Horror movie review #17 - Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

There have been a lot of killers in the horror movies I've watched.  Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leatherface...  But easily the most enjoyable to watch, is Jason Vorhees.  Sure, Leatherface is the campiest, and Freddy Krueger is the most laughable, and Michael Myers is probably the scariest, but Jason?  He's just all about the killing.  There's no style, there's no target he's after, there's nothing but bloody slaughter.  Plus, you know, pretty much every friday the 13th movie has boobs in it.  :-D

So here's a review of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993).  This was supposed to be the last Friday the 13th, but we all know by now that it wasn't.  lol  They just remade another Friday the 13th in 2009, I guess that was a remake or something?  I don't know if I've seen it or not.  Anyway, this one had a lot of second-rate actors in it that I guess wanted to cash in on the Jason series before the end.  The most famous of which was probably Erin Gray of Buck Rogers fame, who didn't have much screen time but was just as good looking as ever.  You might recognize a few other actors from other things, but I didn't.  lol  On to the summary.

We open on a lonely girl headed up to camp crystal lake for some fun.  It's nighttime.  She heads into her cabin.  She's about to take a shower when the lights go out.  Jason has returned.  She almost dies, manages to make it out of the cabin.  Jason chases the girl through the woods, to a clearing.  Suddenly there's floodlights everywhere.  Dozens of police officers jump out from behind the trees, and the woman dives over a police barricade.  The officers start firing.  Rockets are fired.  Jason explodes into pieces.  He's finally dead.  Except... this is the beginning of the movie, so...  You know he's not really dead, don't you?

Aside from the decent acting, and the numerous actors who got to play Jason in this film, this was probably the lamest of the friday the 13th movies.  I guess they wanted to go all Michael Myers road and have Jason go after his family or something, tied in with some lame ass origin story about jason's heart being a tiny demon or something?  They never really explained anything, so for an origin story it was quite unsatisfactory.  And then they end the film with Jason's hockey mask being grabbed up by Freddy Krueger.  Honestly, wtf?  It's like a bad crossover that nobody wanted.  The special effects were bad, the ending blew, the origin story wasn't, I can't really say why they even bothered to make this other than get more money.  There were boobs, at least.

My favorite Jason movies were probably part 2 to 4, and part 7, but especially part 6.  In part 6, Jason's nemesis Tommy Jarvis returns as an adult to put an end to his nightmares, and burn Jason's decomposing corpse to cinders.  But, while digging up jason's remains from the grave, lightning strikes the body, and jason, much like the Frankenstein monster, is reborn as an undead corpse.  Even more powerful and vicious then ever, jason returns to his old habits, stalking the lake that is forever his home.  Even Jason X has it's merits.

But, unfortunately, this isn't any of those movies.  I've seen it a few times and will probably see it again, but only because it's a Friday the 13th movie.  Whatever happened to faceless, unstoppable killing machines in movies?  Why does every killer need a heart, feelings, an origin story?  Whatever happened to slaughter, gore, mayhem and boobies?   Sigh.  I miss the good old days.

Oh well.  Until tomorrow night.  :-)