Film Review: Jason Goes to Hell: the Final Friday (1993)
The Friday the 13th franchise fell a long way when this uninspired sequel JASON GOES TO HELL:THE FINAL FRIDAY hit screens in 1993. New Line Cinema had just gotten the rights to the franchise from Paramount who had bled it dry four years earlier with PART 8: JASON TAKES MANHATTEN, so, they decided to go in a different direction. In the new film Jason was made into a supernatural being that could switch bodies and be reborn through a living relative.
JASON GOES TO HELL throws away most of the established folklore surrounding the franchise in order to serve up a Crystal Lake in which tourists visit the local diner for hockey-masked shaped burgers and everyone knows that Jason is still alive yet refuse to stop going to the abandoned lake for a late night excursion, a quick smoke, and an even quicker dismemberment. By the time this film rears its ugly head Jason is high camp and audiences have seen everything the franchise has to offer.
Just after being blown to bits during a military ambush the soul of Jason Voorhees transfers into the coroner and heads back to his hometown killing everyone that gets in his way. He has only a little time before he is forced to jump into another body, so, he seeks out his only living relatives who hold the key to his rebirth and his ultimate death as prophesied by the enigmatic bounty hunter Creighton Duke (Steven Williams), who has an agenda of his own.
Jason makes quick work of his living relative Diana Kimble (Erin Grey) but is unable to complete his rebirth, which is interrupted by Steven Freeman (John D. LeMay). Upon Diana’s death he learns that he has a child with Diana’s daughter/his ex-girlfriend Jessica (Kari Keegan), whom can also rebirth Jason. Steven soon finds himself in jail for the murder of Diana, which brings Jessica back home not only with their daughter but a new boyfriend Robert Campbell (Steven Culp), a news celebrity who is secretly doing an expose on Jason Voorhees and is the one who is willing to pay Duke a large sum of money to prove that Voorhees is still alive.
Steven soon finds himself a fugitive on the run for murder while trying to protect Jessica and their daughter from Jason who keeps jumping into the bodies of their close friends in order to get to them. All comes to a climatic conclusion on the doorsteps of the old Voorhees house, a home in which Jessica has always been forbidden to go.
For a Friday the 13th film, JASON GOES TO HELL actually has a very complex plot. It’s not your typical stalk-stalk, kill-kill slasher film. I do give credit to the filmmakers for trying something new but because of the cinematography and the look of the film everything comes off as camp with many scenes completely ridiculous. The film is heavily influenced by THE HIDDEN (1987) almost to the point of plagiarism. Not even Harry Manfredini’s score can help this film and he’s scored every Friday film since the first. There’s little to redeem the film when it doesn’t want to redeem itself.
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