Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (USA, 1993) - Color, Director(s): Adam Marcus
MPAA Rating: R
[UK: 18]
Approx. 87 min.
Z-rating: 3 stars out of 5
Cheese Factor: 4 stars out of 5
Oh HELL yeah! Jason goes to Hell? He's probably there to kick a bunch of demon ass or something cause we all know he's a super bad ass, invincible, unstoppable, unkilla... wait what? They blow him to pieces in the first 7 minutes? Oh, okay then...
So anyway, I guess the local authorities finally realized they can't handle Jason on their own and called in the FBI. They set up the perfect trap for Jason and unload a barrage of bullets before blowing him up. At the morgue, the coroner is performing the autopsy when Jason's heart suddenly starts beating again, so he eats it for absolutely no reason and becomes possessed with Jason's spirit. Now, I've never worked as a medical examiner myself, so for all I know this could be the proper procedure for a situation like this. Alright, so let me try to get this all straight. Apparently Jason had a sister, who now has her own daughter and grandchild. Jason's evil spirit, which takes the form of a giant leech creature, is jumping from one body to another in an attempt be reborn through one of the Voorhees women. Apparently, only through a Voorhees can he be reborn and only by the hands of a Voorhees can he be killed.
This was the first Friday the 13th film to be released after New Line Cinemas bought the rights to the franchise. There are a ton of plot holes in the story that leave many questions unanswered. How did he get back to Crystal Lake after dying in New York's sewer system in Part VIII? Why does a random bounty hunter know all the secrets to killing Jason that were only just introduced in this movie? How come when Jason was reborn, he looks exactly like he did right before he was blown to pieces? Why didn't he at least get a new mask?
Nudity: They definitely brought back the T&A for this movie. A woman is shown undressing in the beginning, two women are changing after they go skinny dipping, and there's a pretty explicit scene of a couple having sex in a tent.
Gore: They amped up the gore in this one too. A girl is split in half after being impaled, another girl's head is crushed, and someone melts after Jason's spirit possesses a different person. The melting scene was pretty gruesome, like something out of Hellraiser. After Jason is blown up, the coroner performs an autopsy on the remaining pieces. He notes that Jason's body is badly burned all over and there are over 100 bullets lodged in his body. As he examines Jason's heart, he notes that it's not filled with blood but a black, viscous fluid instead.
Awesome: Despite the plot holes and the random story about Jason's family that they made up on the fly, this was actually a pretty good movie. They brought back the two most important factors in these types of movies, gore and nudity. There are also a bunch of references to future crossovers. While investigating the Voorhees house, one of the characters comes across the Necronomicon from the Evil Dead franchise. Then at the end of the movie, Jason's mask is laying on the ground when Freddy Krueger's clawed hand reaches up and pulls it down to Hell. This was a wink to a crossover between the two franchises that had been in talks since 1987, though the two wouldn't meet for another 10 years. Also, both Freddy and Jason would eventually meet Ash from the Evil Dead franchise in two comic series: Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash and Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors