Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) - Review Blitz
Originally published March 2015.So even though I wasn't a fan of Friday the 13th Part 5, Jason Goes to Hell might be my least favorite entry in the series. Since this movie irritated me so much when I watched it, with my irritation based on its complex premise, I have plenty to say. So, I’m just going to put the wrap-up points first and if you want to read the rest, you can do so after my (Final) Thoughts.
Cons
This movie takes itself too seriously and travels really far up its own ass
The premise is already dumb, but then it gets worse when breaks its own rules
Jason is barely in the movie
They didn't learn their lesson from the last movie about putting a setting in the title
The first movie not to have some sort of recap or acknowledgment of the events in the previous film; no connection. Yet it makes a mockery of the previous films as though those were all too embarrassingly dumb for this movie
The dick characters of the movie die in boring ways
Pros
Some practical effects are cool
The characters are not all the typical cliches and have some depth to them, though plenty of the familiar cliches still appear, nonetheless
Jason is still Kane Hodder, in the few moments that Jason is on screen
Nightmare on Elm St crossover reference at the end
Opening scene - I admire the FBI agent's commitment to trapping Jason by taking a shower as well; it’s like sprinkling some bacon on the trap to make sure the animal (Jason) takes a bite
I admire the idea of doing something different, too bad it fails
(Final) Thoughts: Jason Goes to Hell
I remember seeing the VHS cover in rental stores all the time and being curious about the demon thing on the front. I always figured that this movie was just balls-to-the-wall nuts and excitement. Finally seeing it as an adult has definitely dampened my imagination, substantially. It's not exciting, it's boring. Not to mention the fact that this movie is so far up its own ass it’s unable to write itself out, regardless of how many deus ex machinas it tries to throw into the mix. In other words, it sucks, even by bad movie standards.
So while the con list may be shorter than some of the other Friday movies I've reviewed, most are rather big misses when it comes to the experience. The main issue I have with Jason Goes to Hell is how seriously it takes itself. Say what you will about how crappy the previous movies were, there was a significant amount of camp (no pun intended) quality to them that made them more fun and watchable. This one tries to remove the camp factor of Friday the 13th and make it into a serious horror movie, with next to none of the things about the movies that people liked about the franchise, along with a really stupid premise.
One of those things people like about the series is, I don’t know, Jason Voorhees. People like the big hulking moron with the hockey mask, but he’s barely in this movie due to the dumb premise. I think in terms of total screen time, Jason is probably on screen less than 8 total minutes. What else do people like about the Friday the 13th movies? Sex and boobs, but there's only one scene where that happens, and it occurs after a character briefly mocks the series. But probably the biggest blunder they could make with the Friday formula is adding too much complexity. People also like the movies for their simplicity and routine nonsense that takes place, but Jason Goes to Hell complicates the formula immensely with its stupid premise.
New Line Cinema
So I keep talking about the premise, what is it exactly? The idea that Jason Vorhees isn’t just a man, but an immortal being, has been cemented into the series by this point. While his ethereal qualities were substantial with how he was able to just teleport all over the place in the last movie, he still was regarded as nothing more than a zombie. His ethereal nature is taken to the next level here.
In the scene before the opening credits roll, Jason gets blown to pieces. Organs and body parts fly everywhere and his remains end up in a morgue. Strange that the opening scene would actually kill off Jason, but then again, this is the part where he goes to hell right? Not quite. All of Jason’s body parts are scooped up and brought to a hospital to be examined. The doctor doing the “autopsy” is hypnotized by the magical quality of his dead heart and decides to, well, eat it, like anyone would, really. Lo’ and behold, Jason is now inside this doctor’s body and in control. Right off the bat, you should be able to guess now why Jason has very little screen time.
Now, Jason is wandering around in the doctor's body, and even though he’s no longer in the hulking Kane Hodder body, he’s still got his super-human strength and tenacity. But if he’s able to just blend into the world as this regular Joe and still have all the benefits of being Jason, why does he bother trying to get his ugly hockey-mask-wearing body back? Well, no body lasts forever. He’s more of a parasite now and needs to jump from body to body before it deteriorates. To get his original, near-invincible, body back, he needs to be born from a Voorhees woman because of course he does. Except, his mom has been dead since the first movie (even though past events don't seem to be important to this film), so how is that going to happen?
