THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
More blood meant more money in the 1980s because everyone was always in line for a horror movie of a slasher. If you weren't watching Michael Myers tear it up in Halloween, you damn sure were watching Jason Voorhees do so in Friday the 13th.
PLOT
The fourth entry dubbed The Final Chapter picks up moments after the events of Part 3 left off. Voorhees is presumed dead when being taken to the morgue. However, he wakes up again and begins another trail of blood, starting by murdering a coroner named Axel (Bruce Mahler) with a hacksaw and a nurse named Robbie Morgan (Lisa Freeman) with a scalpel. Shortly after this, he flees the hospital to continue his quest. By morning, another group of teens head their way to Camp Crystal Lake to party. The group includes: Paul Guthrie (Alan Hayes), Sam Lane (Judie Aronson), Sara Parkington (Barbara Howard), Doug Bell (Peter Barton), Ted Cooper (Lawrence Monoson) & Jimmy. As they head towards a cabin they rented for their stay, they completely miss a hitchhiker get stabbed behind the neck by Jason himself, nearby the cemetery where his mother is buried. Across the cabin the group rented is another where the Jarvis family reside. The family includes the matriarch Tracy (Joan Freeman), her eldest daughter Trish, her pre-teen son Tommy and their pet dog Gordon. After settling in, the teens meet the twin duo of Tina & Terri Moore (Camilla & Cary More) and go skinny dipping with them. Trish & Tommy pass by them, but don't stay long due to the need to head home after finishing personal errands. When their car breaks down, they get the aid of another man named Rob Dier who is in the area to camp. He does get invited the Jarvises to visit their home but doesn't stay too long. By nighttime, the teens begin to party, and it gets as eventful as expected. Sam would go out to skinny dip on her own when he jealously sees her boyfriend Paul talk to Tina. This would only lead to Jason impaling her from under a raft. When Paul goes out to check on her, he only gets impaled with a harpoon by the said slasher. As that happens, Tina has sex with Jimmy and Ted watches stag films while Doug & Sara have sex in the shower. When Terri chooses to leave, she would be killed by Voorhees with a spear. After Tracy comes home, she would notice the power is out on her home and her children are not present. The second she goes out to find them, Jason kills her too. Trish & Tommy return home again and discover the power is out. Trish would go to check on Rob in his tent, who would admit he's looking for Jason after he killed his sister Sandra from the second film. As the two return to the house to protect Tommy, Jimmy gets stabbed in the face by Voorhees with a meat cleaver, who would then stab Ted's face with a kitchen knife. When reaching upstairs, he would throw Tina out of a window, causing her to collide onto a car and kill her instantly. After this, he would crush David's head on a wall and stab Sara in the chest with an axe. By the time Trish & Rob return, they see the carnage caused by the killer who quickly kills the latter with a garden cultivator. Although Trish runs back to her home in an attempt to barricade it, Voorhees quickly breaks in to chase her and her brother. She holds off the killer enough by hacking at his hand with a machete Rob had. Tommy would then disguise himself as the young Jason based on a newspaper article Rob also had to track him down. Trish uses this distraction to strike his face with the machete, which only takes the hockey mask he's been wearing. Tommy would however end the conflict by using the machete to stab him in the face before hacking at him to death, presumably ending the terror. The film would end with the Jarvis siblings embracing each other as they recover at the hospital, but the young Tommy remains disturbed of what had happened.
