8 of the films in the series released by Paramount Pictures (before the property was sold to New Line, making Freddy vs. Jason (2003) sort of inevitable.

Did I Like It: No one alive and/or aware on any level over the last 45 years will try to tell you this is a good movie. Avowed fans of the series—an odd bunch, one can only imagine—would even view this one as something of an aberration, as everything they claim to like about the series doesn’t even start to enter into the mix until Part III (1982).

It is, fundamentally, an imitation of far better movies, imitating the sounds, but not the language in those better films. Almost nothing in this film isn’t trying to make the same kind of money that Halloween (1978) harnessed, without endeavoring to make an actual movie in the process.

And yet, of all the lame imitations of movies that exist, this one at least has the advantage of being a cut above those rest. The score is not bad (although it gets a lot more schmaltzy in the film’s final minutes; did we really need a love theme?), owing more to Bernard Hermann scores (Psycho) and less like the synth tracks of John Carpenter.

Betsy Palmer chews the scenery at just the right level, but her performance may only be that good when stacked up against the barely animate cardboard cutouts which surround her.

So, did I hate it? No. But I can’t say I’m all that thrilled with the prospect of being compelled to watch seven more of these? Not quite.

Also, why does she take that canoe out at the end of the film, other than to give us that final shot? Doesn’t make a damn bit of sense… Granted, it was all a dream, but that has its own problems.