We finally got the REAL Jason Voorhees
on film, as he donned his iconic hockey mask for the first time and
morphed into a fearless badass that didn't cower from chainsaws.
Amped up by a rocking disco soundtrack, he hacked and slashed his way
through the usual gang of idiots and into our hearts. Awww!
Hey, I'm back! Sorry about the hiatus,
but zombie things came up. Being undead can get rather busy at
times, and just an occurrence popped up the last couple of weeks.
We're going to continue with the Friday the 13th
franchise since that's been so much fun to review, continuing with
the fourth film of the series: the so-called “final” chapter.
This was the first movie to break the yearly release trend the series
had become known for, as the studio wisely took 1983 off because the
dreaded “genre fatigue” had finally set in around this time. It
feels like in the early 1980s every 1.3 films released was a slasher
movie, something audiences were finally getting sick of.
Steve Miner was done with the franchise
at this point, so writer/director Joseph Zito was brought in to helm
the new movie. Zito was fresh off the cult classic slasher the
Prowler, which is most notable for featuring makeup effects by
the Horror Lord and Saviour, Tom Savini. Luckily for all of us, Zito
brought Savini along with him, giving him another chance to wreak
havoc with the character he helped to create. At the time this was
intended to truly be the swan song of Jason's story, so Savini wanted
to send off our lovable slasher in style. With a quality team of
filmmakers on-board and a year to build anticipation, the movie
turned out to be a monster hit, grossing over $30 million dollars off
a budget somewhere around two million. Critics once again hated it,
but fans loved it to the point it's considered one of the best movies
of the series. It even ended up outgrossing Wes Craven's A
Nightmare on Elm Street, which was also released the same year.
Let's find out why, so get ready to rise from the dead again because
it's time for A Ghoul Versus Friday the 13th:
The Final Chapter!
We open with footage from the second
movie, where Paul is telling his campfire story about the legend that
is Jason. This is cut with highlights of kills from the past three
movies, which is turn lead us to the cheesily awesome opening
credits. The next is of the police cleaning up the aftermath of the
last movie, Jason's body finally getting that sheet I bitched about
previously. He's taken to the morgue, which is ran by a lecherous
man named Axel who is much more interested in flirting with the nurse
on duty and eating. I wonder if there's some kind of law that if
you're a mortician that you ALWAYS have to be eating while working?
Axel gets the nurse, Robbie, to go into
the cold room with him for hot sexy times, but their mood is ruined
by Jason's arm flopping out of his sheet. Robbie leaves, forcing
Axel to watch an workout video featuring a hot brunette getting her flex on. In a bit of
unintentional foreshadowing, the woman in the video is actress Darcy
DeMoss, whom we might just be seeing a couple movies from now.
Naturally, Jason rises from the dead to slash Axel's throat with a
hacksaw and then break his neck for the flourish, because he's
developed a serious sense of style now. Robbie is next to fall by
getting disemboweled with a scalpel, as we can see Savini really
upped his game for this one. This film is well known for being one
of the most brutal of the series, both these kills illustrating why.
This transitions to the Jarvis family,
who are staying out in a cabin by the woods... somewhere. There is
Mrs. Jarvis (it's a horror movie, parents don't need names!), her
twenty-something daughter Trish, and her preteen son Tommy. Trish's
actress, Kimberly Beck, never went on to do anything else notable
besides the gripping role of “housewife” in the 1996 blockbuster
Independence Day, but you MIGHT have heard of Tommy's actor, Corey
Feldman. At only twelve years old, Feldman was already a huge star
due to his numerous television and film roles, and was in the midst
of a scorching box office run between this, Gremlins, the
Goonies, Stand By Me, and the Lost Boys. Of
course, this is years before he went crazy and started making bizarre
music videos where he (badly) channels Michael Jackson.
Mrs. Jarvis is a loving mom, Trish is
blonde, and Tommy is a really smart nerd, that's pretty much all you
need to know. Oh, and they have a dog named Gordon too that'll
inexplicably vanish from the movie by jumping out a window later on.
I also would be remiss if I don't mention we're introduced to Tommy
as we see him playing the space shooter video game Zaxxon, which was
one of my favourites when I was a kid. They discuss six kids have
rented the cabin across the way, who are the next people we get to
meet. ROLE CALL!
-Paul, who is... handsome, I guess?
-Sam, Paul's girlfriend and the
Mandated by Horror Tropes “slut” who TOTALLY won't die. She is
played by Judie Aronson, who would have a featured role in the 1985
smash hit Weird Science.-Sara, the shy virgin.
-Doug, whom Sara has the hots for and is also handsome?
-Jimmy, played by Crispin Hellion Glover, a man that I'm pretty sure the word “eccentric” was invented centuries earlier in preparation just for him. Like Aronson, he would also go on to greater box office success the following year, his coming in the form of a little film called Back to the Future.
-Ted, the clown of the group. Always got to have one! Thankfully, he's NOWHERE near the abomination that Shelly was and actually is pretty funny.