THOUGHTS
It was pretty hard to find meaning to this movie when it never was the finale anyway. Nevertheless, I tuned in because I knew I was in for a bloody good time, which it was overall. Director Joseph Zito and writer Barney Cohen in having us hooked in something crazy yet awesome. With no guarantee at the time on making more sequels after this, they definitely felt like they were giving their all-in hoorah fashion with each kill being distinguishably graphic thanks to incredible makeup & practical effects by Tom Savini, Kevin Yagher, Alex Gillis & John Vulich. They went all out on making Jason appear just as disturbing as before, they were at their best when the villain is at his most sinful. I was already disturbed with how Mark died in Part 2, only to find it topped by how Crispin Glover's Jimmy goes down. Harry Manfredini's return to compose was a smart move since he makes clear this entry was not going to be a pleasant night, nor will it ever in this franchise. While it is easy to feel sidetracked for the most part when you can't really relate to the group that gets killed off with ease, minus Jimmy because Glover made him dance his ass off to get the girl which I respect, you'll still feel interested due to how menacing Jason remains here. This time, Tom White steps up to don the mask and delivers in making him a force to be reckoned with throughout. Everything he looks at is a weapon, which makes him all the scarier because it makes his actions more unpredictable, proving how smart he is deep down. Due to the disconnect you have with the teens, you wonder who the hell you should root for. Luckily, you don't have to look hard enough when it comes to the Jarvis family. Seeing how loving they are towards each other, you're clicked with the fact that you gotta stand your ground for what you believe in which is survival in this case. Kimberly Beck makes a memorable final girl out of Trish because no matter how distraught she is of what happens, she remains focused enough to protect what is left of her family. We definitely feel for the young Tommy since Corey Feldman approaches him as one who was living life one day a time and trying to be adventurous as he felt. He pulled that off as a makeup artist in his spare time, which was an impressive feat he displays in his bedroom. Like a lot of characters in this franchise, he didn't expect anything like this to ever happen, leading him to unleash a dark side he is not proud of. You gotta give him credit for giving himself a makeover to distract Jason because there is no certainty how else he would've stopped him. On the other hand, you still feel bad he had to end the terror in thought back then, I found it a relief he got his own trilogy arc because it would've been too unsettling to ignore how he overcame the trauma. The only other adult that had me interested was Rob. While Sandra wasn't a memorable character compared to Ginny in Part 2, it doesn't mean she wasn't a person. Erich Anderson reminds us through that every life matters and shouldn't be ignored especially when they don't deserve to die. Rob proves to be a loving brother by being willing to strike revenge over a threat he thought he was prepared for. It is easy to pick on how cheesy it sounds for him to shout "He's killing me" as Jason does just that due to the repetition of the line. But then again, it was different compared to the rest because it feels briefly disturbing for someone to have such a realization. It did suck for him to die with the rest because he did seem to have gotten along just fine with the Jarvis family and it would've been cute for him to have an earning intimate/romantic relationship with Trish. Whatever happened to Trish after this, I'm sure she'll always appreciate the sacrifice he made for her. This film was about as hella fun as you would expect, but fun never excuses the illogical stuff that happens storywise. For instance, how come no one detected Jason was truly dead in the opening based off of body heat? I say this because the body temperature always drops at 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per hour. And if you're telling no one was checking within the time span he was picked up in an ambulance and laid to rest in a morgue, someone was definitely not doing their job. I even found it way too convenient for the teens to pass by Pamela's grave, that is a hard punch of nostalgia compared to Rob being Sandra's brother. And I don't know about you, but I do think Tracy should've told the teens to be discreet about their activities for Tommy's sake. There's no way she would have known about the skinny dipping and the boy is lucky she didn't catch him looking at the teens get it on, but at least they would've been cautious at the cabin in advance. And looking back, what was the point of Trish pulling over at the lake? I mean that's just another excuse for Tommy to see boobs if you ask me. And would it be a bad idea for Rob to rent a room? He likely would've gotten an advantage over Jason if he did. Also, how come the raft didn't sink after Jason stabbed through it? It doesn't make sense since there shouldn't be any air to carry Sam's body. That was more of a surprise than nobody hearing the thud Jason made after stabbing Terri. If I'm gonna pick on the editing at some point, I thought it was weird to place Tina's death in between the deaths of Jimmy and Ted. I feel this way because it's not like Jason would climb up just to go back down. And lastly, I know for sure I wasn't the only one who thought it was a bad idea for Trish to leave Tommy alone. With their mom taken out, he had no one to protect him, which makes their survival high on luck at that point. Ignore this, then you'll still have fun with this movie for what it. To wrap up, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter may not be an epic finale but is indeed another bonkers gorefest of a horror film no matter what. If you enjoyed the past three, it's a given that you would enjoy this one as well.
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