Horror Fest Day Two: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

When Paramount decided they needed to kill of Jason Vorhees once and for all (the first time), they did it right, bringing back Tom Savini to finish the job he started with Friday the 13th.

The movie begins with a nice recap of the first three Friday movies, hitting plot points and showing off the best kills from each one (including the Betsy Palmer decapitation) and then picks up right where part three left off, with Jason "dead" in the barn from a machete to the head. The cops bag him, tag him, and take him to the hospital.

But of course, this is the beginning of the movie, not the end, so Jason can't be dead. And to make sure, we need to see him dispatch some horny hospital workers and escape unseen from wherever the hell this hospital is. Where to? Crystal Lake, of course.

This time we're on the non-camp side of the lake, though, near a cabin and its nearby rental house, where our prerequisite stock cast of idiot teenagers have just arrived, fresh for the slaughter. Now, we know we're off to a good start when we see Crispin "Dead Fuck" Glover (and his wicked hot dance moves), but then we get the skinny dip twins and some useless hunter free of charge! What luck!!!

Jason dispatches them in varying degrees of awesomeness (including but not limited to: hatchet in the chest, knife in the back of the head, implied dog homocide, thrown into car so hard it explodes, and speargun to the junk) and then moves on to the family renting the house out and their quaint (and window loaded) cabin, the Jarvises.

Now, we can't talk about Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter without discussing little Corey Feldman is Tommy Jarvis, a boy ingenious enough to sneak into Tom Savini's workshop and steal all of his gags. Young Tommy also spies some teenagers getting it on, and a whole mass of people skinny dipping. (Between this, The Goonies, and The Lost Boys, is it any wonder this kid ended up so screwed up?)

Tommy is mostly around to give us something other than dead teenagers, hitchhikers, dogs, and parents to look at, until the end of the film, where he goes bat shit crazy, shaves his head, and kills the shit out of Jason. And I mean that.

There's a nice little coda implying that the trauma of what Tommy did may drive him to be like Jason, but for Mr. Vorhees, this is the end of the line... right?

Well, since this is part four and there are (to date) ten Jason movies, I think you can figure it out, but The Final Chapter does mark the last time we see Jason as mutant survialist killer. From here on out he's either a copycat killer or Zombie Jason, who isn't good at absorbing damage but is instead just undead, and accordingly doesn't feel pain. For that, and many other layers of awesomeness (and "Dead Fuck" Glover substituting for a door) Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter, is a high water mark for the series.

I'm going to fit in one more movie here and then it's off to a Halloween party for a while (don't worry, there's still going to be a VHS playing so I can come back to movies) but later tonight, you can expect updates on Slither, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, A Taste for Flesh and Blood 2, Hostel, and, if you're lucky, Chopping Mall.