Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

Jason Goes to Hell:
The Final Friday

Theatrical poster
Directed by Adam Marcus
Produced by Sean S. Cunningham
Debbie Hayn-Cass
Screenplay by Jay Huguely
Dean Lorey
Story by Jay Huguely
Adam Marcus
Dean Lorey
Based on Characters 
by Victor Miller
Starring Kane Hodder
John D. LeMay
Kari Keegan
Allison Smith
Steven Culp
Steven Williams
Billy "Green" Bush
Music by Harry Manfredini
Cinematography Bill Dill
Edited by David Handman
Distributed by New Line Cinema1 (United States)
Alliance (Canada)
Pathé (United Kingdom)
Europa Carat Home Vídeo (Brasil/VHS)
Universal Pictures
Release dates
  • August 13, 1993 (1993-08-13)
Running time
 88 minutes
91 minutes (Unrated)
Country United States
Language English
Budget $3 million (estimated)
Box office $15.9 million (domestic)

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is a 1993 slasher film directed by Adam Marcus and produced by Sean S. Cunningham. It is a sequel to the 1989 film, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. Released on August 13, 1993, it is the ninth installment of the Friday the 13th film series and the first to be distributed by New Line Cinema. New Line intended the film to be the last in the Friday series. Although plans for Freddy vs. Jason were later developed, due to major issues over several years, production did not begin until some time later, with Jason X being released in 2002 before Freddy vs. Jason, which was eventually released a year later in 2003. It was the only Friday the 13th film made during the 1990s.

Plot

Sometime after the events of the previous film, the undead serial killer Jason Voorhees is back at Crystal Lake. As he is about to kill a woman, the FBI springs a trap. After gunning him down they blow him to pieces. His remains are sent to a morgue, where the coroner becomes possessed by the demonic spirit of Jason. The coroner eats Jason's heart and becomes Jason. Now in a new body, he begins to kill again.

Jason then goes to Crystal Lake, where he finds three partying teens. While two of them have sex, Jason kills the third. He then kills the other two. Jason then attacks two police officers, killing one and possessing the other.

Meanwhile, bounty hunter Creighton Duke finds out that only members of Jason's bloodline can truly kill him, and he will return to life if he possesses a member of his family. The only living relatives of Jason are his half-sister Diana Kimble, her daughter Jessica, and Stephanie, the infant daughter of Jessica and Steven Freeman.

Jason makes his way to Diana's house. Steven bursts in and attacks Jason. Diana is killed and Jason escapes. Steven is falsely accused and arrested for Diana's murder, and meets Duke, who reveals Jessica's relation to Jason. Determined to get to Jessica before Jason does, Steven escapes from jail.

Jessica is dating an American Casefiles reporter. Steven goes to the Voorhees house to find evidence to convince Jessica, but falls through rotten boards. Robert enters the upstairs room and receives a phone call which reveals that he is attempting to "spice up" his show's ratings by putting emphasis on Jason's return from death, having stolen Diana's body from the morgue for this reason. Jason bursts in and transfers his heart into Robert, while Josh melts. Jason leaves with Steven in pursuit. Jason attempts to be reborn through Jessica but is disrupted by Steven who hits him and takes Jessica into his car. Steven runs over Jason, explains the situation to Jessica who disbelieves him and throws him out of the car. Jessica goes to the police station.

Jason arrives at the police station and kills most of the officers. He then nearly possesses Jessica before Steven stops him; Jessica realizes Steven is right. In the chaos, Duke makes his escape. Jessica and Steven make their way to the diner to grab the baby. Jason arrives but is attacked by the owners of the shop. He kills the owners, but is injured by an attacker whom he kills. Jason is presumably killed, and Jessica and Steven discover a note from Duke, telling them that he has the baby and demands that Jessica meet him at the Voorhees house alone.

