Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: A touching and charming love story between a boy and his hockey-masked wearing serial killer.  

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• I really do miss sequels showing clips of the previous movies before the film gets underway. It’s like “previously on Friday the 13th.” Superman II did the flashback opening the best though. But it’s too bad modern movies don’t do this anymore.
• Again with the opening titles explosion. Why an explosion?! Friday the 13th Part II also had an exploding opening titles. I can understand if Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich was directing to have an explosion.
• It’s a little odd that the only two notable actors to have a career after this movie are Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover.
• I really like how the first four Friday the 13ths start off right after the previous one like one long movie. Halloween I and II did it but the Jason saga really tied their movies together nicely with 4 installments.
• If this exercise show or video that the coroner is watching was on every day, I’d be a very fit and virile man.
• Why are people making out right next to a cadaver? And a homicidal maniac one at that?
• They never really explain how Jason came back alive in this one. At the end of Part 2 he wasn’t killed but he was clearly killed at the end of 3. I guess they just wanted Jason back for franchise purposes.
• Did they really bury Jason’s mom on the side of a road? There’s no cemetery there; just her headstone.
• How’d Jason know how to get back to Camp Crystal Lake from the hospital? Did he have a map? And why did he come back? Just because of familiarity?
• It’s very gratuitous to introduce a portly hitch-hiker just for the sole reason to have Jason stab her in the throat while she grossly eats a banana. Seriously was twelve victims not enough for this feature? Had to make it 13, huh?
• I’m getting kinda sick of hearing Crispin Glover’s friend call him a “Dead-Fuck.” That phrase has been uttered already a dozen times.
• And TWIIIIIIINS!!

• And only in the movies is a random skinny dipping happen with teenagers.
• How the hell does Tommy know how to fix a car? He’s like 11.
• The infamous Crispin Glover dance. Gets better every time.

• Random raft in the middle of the lake.
• Never realized that the actress playing Samantha was the girl Wyatt ends up with in Weird Science. (That’s two Weird Science chick references in the same week!)
• Jason really wanted Samantha dead. So much in fact that he submerged underwater to get her in the raft while she floated out in the middle of the lake. Now that’s dedication to ones’ craft!
• Why would Ted think that asking a girl if she wanted to “give teddy bear a kiss” to an actual stuffed bear would work to getting the girl? It’s one dumb pick up line.
• Wait. How is the raft still afloat? When Jason killed Samantha he pierced her from underneath the raft. So the raft now has a hole in it and should at the very least be slightly deflated.
• Ya know what would be funny? If in one of these movies, someone was walking in the woods at night and came across Jason taking a shit and surprised him. The thought of Jason in the hockey mask being spooked by some kids while he’s in mid-dump is giving me the serious chuckles.
• Where is Mrs. Jarvis coming from? She’s soaking wet from the rain. Was she jogging in this storm? What a dope.
• Why is Trish looking for her mom outside in the rain without an umbrella or a raincoat? Another dope.
• Is Trish wearing a very large men’s shirt with a belt? This dress looks ridiculously wrong.
• Did Jason really think that someone was going to be looking out that particular window at that exact time? It was a second story window. It’s not like he was just passing by. He just killed Jimmy in the kitchen, inside the house. So then he went back outside because he psychically knew one of the twins would look out the window. He’s really good.
• One of the best deaths in this film is when one of the twins is thrown out the window and lands on the car at such an impact that it blows out all the windows. Ouch.
• Probably just because he couldn’t stand the horrible singing in the shower show, Jason simply uses his mitts to crush this poor saps face in like a rotten piece of melon.

• So Rob goes in the basement to find Jason or whatever and then we have to watch Trish slowly walk around the house looking for her dog. This scene takes a slow 4 minutes. All this time Rob is still in the basement doing god-knows what.
• For whatever reason, the dog leaps through the window. Probably because it was the smartest person in this film; smelled trouble and high-tailed it out of there. And it wasn’t an open window either. That scared-as-shit canine kept through glass to get out of there!
• So Rob’s heavy-ass foot breaks through one of the stairs and he then goes back downstairs. I’m not sure what’s going on but he hands Tirsh the machete and Jason attacks Rob. Rob is hacked away by Jason and Rob screams “Run Trish, Run!” about a dozen times. She starts to run away but when Rob stops yelling she stops and goes back downstairs. At this point you’re wishing Trish would die for being so stupid. Anyway, Jason grabs her foot while breaking through another stair plank. How flimsy are these stairs?! Are they made of balsa wood?
• When did Jason find the time to impale Crispin Glover’s body across the back door threshold? And how did he do this so quietly? And is he expecting someone to be stopped by this dead body or something?
• Why would you choose to barricade yourself in a log cabin house when Jason is coming for you? There’s way too many windows for him to crash through. Why don’t they attempt to run away as fast as they can?!
• Where did Jason get this ax? He just found some random ax to break down Tommy’s bedroom door with. Tommy’s always leaving axes lying around I guess.
• The TV is always an effective weapon against monstrous zombie serial killers.
• OK. Now’s the time to grab that ax and whack Jason a few times with it while he’s unconscious on the ground. Not to tell Tommy to get out of the house.
• I understand the whole trying to trick Jason but Tommy must spent like 10 minutes cutting and shaving his head. And how did he know this would work? Did he think Jason frequently talks to his younger self?
• I love how Trish just slowly lumbers back to her house when she knows Jason is still around.

