Review of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) by Dahl T — 17 Feb 2009

After the series switched from Paramount to New Line Cinema, the adventures of Jason Voorhess not only got extremely gimmicky, but downright silly. Jason Goes To Hell makes the mistake of falling into the trap that every horror franchise eventually does....trying to explain just why the villain is the way he is. In this case, just why is Jason so evil and why the hell can't he ever be killed? After hearing the ridiculous explanation these idiots have served up, you'll agree that what isn't explained is ALWAYS scarier.

Some time has passed since the events in the last film. Jason has found his way back from the sewers of New York to his home-turf of Crystal Lake. The opening of the film sets things up as one would expect....a hot girl heads up to a cabin in Crystal Lake for some late-night showering, Jason shows up, she runs through the woods etc. Unfortunately it turns out to be a trap for poor old Jason. I guess after killing 100+ people the FBI finally decided to do something about the hockey masked killer and Jason is blown to bits within the first six minutes. And here's where things get REALLY silly.

It turns out the Jason we all know as Jason isn't really Jason. The "true" Jason is a demon worm living in his oversized heart that can pass from person to person, possessing them with the "evil" of Jason. Nope, I'm not making this stuff up. So the entire movie is a rubber worm passing from person to person until Jason can infect the body of his sister (didn't Mrs. Voorhees say Jason was her only child?) so he can be reborn. If you've ever seen a sci-fi movie called The Hidden, all this will sound very familiar. I realize the makers of this movie were trying to do something different, but seriously, this is just goddamn ridiculous! When Jason eventually is "reborn" at the end of the movie he comes out looking exactly the same! Making the entire movie pointless.

Despite the idiocy of it all, Jason Goes To Hell isn't completely terrible. The direction is very polished, changing the characters from teens to adults is a refreshing touch and KNB FX have given us some of the best and bloodiest kills in the series (tent sex, anyone?). Kane Hodder is also back for his third go-round as Jason, and gives us his trademark grunts and jerky head movements for the ten minutes of screen time the character has. Of course the main thing Jason Goes To Hell is remembered for is the last few seconds. Now that New Line Cinema owned the rights to both Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, we're able to have Freddy's trademark glove popup and drag Jason's hockey mask down to hell following the climax. Thus setting in motion years and years of speculation and anticipation for the inevitable match-up between the two.

Jason Goes To Hell might not be the worst entry in the series, but it's definitely the most ridiculous. Ok, maybe it's a tie with Jason's next adventure in outer-space. What we learned from this movie is that no one wants to know why Jason is un-killable. Especially when it turns out that it's because he's really a fake looking demon worm. Naturally, I think everyone chooses to ignore this stupid mythology and remember Jason from when he was actually scary back in the 80's.