Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Adam Marcus
Produced by
Screenplay by
  • Jay Huguely
  • Dean Lorey
Story by
Based on Characters
by Victor Miller
Starring
Music by Harry Manfredini
Cinematography Bill Dill
Edited by David Handman
Distributed by New Line Cinema
Release dates
  • August 13, 1993 (1993-08-13)
Running time
 88 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $3 million[1]
Box office $15.9 million (US)

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is a 1993 American slasher film directed by Adam Marcus and produced by Sean S. Cunningham. The ninth installment in the Friday the 13th film series, it was preceded by 1989's Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan and was the first Friday the 13th film distributed by New Line Cinema. Although New Line intended it to be the final chapter in the series, the ambiguous ending set in motion what would become Freddy vs. Jason ten years later.

Plot

The undead serial killer Jason Voorhees returns to Camp Crystal Lake. An undercover government agent lures Jason into a trap set by the FBI, and several armed men blow him to bits, destroying his body. His remains are sent to a morgue, where a coroner becomes possessed by Jason's demonic spirit after ingesting Jason's putrid heart. Jason, now in the coroner's body, escapes the morgue, leaving a trail of death.

At Crystal Lake, he finds three partying teens. While two of them have sex, Jason kills the third, then the other two. Jason attacks two police officers, killing one and possessing the other. Meanwhile, bounty hunter Creighton Duke discovers only members of Jason's bloodline can truly kill him, and he will return to his normal and near-invincible state if he possesses a member of his family. The only living relatives of Jason are his half-sister Diana Kimble, her daughter Jessica, and Stephanie, the infant daughter of Jessica and Steven Freeman.

Jason makes his way to Diana's house. Steven bursts in and attacks Jason. Diana is killed and Jason escapes. Steven is falsely accused and arrested for Diana's murder, and meets Duke, who reveals Jessica's relation to Jason. Determined to get to Jessica before Jason does, Steven escapes from jail. Jessica is dating a tabloid TV reporter named Robert. Steven goes to the Voorhees house to find evidence to convince Jessica but falls through rotten boards. Robert enters the upstairs room and receives a phone call which reveals that he is attempting to "spice up" his show's ratings by putting emphasis on Jason's return from death, having stolen Diana's body from the morgue for this reason. Jason bursts in and transfers his heart into Robert, while the body he left melts. Jason leaves with Steven in pursuit. Jason attempts to be reborn through Jessica but is disrupted by Steven, who hits him and takes Jessica into his car. Steven stalls Jason by running him over. When he tries to explain the situation to Jessica, she disbelieves him and throws him out of the car. Jessica goes to the police station.

Jason arrives at the police station and kills most of the officers. He nearly possesses Jessica before Steven stops him; Jessica realizes Steven is right. In the chaos, Duke makes his escape. Jessica and Steven make their way to the diner to grab the baby. Jason arrives but is attacked by the owners of the shop. He kills the owners but is injured by waitress Vicki, who shoots him with a shotgun the impales him with a iron rod, but then impales her on the same rod before crushing her head, killing her. Jason is presumably killed, and Jessica and Steven discover a note from Duke, telling them that he has the baby and demands that Jessica meet him at the Voorhees house alone.

Jessica meets Duke at the Voorhees house and is given a mystical dagger which she can use to permanently kill Jason. A police officer enters the diner where Robert, possessed, transfers his heart into him. Duke falls through the floor, and Jessica is confronted by Landis and Randy. Landis is killed accidentally with the dagger, and Jessica drops the dagger. Randy, possessed, attempts to be reborn through Stephanie, but Steven arrives and severs his neck with a machete. Jason's heart, which has grown into a demonic infant, crawls out of Randy's neck to Diana's dead body in the basement. Steven and Jessica pull Duke out of the basement as Jason discovers Diana's body and slithers up her vagina, allowing him to be reborn.

While Steven and Jessica attempt to retrieve the dagger, Duke distracts Jason and is killed with a death hug. Jason turns his attention to Jessica, and Steven tackles Jason, who both fight outside while Jessica retrieves the dagger. Jessica stabs Jason in the chest, releasing the souls Jason accumulated over time. Demonic hands burst out of the ground and pull Jason into the depths of Hell. Steven and Jessica reconcile and walk off into the sunrise with their baby. Later a dog unearths Jason's mask while digging in the dirt. Freddy Krueger's gloved hand bursts out of the dirt and pulls Jason's mask into the ground as Freddy's laughter is heard.

Cast

John D. LeMay is one of only two actors from the TV series to appear in the film series; the other is John Shepherd, who played Tommy Jarvis in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.

Reception

Box office

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday debuted in U.S. theaters on Friday, August 13, 1993, to a weekend box office total of $7.6 million. The film would go on to gross a final domestic total of $15.9 million, placing at number 86 on the list of the year's Top 100 earners.[2]

Critical reviews

As with some of the other Friday the 13th films, many critics panned the film. It maintains a 24% approval rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes based on 17 reviews.[3] The main criticism is the idea of Jason "possessing" the body of people to kill his victims being too outlandish, and simply being another formulaic entry in the series with poor acting and plot holes.[3][4]

DVD release

The film was released unrated on DVD in North America, and includes both versions of the film: the censored R-rated version, and the unrated version, which runs three minutes longer than the theatrical version of the film. In certain regions of the world including Australia, the DVD was only released with the censored R-rated version of the film available to view.

Other media

A three-issue comic adaptation of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday written by Andy Mangels was published by Topps Comics. As the comics are based upon the original shooting script of the film, elements that were left out of the film are used in them. Topps also released a series of trading cards for the film.

The FBI sting that occurs at the beginning of the film is foreshadowed in the novel Friday the 13th: Hate-Kill-Repeat, which takes place between the events of the seventh and eighth films. The epilogue of the book states that the FBI, upon discovering Jason Voorhees actually exists, have begun making plans to trap him and "send him straight to Hell."[5]

Freddy Krueger's clawed hand coming out of the ground and taking Jason's mask was a reference to the future crossover Freddy vs. Jason between the two (similar to the Alien Skull scene in Predator 2, which was a production in-joke), which had been in development hell since 1987. It was finally finished in 2003, a year after this film's sequel.[6]

The film features the appearances of the skull dagger and Necronomicon from Evil Dead II. Jason, Freddy, and Ash Williams would later meet in the comic book series Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash (a story adapted by writer Jeff Katz from a Freddy vs. Jason 2 screenplay treatment he had written in 2004)[7] and again in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors.

References

  1. ↑ "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)". The Numbers. Retrieved April 10, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved April 10, 2016.
  3. 1 2 "Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday - Rotten Tomatoes". Flixster, Inc. Retrieved April 2, 2013.
  4. ↑ Moon, Jim (September 6, 2010). "JASON GOES TO HELL - THE FINAL FRIDAY". Jim Moon. Retrieved April 2, 2013.
  5. ↑ Arnopp, Jason (2005-10-25). Friday the 13th: Hate-Kill-Repeat. Black Flame. ISBN 1-84416-271-0.
  6. ↑ Bracke, Peter, pg. 238
  7. ↑ "'Freddy vs Jason vs Ash' Script Treatment!!!". Bloody Disgusting. 2005-03-08. Retrieved 2009-07-03.
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