Well, after the movie has already set up this downward spiral of a bad premise that is destined to not sort itself out, time to throw an extraneous detail into the mix to try and fix it: Jason has a sister. Apparently, not all the genetics of the Voorhees family were screwed up and inbred, because his sister is a perfectly normal person. So normal that she has had, and raised her own daughter, who has just given birth to a daughter of her own. There’s a whole lineage of Voorhees in this movie who aren't insane, which is pretty difficult to believe on its own, let alone in this clusterfuck of nonsense you call a plot. In addition to the motivation they've given Jason for getting close to his blood relatives, there’s also a little detail pertaining to them: he can be completely killed and sent directly to Hell only by a Voorhees.
New Line Cinema
Why? Why any of this? If you’re expecting an answer, or some sort of explanation as to why any of this has happened, like some dark deal Mrs. Voorhees made with the devil go ahead and sit right back down because you aren't going to get one. There are no answers to these big questions, like: why did Mrs. Voorhees not give a shit about her perfectly normal daughter who would grow up to be a normal person, and instead decided to go insane over her murderous son; are we to assume shes the product of a different Voorhees? I digress.
It took up about 20 minutes of the movie's run time just explaining the whole damn plot, which is done in a massive story dump of exposition, mid-way through the movie by some guy who seems to know a whole lot about everything. It took me just about as long just to try and put all the pieces together in a cohesive manner and write it out in complete sentences, and I’m not even done.
So, Jason is going around jumping from body to body, silently killing a few people here and there for no reason other than "he’s Jason" and we need to be reminded of that fact since, you know, we don’t actually see the iconic figure for 90% of the movie. After killing a few extra people that probably slowed him down in his quest more than anything else, he makes it to his sister’s house and tries to hop into her body. I guess, we’re supposed to assume that if he had accomplished his goal, he would have been reborn somehow, even though events later in the film contradict how this is supposed to work. Regardless, he fails, kills his sister in the process, and escapes. So now he’s after his niece or grandniece for the remainder of the film.
Eventually, after all the exposition, deaths, and random body-hopping, we end up at his home base of the Voorhees house with the dude who knows everything there is to know about Jason. Duke, as he is called, gives Jason's niece the magical devil dagger that is necessary to kill Jason once and for all. She just needs to stab him in the heart (even though he’s a parasite and doesn't have his own heart). Some arbitrary events take place and finally, some extra characters arrive who could be controlled by Jason. At least, that's what we're supposed to believe. Regardless, the other characters weren't able to tell, even though this should be an easy task considering he’s never said a word and has always acted like Jason whenever in a human host. Yet, he’s able to completely trick them, because of course he can, and behaves like a normal person briefly before having his host’s head cut off. Then, the parasitic, practical-effects form of Jason crawls out of the body and runs into the basement where his sister’s dead body has been stored for some reason--I'm not sure how he got ahold of that body, but by this point, all I can say is whatever.
So, what do you think happens next considering that last detail? The demon parasite of Jason crawls “into” her dead body and is “reborn,” just like that. Ignoring the gross wrongness of this event, I have to ask: if it was that easy for him to accomplish his goal and be reborn, why did we have to endure the second half of the film? All the last 10 minutes of the movie manage to do is break several of its own rules that it established. It's like a spoiled child playing a game of tag and just adding on or changing rules to suit its needs.
More arbitrary events happen, some drawn-out padding and Jason finally gets stabbed with the magical dagger and sent to Hell. Despite the poster image indicating that you might see what Hell has in store for him, we don’t see a second of the place. So it commits the same sin as the last movie, but even more so because we don’t even get a minute of the setting that is promised us in the title. The only notable thing that happens is the arm that sprouts from the ground and grabs the hockey mask, setting things up for a film that wouldn't come out for another decade.
New Line Cinema
I haven't talked about the other details of this movie like the cast, effects, or acting, but this review is long enough. What I've written here pretty much channels my experience watching Jason Goes to Hell: I was too hung up on the dumb premise and how the movie took it so seriously to think about much else. Fuck this movie. The next two are more enjoyable.