HAPPY 40th ANNIVERSARY FRIDAY THE 13th: THE FINAL CHAPTER
Jason (Ted White) on the attack in the misguidedly named Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter!
As a horror fan in the 80s, the Friday the 13th franchise was an important part of the horror movie diet, and I can proudly say I saw the first seven entries in a theater on opening night or that weekend. With this entry being labeled as The Final Chapter, you can bet friends and I were there opening night at the long-gone Stanley Warner theater in Paramus, New Jersey. The end of Jason? This we had to see! We loved this entry and marveled at Ted White’s very imposing Jason as well as Tom Savini’s amazing gore effects. The flick had a fun and sexy young cast and introduced us to future horror icon Corey Feldman, who would meet The Lost Boys a few years later. The end did indeed seem like the demise of the hockey mask wearing madman and at the hands of a young Tommy Jarvis (Feldman) no less! A fun, bloody thrill ride and a fitting conclusion to the series! …until the following year!
Has Jason met his match?
To this day the fourth entry is still my favorite of the sequels not counting the blast of a good time that was Freddy vs. Jason. It returns to the more intense tone of the first and second flicks and has the best gore and kills since the original entry with Savini’s return. Many credit Kane Hodder with solidifying the character of Jason when he took on the role in The New Blood, but to me it was stuntman/actor Ted White who really locked in the hulking unstoppable Jason we all know the character as, with his performance in this entry. This chapter also still holds up as solid 80s slasher entertainment now forty years later!
In honor of the film’s 40th anniversary, I am reposting my original review which echoes some of the sentiments I conveyed above…
FRIDAY THE 13th: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984)
Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter is one of my favorites of the sequels and the one that comes closest to matching the original. The film saw not only a return to the more serious tone and atmosphere of the original film, but with the return of Tom Savini to the make-up FX duties, also brought back the more intense and graphic kills and gore.
This entry opens right where Part 3 left off with Jason (stuntman Ted White) and his victims carted off to the morgue from the Higgins place only to have Jason revive and escape, but not before gruesomely murdering two horny hospital employees. We then switch to two houses deep in the woods near Crystal Lake, one occupied by single mother Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman) and her daughter Trish (Kimberly Beck) and young son Tommy (Corey Feldman), the other occupied by a group of partying youths on a make-out and drinking getaway. A certain someone has returned home to his stomping grounds and now has targeted both young partiers and innocent family alike. Will any of them survive his relentless rage?
This installment brought in The Prowler director Joseph Zito and he brings the suspense, atmosphere and intensity to the proceedings that made that 1981 slasher one of the more entertaining of the time period. He comes very close to providing an equal to the original Friday with what was supposed to be Jason’s final film. The kills are brutal, as well, and with Savini’s return, the make-up FX are quite inventive and gory. Zito leaves some of the lighter humor that appeared in Part 3 behind, and it keeps the atmosphere taunt and foreboding, as it should be. The film also added an interesting plot element in the character of Rob (Erich Anderson), who at first seems like a hunter/camper, but turns out to be the vengeful brother of a girl murdered by Jason (Sandra played by Marta Kober from Part 2) and he is now stalking the lethal serial killer with the intent of ending his reign of terror. One of the film’s few faults is the confrontation between these two could have been a bit more epic. The character of young Tommy (Feldman) being a bit of a geek/make-up artist also adds a fun twist to the proceedings.
As for the rest of the characters, this bunch are a lot livelier than most of the generic victims and with the inclusion of Crispin Glover in one of his most ‘normal’ roles as a shy teen and 80s movie fixture Judy Aronson as a one of the babes, we get a nice group of likable, horny teens to fall under Jason’s varied weapons. It gives their deaths impact because we like them and the young cast give them life and personality. Also stars Hell Night’s Peter Barton as one of the party goers who meets Jason’s wrath, and the score is one again by Harry Manfredini.
A really good entry in the series and by far the best of the sequels.
MONSTERZERO NJ EXTRA TRIVIA: There is a small mistake here in this installment. When driving past a graveyard, they spot Mrs. Voorhees’ tombstone which has her date of death being 1979. But, as we all know, she actually died on Friday June 13th, 1980, by having her head removed by final girl Alice in the original Friday The 13th.
-MonsterZero NJ
Rated 3 and 1/2 (out of 4) hockey masks.
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