Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday (1993) mini review

Drinking game challenge: take a shot every time I type out "Jason".

Even the poster for this flick is an ugly mess.

Plot synopsis (taken from IMDB): Jason Voorhees, the living, breathing essence of evil, is back for one fierce, final fling. Tracked down and blown to bits by a special FBI task force, everyone now assumes that he's finally dead. But everyone assumes wrong. Jason has been reborn with the bone-chilling ability to assume the identity of anyone he touches. The terrifying truth is he could be anywhere. Or anybody. In this shocking, blood-soaked finale to Jason's carnage-ridden of terror, the horrible secret of his unstoppable killing instinct is finally revealed.

I'm gonna tell you the truth: this was originally going to be a recap review but I accidentally deleted my notes so I had to do a mini review for this unholy pile of shit film. Whoops.

With that out of the way, let me tell you another truth: If a horror franchise goes on long enough it'd eventually go full retard*. Whether its Busta Rhymes giving Michael Myers an electric shock to the balls, Freddy Krueger using the Power Glove to kill someone or literally everything that happens in Texas Chainsaw Massacre after part 2,  any horror franchise that goes on long enough will eventually get stupid at one point or another. Some franchises redeem themselves, some don't. Horror fans have been conditioned to accept this.

But I don't think any horror fans in 1993 were prepared for how bad Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday turned out to be. I don't knock what people were expecting back then but I feel like it wasn't this:


You're not hallucinating this folks. This is a scene where a coroner chows down on Jason's heart thus allowing Jason's spirit to possess him via a special FX lightshow. Remember when this series started off with a lady slaughtering teens at a summer camp? But wait, it gets better! According to this film Jason is a demonic body hopping worm that can be reborn by possessing a blood relative of his, which is convenient because Jason somehow has a sister despite the first movie clearly stating Pamela Voorhees only had 1 kid. Why New Line Cinema decided to turn the esteemed Mr. Voorhees into a hodgepodge of Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers is beyond me but they did it.

Now I'm going to list some of the many reasons why Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday should be more accurately labeled "Viewers Go To Hell: The Final Insult". Why not? If the movie's not coherent, why should I be?

-This film says that Jason can only be killed by a blood relative. If that's the case how did Tommy Jarvis kill him in part 4?

-For a flick that was pretending to be the grand finale of the Friday the 13th series, the actual Jason Voorhees is only onscreen for maybe 10 minutes. Since the J man is going around possessing people the whole time you never really feel like it's iconic slasher villain Jason Voorhees running around slaughtering folks and not just random people running around slaughtering folks.

Though given how shitty he looks here maybe its a good thing we didn't see more of him.

-Most of the exposition for the film's lore comes from a bounty hunter named Creighton Duke (Steven Williams). While Steven William's performance is 1 of the few highlights of this dirge, at no point in the duration of this movie do they bother explaining how the hell Creighton knows any of the crap he does. Seriously Duke knows literally everything about the whole body shopping family bloodline nonsense and they never tell you how he knows all this.


-There's a scene where Jason straps one of his victims to a table and shaves him before possessing him. This is a real thing that happens and I didn't make it up as a joke. According to the documentary Crystal Lake Memories this was done to add some male fanservice since they thought there was a double standard with all the female fanservice in this series. Putting aside the fact this scene isn't sexy at all this is pretty hypocritical considering this movie has titties in it too.


-The opening scene shows us an FBI operation to take down Jason. Have the feds known about him the whole time? Why didn't they do something about him earlier? Do they know he's a reanimated corpse and not a regular sicko? If so, why aren't they more shocked by irrefutable proof of the supernatural? I wouldn't be asking these questions if this was a movie I liked. In honesty though this was the best scene in this film. it's all downhill from here.



Cool ending. Too bad Freddy Vs. Jason didn't come out until a decade later.

-Oh yeah this a film that reveals Jason Voorhees was a body jumping magical worm monster the entire time and takes this information dead seriously.

With all that said, was there anything I liked? Well I said earlier that I liked the performance of Steven Williams. His character is batshit insane and nothing he does makes sense but Steven acts his ass off with the shoddy material he's given. Most of the acting is solid but Williams is the only standout. Also the special effects and makeup in this flick is genuinely great, some of the best in the franchise. Other than that though this is the worst Friday the 13th film and that's saying a lot considering the next one takes place in outer space. Save your money and watch this highlight reel instead.


Rating: 1 out of 4 stars.