HorroRated archive entry

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

HorroRated verdict
If You're Curious
1980sSlasherSupernaturalFranchise HorrorCult Classic
Directed by
Adam Marcus
Written by
Dean Lorey, Jay Huguely
Produced by
Sean S. Cunningham, Debbie Hayn-Cass

Why it’s HorroRated

Jason Goes to Hell is a genuine curiosity purely for how completely it abandons everything the franchise had established up to this point, replacing the hulking silent killer with a body-possessing parasite plot that has virtually nothing to do with the Jason audiences knew. The film's title is a flat-out lie since Jason barely appears as himself for more than a few minutes total, spending most of the runtime as a demon slug jumping between increasingly disposable hosts. Steven Williams as bounty hunter Creighton Duke delivers the film's most memorable performance almost entirely through sheer commitment to nonsensical dialogue that somehow works in context. The practical effects during the body transformations are genuinely well done, but they're in service of a plot so far removed from the series' identity that it barely qualifies as a Friday the 13th film at all. Worth seeing once purely to understand how strange this franchise got before New Line handed it to a very different crossover.

Synopsis

After the government finally destroys Jason's body in an opening ambush, a demonic parasite emerges from his remains and begins possessing a series of hosts, each one deteriorating faster than the last, in a desperate search for a surviving Voorhees family member to permanently reclaim. Bounty hunter Creighton Duke tracks the entity's plan while Steven Freeman races to protect Jessica Voorhees, Jason's last living relative, from becoming the vessel that would let Jason live forever. Adam Marcus directs a script that abandons nearly all franchise continuity in favor of new possession-based mythology, and the film ends with a brief Freddy Krueger cameo that would eventually pay off a decade later.

Filed under

Quick facts

Release date
August 13, 1993
Runtime
1 hour 28 mins
Country
United States of America
Language
English
Content rating
R
Entry type
Movie

Tags

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday trailer