Jessica meets Duke at the Voorhees house and is given a mystical dagger which she can use to permanently kill Jason. Meanwhile, a police officer enters the diner where Robert, possessed, transfers his heart into him. Duke falls through the floor, and Jessica is confronted by Landis and Randy. Landis is killed accidentally with the dagger, and Jessica drops the dagger. Randy, possessed, attempts to be reborn through Stephanie, but Steven arrives and severs his neck with a machete. Jason's heart, which has now grown into a demonic infant, crawls out of Randy's neck and makes its way to the basement where it crawls into Diana's dead body. Steven and Jessica pull Duke out of the basement as Jason is reborn.

While Steven and Jessica attempt to retrieve the dagger, Duke distracts Jason and is killed. Jason turns his attention to Jessica and Steven tackles Jason, who both fight outside while Jessica retrieves the dagger. Jessica stabs Jason in the chest, releasing the souls Jason accumulated over time. Demonic hands burst out of the ground and pull Jason into the depths of Hell.

Steven and Jessica reconcile and walk off into the sunrise with their baby. However, after a dog unearths Jason's mask, the clawed hand of Freddy Krueger appears and drags the mask down to Hell, setting up the events of Freddy vs. Jason.

Cast

John D. LeMay is one of only two actors from the TV series to appear in the film series; the other is John Shepherd, who played Tommy Jarvis in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.

Reception

Box office

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday debuted in U.S. theaters on Friday, August 13, 1993 to a weekend box office total of $7.6 million. It faced strong competition at the time of its release from other high-profile horror film releases such as the Stephen King adaptation Needful Things and the killer canine thriller Man's Best Friend. The film would go on to gross a final domestic total of $15.9 million, placing at number 86 on the list of the year's Top 100 earners.

Critical reviews

As with the other Friday the 13th films, many critics panned the film. It maintains a 24% approval rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes based on 17 reviews.[1] The main criticism is the idea of Jason "possessing" the body of people to kill his victims being too outlandish, and simply being another formulaic entry in the series with poor acting and plot holes.[1][2] However, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday was received significantly better than its 1989 predecessor, Jason Takes Manhattan.

DVD release

The film was released unrated on DVD in North America, and includes both versions of the film: the censored R-rated version, and the unrated version, which runs three minutes longer than the theatrical version of the film. In certain regions of the world including Australia, the DVD was only released with the censored R-rated version of the film available to view.

Other media

A three-issue comic adaptation of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday written by Andy Mangels was published by Topps Comics. As the comics are based upon the original shooting script of the film, elements that were left out of the film are used in them. Topps also released a series of trading cards for the film.

The FBI sting that occurs at the beginning of the film is foreshadowed in the novel Friday the 13th: Hate-Kill-Repeat, which takes place between the events of the seventh and eighth films. The epilogue of the book states that the FBI, upon discovering Jason Voorhees actually exists, have begun making plans to trap him and "send him straight to Hell."[3]

Freddy Krueger's clawed hand coming out of the ground and taking Jason's mask was a reference to the future crossover Freddy vs. Jason between the two (similar to the Alien Skull scene in Predator 2, which was a production in-joke), which had been in development hell since 1987. It was finally finished in 2003, a year after this film's sequel.

The film features the appearances of the skull dagger and Necronomicon from Evil Dead II. Jason, Freddy, and Ash Williams would later meet in the comic book series Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash (a story adapted by writer Jeff Katz from a Freddy vs. Jason 2 screenplay treatment he had written in 2004)[4] and again in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors.

Footnotes

  1. ^ The film's distribution rights were transferred to Warner Bros. in 2008.

References

  1. 1 2 "Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday - Rotten Tomatoes". Flixster, Inc. Retrieved April 2, 2013.
  2. ↑ Moon, Jim (September 6, 2010). "JASON GOES TO HELL - THE FINAL FRIDAY". Jim Moon. Retrieved April 2, 2013.
  3. ↑ Arnopp, Jason (2005-10-25). Friday the 13th: Hate-Kill-Repeat. Black Flame. ISBN 1-84416-271-0.
  4. ↑ "'Freddy vs Jason vs Ash' Script Treatment!!!". Bloody Disgusting. 2005-03-08. Retrieved 2009-07-03.

External links

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