Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

Jason Goes to Hell:
The Final Friday

Theatrical 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 franchise, it was preceded by 1989's Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan and was the first Friday 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

Sometime after the events of the previous film, the undead serial killer Jason Voorhees is back at Camp Crystal Lake. An undercover government agent lures Jason into a trap set by the FBI and several armed men blow him to pieces, thus destroying his body. His remains are then 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 behind him.

Jason then goes to Crystal Lake, where he finds three partying teens. While two of them have sex, Jason kills the third. He then kills the other two. Jason then attacks two police officers, killing one and possessing the other. Meanwhile, bounty hunter Creighton Duke finds out that 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 an American Casefiles reporter. 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 Josh 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 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 then 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 an attacker whom he kills. 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. Meanwhile, 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 now grown into a demonic infant, crawls out of Randy's neck and makes its way to the basement where it crawls into Diana's dead body. Steven and Jessica pull Duke out of the basement as Jason is reborn into his original body (he does not need an actual living member of his family).

While Steven and Jessica attempt to retrieve the dagger, Duke distracts Jason and is killed with a bear 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.

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 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] However, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday was received significantly better than its 1989 predecessor, Jason Takes Manhattan.

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.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, April 29, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.