Jimmy instantly steals the show thanks
to Glover's patented line delivery and mannerisms, he is one of those
rare actors that grabs your attention no matter what he does. Kind
of like a young Christopher Walken. The six are driving out in the
woods to find their cabin, but soon get lost. They pull over to the
side of the road so Paul and Doug can consult their map, while Sam
looks over to a nearby cemetery where we can see Mrs. Voorhees'
tombstone. I wonder if they dug her back up and placed her head in
the coffin as well? Doug gets a handle on their location so they
drive on, passing a female hitchhiker on the way. She is promptly
killed by Jason with a knife to the back of her throat, who is once
again using his expert navigational skills to return home. Seriously,
how did he get out of the hospital, and the city for that matter,
with NO ONE noticing?
The six finally find their cabin and
meet their neighbours, giving us NINE FREAKING PEOPLE to keep track
of right now. Jason better show up, and he better show up SOON.
Scratch that, ELEVEN people because our campers meet a set of
brunette twins, Terri and Tina, out in the forest the next morning.
DAYMN, create too many characters much there, Friday the 13th?!
They all decide to go skinny dipping in Crystal Lake for some fine
blatant nudity, all except Sara of course because she's a shy virgin
who wants to challenge Trish for the title of Final Girl.
Elsewhere in the woods Trish and Tommy
are driving alone when their car dies, Tommy getting out to fix it
because he's sharp like that. They encounter ANOTHER character in
the form of a hiker named Rob to bring the cast number up to a jaw
dropping twelve, and if we don't get a mass murder spree in the next
ten minutes this is going to turn into a Paul Thomas Anderson movie.
Rob proves to be immediately suspicious when he keeps asking
questions about people in the area, as well as claiming he's hunting
bears which Tommy dismisses as nonsense since there are none nearby.
They bring him home anyway because Trish is digging his rugged charm,
and Tommy wants to show off his collection of monster masks.
Our six campers bring the twins back to
their cabin, where we are treated to a GLORIOUS scene of Jimmy doing
something that I believe is meant to be dancing. I've always thought
it resembles a martial arts training routine, but what it is, it is
AWESOME. Things start getting hot and heavy between Paul and one of
the twins (I'm not going to bother to find out which one since the
film is making no effect to tell me), prompting an angry Sam to storm
out for a night swim. Finally! Let's get this show on the road
already! Sam strips down and swims out to a rubber raft floating in
the middle of the lake so we can see a “the killer leaps out of the
lake to grab her” scene for the umpteenth time in the series. One
down...
Paul, feeling guilty about that whole
trying to cheat on his girlfriend right in front of her thing, grows
a conscience and goes looking for her. This proves to be a gift to
movie reviewers having trouble keeping track of everyone, as Jason
impales him to death to take another piece of dead weight out of the
picture. Rob, who is in a tent nearby, hears the scream and heads
out to investigate. Come on, come on! No dice though, as he finds
nothing. As an added bonus, he returns to his tent to find his rifle
broken and his map shredded. That was... rather out of character for
Jason. Is there a reason he couldn't have just, you know, KILLED
HIM?
Jimmy and Tina (yay, the film said her
name!) go upstairs to have sex, which pisses off Terri who decides to
leave since she is NOT feeling Ted's lack of charm. She soon meets
the business end of Jason's machete in a disappointingly off-camera
death. Whatever, it got the job done. Sexy Times Cabin isn't the
only place where the action is happening however, as back as the
Jarvis cabin Mrs. Jarvis comes home to find there is no power. She
goes outside in the rain looking for their dog, but instead finds
something that scares her. We don't get to see what happens though,
as the scene cuts to Trish and Tommy driving back home from wherever
the hell they were. This film is not great at establishing stuff.
Worried by their missing mother, Trish decides to find her while
Tommy stays behind to fix the power. Trish ends up running into Rob,
who nearly kills her after thinking she's the person who broke his
gun.
Getting tired of waiting for people to
come to him, Jason takes matters into his own hands and goes back to
the other cabin. He ambushes Jimmy in the kitchen, putting his
machete right into his face. BOOOO! Not the only developed
character in the entire film! Tina joins him in death right after,
as Jason smashes through the bedroom window to grab her and then
throw her off the second floor onto Paul's car in a SPECTACULAR
stunt. The icing on the cake is watching all the windows of the car
explode as she lands on its roof, they went all out for that one.
That wholeheartedly makes up for how dull the entire movie has been
paced thus far, because that freaking ruled. Rob reveals to Trish
what he's really up to, that Sandra from Friday the 13th
Part II was his sister and he's seeking revenge against Jason.
When Trish tries to tell him Jason is dead, he shows her a paper
detailing Jason's body vanishing from the morgue along with Axel and
Robbie.
Ted is our next pointless character to
go, taking a knife to the back of the head. Yawn. This film is
definitely a showcase for Tom Savini's masterful art than any attempt
to tell a story at all, how else can you explain all of these
characters getting screen time when the entire thing should have been
about Rob's quest for revenge? There's also Sara and Doug to deal
with, who have basically done nothing the majority of the movie.
Sara has said fuck it to being the Final Girl and tells Doug she
wants to sleep with him, going to the bedroom to get ready while he
takes a shower. This kicks off Jason's Sex Sense, so he rushes
upstairs to kill poor Doug before he gets a chance to seal the deal.