• “You son of a bitch. I’m going to give you something to remember this by!” What exactly is Trish talking about? Remember what by?
• And all Tommy does is distract Jason away from his sister which would’ve probably happened with or without the head shave gimmick.
• It’s amazing Trish survived this long.
• Jason’s death is easily one of the best gory special effects of all time. (If you really want to see it better, watch the deleted scenes on the Special Edition)
• They never do find the body of Mrs. Jarvis do they?
• A great twist to this franchise would be that the reason Jason was distracted by the shaven head Tommy is that this older Jason isn’t Jason at all but Jason’s brother who saw Mrs. Voorhees get killed. And this older Jason thinks Tommy is the younger Jason who drowned all those years ago. That would be a great little twist I think. And makes more sense to why Jason gets distracted and mesmerized by Tommy with the shaved head. It would also explain how some backwoods mentally disabled killer is living in the woods since Jason drowned in the 50s.

Is It Actually Scary: When I was younger this franchise did the trick in the scares department. Not so much as an adult and especially this installment where most of the kills are predictable. The first 3 Friday the 13ths had more of the creepiness and better scares.

How Much Gore: But boy does this one up the ante on the gore. Tom Savini must’ve spent a fortune on karl syrup, red food coloring and skin-toned make-up putty.

Best Scene: I’d have to go with Jason’s death by machete to the temple, falling on to it further slicing it down his face. Jason dies in almost every Friday the 13th, but this death was the crème de la crème. Make-up wizard/Sex Machine Tom Savini said he only did this movie just because he’d have the opportunity to kill his creation and I don’t think he could’ve killed him any better.

Worst Scene: In a Friday the 13th film, the only things that matter are the kill scenes and the finale, so basically the worst kill has to be Jason simply stabbing the girl on the raft. Not a bad scene per se just kinda boring. He also stabs Ted kinda weakly too but it was in the face which trumps the gut in my humble sick and twisted opinion.

Any Nudity: I think everyone but the portly hitch-hiker gets nude. No, seriously, because of the skinny-dipping scene you basically see all the teens naked. According to imdb.com trivia: Of all the films in the series, this one contains the most nudity. So there ya go!

Overall: While the first three Friday the 13ths had a lot more creepiness and a better slasher tone going for them, The Final Chapter made Jason way more epic and mythical. First off, he should’ve died at the end of Part 3 since he was hanged and had an ax planted in his cranium. But they wanted to make another sequel since the movies made some dough and decided to hell with mortality. I’m assuming with a title like The Final Chapter that they were somewhat willing to end the series before it spiraled out of hackneyed and schlocky control but that didn’t hold up too long since they made a sequel the next year! I always found it great that at the end of every movie, one of the highlights was the “unmasking” of Jason to see how hideous and decomposed he gets after every film. It’s up there with the great unmasking of Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera scene. Michael Myers was unmasked a lot too but he always looked human. Jason’s unmasking in The Final Chapter is one of the best with keeping his face somewhat still fresh (not decomposed) yet older and a little more disfigured. Especially his mouth and teeth. I also like how he shows some pain and whimpers and grunts after Tommy thrusts the machete in his face.

While this this movie further gave Jason his myth-like status and solidified him as a great movie monster, the one problem I have with Jason as a monster is that he gets very boring very quick. This film started this ennui if I have to really admit it. After this film, every Friday the 13th starts with Jason is reborn and the kills a lot of people and then is killed somehow. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. Nothing really happens of note, except maybe the locale (Manhattan Vancouver, hell, space!) and as fun as they still are, they could also get old fast. They don’t even bother explaining his mystical, supernatural aspect until Jason Goes to Hell, whereas every Nightmare on Elm Street gave a little something new to each sequel to Freddy’s background. It’s interesting that the filmmakers knew that Jason was getting boring and wanted to finally kill him but money and profit changed Paramount’s mind. It’s still a fun franchise as a whole and my personal favorite but The Final Chapter both gave us a final human Jason and started the unstoppable (for a year) zombie Jason. 

Score: 9 Dead-Fucks (out of 10)