FRIDAY THE 13TH:
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Directed by
Joseph Zito
Released in
1984
Starring
Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis,
Kimberly Beck as Trish,
Erich Anderson as Rob,
Crispin Glover as Jimmy,
Lawrence Monoson as Ted,
Joan Freeman as Mrs. Jarvis,
Peter Barton as Doug,
Barbara Howard as Sara,
Bruce Mahler as Axel,
Lisa Freeman as Nurse Morgan,
Alan Hayes as Paul,
Judie Aronson as Samantha,
Camilla & Carey More as Tina and Terri, and
Ted White as Jason Voorhees
The beginning of
June is the perfect time to watch a
Friday the 13th film, I think, because the very first movie in the franchise took place on a Friday, June 13th. Summer has started and it's time to go to camp.
This is the fourth film in the
Friday the 13th franchise, and it was supposed to be the last one, but when this movie that cost only $1 million dollars to make made over $32 million at the box office, they decided that Jason Voorhees, the superhuman, unstoppable killer of the series... wasn't so dead afterall.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter picks up right where 1982's
Friday the 13th Part III left off. That movie just happened to pick up right where 1981's
Friday the 13th Part 2 left off, which took place
five years, I think, after
Friday the 13th. Just to catch you up -- in the first film, a woman avenged the death of her son, Jason, who
drowned when camp counselors weren't watching him. In the second movie, Jason came back to life (or something) to avenge his mother's death, 'cause a
lady chopped her head off. In the third movie, Jason wasn't dead, so he killed some more people. Of course.
This movie begins with Jason
APPARENTLY DEAD. For real this time. An ambulance comes and picks his body up, which is inside this
barn after Jason received an axe or something to the forehead. So they take Jason's
"dead" body to the hospital, where this
horny male nurse/medical assistant guy named
Axel is waiting for him. Axel is watching an
erotic aerobics workout video, and he's waiting to get Nurse Morgan alone so he can do it with her in the morgue. Axel starts fooling around with Nurse Morgan, when suddenly Jason's hand falls off a gurney and decides to touch Nurse Morgan, too. She screams and demands that Axel put Jason in the dead body freezer. Axel does, but Jason wakes up and gets out. Jason brutally kills Axel and Nurse Morgan.
Cut to a cabin home in the woods, around where Jason Voorhees normally lives, I guess.
Corey Feldman is a young kid who just so happens to be a genius at mask making. He makes all these incredibly detailed scary masks -- which you don't buy for a second 'cause there's just no way some kid can make masks like this. Obviously the special effects department of the movie -
Tom Savini, specifically - made these masks. Anyway, there's no real reason for why Corey Feldman, as Tommy, should be into mask making -- it doesn't really serve the plot except to let us know that his character likes scary things. And that he's about to meet that scariest monster of them all -- no, not
Michael Jackson -- Jason Voorhees.
Anyway, so he lives there with his mom and his
big sister, Trish. Mom is divorced. So, these teenagers are coming to rent this cabin home right next door to them. One of them is Crispin Glover from
Back to the Future, another is Lawrence Monoson, who was the star of the 1982 sex comedy,
The Last American Virgin. These teenagers only want one thing --
SEX. They practically
LIVE for sex. Which is very true, because
NONE of them are even alive at the end of this movie. Yes, Jason comes in and
kills all of them. Everybody except Corey Feldman and his big sister, Trish, dies. Jason even murders the mother of Corey Feldman and Trish, though it's
politely done off-screen, since it's traumatic that Jason is actually cold enough to murder the mother of Corey Feldman and his big sister, Trish.
Jason is even responsible for killing their
dog, Gordon, though I'm really not sure if Gordon's death was homicide or
suicide. It LOOKS like Gordon jumps through a window to his death on his own. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be Gordon being thrown by Jason out the window, but it looks like Gordon is throwing
HIMSELF out the window. Even the dog wanted the f**k out of this stupid movie badly enough. Oh, well. All dogs go to Heaven, right?
So what can I tell you about the death scenes? One of my favorites happens to a character only in the film for about a minute -- this
fat hitchhiker girl. This fat
hippie hitchhiker girl. She's trying to get a lift, and the car full of horny teenagers don't even bother to pick her up. Why not, though? Sure, she's fat, but it's an
extra vagina. I thought the saying was, "Honk if You're Horny?" Apparently these teens manage to be horny, but not
THAT horny. Anyway, after they deny her a ride (both car and other things), and she gives them the
finger, she sits down and shows the audience just how willing she is as a fat hippie sex partner -- she immediately begins devouring a
banana. Next thing you know, a knife goes through her throat, and the rest of her banana slides off onto the ground. That's what happens when you eat fruit, I guess.
Another guy gets a harpoon in his
testicles. Many are
axed in the back and thrown against walls and movie projector screens showing vintage porno. One Rambo-like guy named Rob, who is trying to help Corey Feldman and Trish, and who is also trying to avenge his sister's death (she died in
Friday the 13th Part 2), is attacked very easily by Jason and he doesn't even put up a fight, even though he looks like he should. He starts shouting,
"OH MY GOD! HE'S KILLING ME! HE'S KILLING ME! OH MY GOD!" as -- you guessed it -- Jason is killing him. What else... what else. Many girls get thrown out of windows. Crispin Glover gets a
meat cleaver to the face and a corkscrew to the hand. He's trying to find a corkscrew to celebrate the fact that he just lost his virginity. He wants to open a bottle of wine and drink with Lawrence Monoson from
The Last American Virgin, but he can't find the corkscrew, until Jason finds it for him.
There are
twin sisters in this movie.... two beautiful twin sisters named Tina and Terri, who ride down in a matching pair of bicycles, looking for guys to have sex with.... both of them die. One of them, Tina, took Crispin Glover's virginity before Jason throws her out of a window. There's lots of nudity in this film, though the only really clear male nudity came from Lawrence Monoson, the
LEAST attractive guy, but still,
not bad.
As bad and stupid and sex and murder crazed as this movie may be, I must say, it's a
good Friday the 13th film. I don't know if it's truly the best one... but it's probably the most memorable. Nothing was ever really scary, of course, but the climatic scenes with Jason going after Corey Feldman and Trish are
energetic and heart pounding. Ted White played a very good Jason. He is a stunt man and he made the character violent and merciless. It's a dark,
moody, action packed
Friday the 13th film.
Rambo at a teenage orgy. Or something like that.
The final moments where Corey Feldman attacks Jason Voorhees, right after an unmasked, monstrous looking Jason slides down
face first on his own machete, is a major highlight for the whole
Friday the 13th franchise.
You could miss it, but you shouldn't.
Closed Thread
I do like the entire franchise though. What I've seen of it...
Vintage Willis, or Wintllagis, as you'd probably coin it. (Not that I could ever emulate you, this is just my best guess)