Harsh, Jason, harsh.
Sara finds his body and freaks, running
downstairs only to get an ax in the chest. Alright, we are now
officially down to a super manageable three survivors! Rob and Trish
go to the cabin to check on the campers, finding it empty. Genius
Rob decides to check the creepy basement, which just goes to show he
knows Jason better than anyone because he finds him. This is
probably the movie's most famous scene aside from Jimmy's “dancing”,
as Jason begins to stab him to death while Rob screams “He's
killing me! He's killing me!”. A scene of what should be absolute
terror negated by him doing play-by-play of his own death. This
would go on to set the tone for the series ultimately, as it began to
EMBRACE goofy ass shit of this manner.
Trish goes into GTFO mode, doing the
spot where she runs around the house and finds numerous dead bodies
that we've ALSO seen over and over again. She runs back to the
Jarvis cabin where she left Tommy all alone with a serial killer on
the loose, making her probably the dumbest Final Girl that we've had
to date. She further proves this by nailing the doors and windows
shut instead of going for that CAR that they have right outside, but
then again it has been proven to be unreliable so maybe she's just
really Genre Savvy. Jason continues this stunning rendition of
Friday the 13th's Greatest Hits by throwing Rob's body through
the window as I seriously start to wonder if I'm watching a new movie
or just stock footage.
Jason grabs Tommy but Trish is able to
fight him off with her hammer, taking Tommy upstairs so they can be
trapped even further. They hole up in Tommy's room, but Jason just
smashes the door down with his growing strength. He's come a long
way since the second movie, that's for sure. Trish FINALLY does
something competent and smashes a television over his head to knock
him out, but this is only for a moment as he gets up and chases her
outside. After a pointless runaround she winds up back in the cabin,
where Tommy has gone upstairs to... cut his hair?! Time and a place,
dude! Jason overpowers Trish and is about to kill her when Tommy,
his head clean shaven, comes downstairs and yells to distract him.
This makes Jason stop, who regards the
boy as an earlier version of himself due to the bald head... I think?
It's been established Jason's grasp on reality is tenuous at best,
but does he really think he's looking at himself here? This never
made a lick of sense to me. Trish takes her chance and picks up a
machete to slash at him, but only ends up cutting off his hockey mask
so we can see his disfigured face. He turns his attention back to
her, allowing Tommy to retrieve the blade and drive it into through
his eye. Jason falls but is still moving, so Tommy begins to HACK
THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF HIM! Wow, you know this kid is going to be a
tad fucked up in the future. The screen fades to white, coming back
to show Trish in a hospital bed with a doctor and a sheriff. She
asks to see Tommy, who creepily walks in and hugs her. Our final
shot is of him glaring directly into the camera as “ki ki ki”
starts playing, implying we're going to have a situation on our hands
in the future.
Cue the credits.
I've never agreed with this being one
of the better films in the series, there is BARELY a plot going on
here besides Jason kills people in impressive fashion. There are way
too many characters that never get an ounce of development, giving us
no reason whatsoever to care about them. It's also very boring, as
half this movie is just idiots exchanging idiot speak until Jason
puts them out of our misery. There's highlights of course, like
Crispin Glover and Corey Feldman proving not all child actors are
completely annoying little shits, but overall it's just a mess.
It's frustrating too, because they had
SUCH a great premise buried within the film in the form of Rob's
barely there plot. I know at this point these films were NOT about
telling a compelling story, but the idea of a person out for
vengeance against Jason practically wrote itself. He could have been
playing a cat and mouse game with Jason the entire time, which would
have even explained Jason fucking with his stuff instead of just
killing him. We'd get there eventually, but they REALLY missed the
chance here to create something special way back in the early days of
the slasher genre.
The second straight film I can only
recommend to diehard fans, although it is pretty essential if you
have an interest in continuing the series because it does become the
first part of an in-series trilogy that finally elevates the series
into earning the massive fandom it boasts. Onto the Massacre Meter!
1. How Many People Did The
Villain Kill In This One?
An unlucky 13.
2. What Was The Coolest Kill?
Tina getting pulled through a window
and thrown onto a car in slow motion, easily the highlight of the
entire film.
3. What Was The Lamest Kill?
Mrs. Jarvis' completely off screen
death. We never even see her body turn up! There's an alternate
ending to this where the next day Trish finds her mother's body in a
bathtub only to have Jason attack her (which would turn out to be a nightmare ala every single other damn movie), but they didn't go with it
because they truly meant for this to be the final film.
4. Did The Best Character Die?
Once again yes. We love you Jimmy!
5. Did The Worst Character Die?
I guess you could say it was Paul
because he was a cheating scumbag, but no one in this film inspired
outright hate from me.
6. How Did The Villain Die In
This One?
A knife through the eye and then hacked
to pieces by Corey Feldman. What a way to go...
7. How Competent Was The Final
Girl
Not very. Our second straight Final
Girl that was mostly an idiot, highlighted by thinking her little
brother would be just fine left alone in a house with Jason on the
rampage.
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