Movie Review: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

The movie stars Kari Keegan, Kane Hodder, Steven Williams, Steven Culp and Erin Gray.

I stopped watching Friday the 13th movies before seeing this particular film, mostly because I was growing bored with what I thought was a somewhat overrated horror movie villain. However, after watching Jason X a couple days ago and discovering I actually enjoyed that film, I decided to give this movie a try after all. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be.

OK, I'll confess, the whole "Jason has the ability to possess other people" thing was somewhat intriguing. In fact, it was part of the reason why I decided to watch the film. But, while I thought that had some potential, I found it actually wound up hurting this film.

Let's put it this way. You have one of the most famous horror movie villains that comes complete with an intimidating look. Yet, rather than have him continue to be an unstoppable force, the movie decides to put his soul in a bunch of less-intimidating bodies. While the movie obviously had good intentions with doing that, it just didn't have the same impact I think the filmmakers were hoping it would have.

I also thought the part about him having a half sister (Gray) and niece (Keegan) seemed a bit force, mostly because I don't remember any mention of him having siblings in any of the previous films and the whole "he can either possess or be killed by another Voorhees" sounded like something ripped off from another film.

And what the heck was up with that magical dagger? Again, that just seemed like something thrown in at the last second for the sake of this movie and was a little ridiculous.

To be fair, there were a couple things I did like about this movie. For one, I loved one of the earlier scenes, when he conveniently targeted a group of kids having premarital sex shortly after they bragged about going into the woods to have premarital sex because they no longer had to be afraid of Jason. It was a bit goofy but earned my thumbs up because it was obviously paying homage to previous films.

I also found I loved the ending scene, which ultimately would connect this film with Freddy vs Jason. Unfortunately, these two things just didn't make up for the rest of it.

It wasn't a terrible movie. I just don't think it lived up to expectations and, after seeing it, think it would have been better without all the magical body transference stuff (other than maybe him still needing to possess a Voorhees body to continue his immortality). 

My Grade: C