Decology: Jason Goes To Hell

The word 'final' gets thrown a lot these days. We have DC Comics' Final Crisis, the Final Fantasy series and, of course, 'The Final Countdown.' Today I am going to cover one part of the Friday the 13th series, which just happens to have two films with the word 'Final' in the title! How much more ironic can you get, people?!? Anyhow, today's reviews is of the ninth film in the series. Why this film? I mean, it does not have the mother being decapitated (Part 1), the psychic girl attacking Jason with chains (Part 7) or that famous dance scene with Crispin Glover (Part 4). I'll tell you why: because it is the most creative of all of them. Mind you, it is also one of the worst in terms of logic for that same reason too. It also takes the film into a territory that it should not go. This lesson was learned, since the next three films (counting the remake of sorts from this year) have not touched this idea. This is...

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

The film begins with a woman approaching Camp Crystal Lake. Her purpose there: to wander around, disrobe and be attacked by Jason Voorhees! She runs away for a while, randomly stopping and starting again in the usual fashion. Suddenly, Jason is surrounded by a SWAT team and an array of spotlights. They fire at him, fire at him some more and keep firing. You'd think that he is Amadou Diallo! After a Sam Peckinpah wet dream, they blow up the demon killer with a rocket launcher, which oddly leaves his heart intact. Not ten minutes in, his body is taken to a morgue to be examined. Here, I'll make it short for you: he is a giant pile of debris- that is what killed him! While his partner is away, the man in charge (a dead ringer for the last Ossie Davis) gets entranced by magic and chomps down on Jason's still-beating heart! When the other man returns, he meets a gruesome fate, followed by the police guarding the place. By the way, the movie decided that their deaths should be shown off-screen. Why do you suddenly shy away from the killing now?

*

It only gets weirder from here, folks. A famous bounty hunter talks about how Jason is not really dead, a fact somewhat confirmed by the killings at said morgue. He explains that Jason can take over any body & you can only kill him by some means that he won't share. Quick: get the knife from Lady Terminator back! I suppose you're wondering why I'm not yelling at the movie for suddenly retconning the powers of Voorhees. Well, my reasons are simple. Three films earlier, he came back to life when a man stabbed a pole into his chest and lightning struck it. I have no expectations for sanity...which are still shattered by this movie. The town of Crystal Lake is beginning to get crazy tourists, which is not good for one diner waitress who is...Jason's sister. Dun dun what?!? Since when are we concerned about people being related to Jason in any...they aren't planning what I think they're planning, are they? The bounty hunter hassles her, but gets locked up in prison. See you when the plot remembers to bring you back, guy. Meanwhile, a nicer man is seeking her fancy and he is...the star of Friday the 13th: The Series. You really got him?

*

I'll try to make this thing brief, because it hurts my head. The doctor kills a sheriff (after shaving off his mustache- seriously!) and makes him the new Jason. He attacks his sister and the guy, managing to kill her before being knocked out a window. Well, this has a good ten years on Halloween: Resurrection's opening, guys. The daughter is in town with her baby daughter, which makes her the target. The man is thought to be guilty, but alleviates their concerns by breaking out of jail with a gun! The daughter does not believe his fairy tale about Jason only being able to be killed or resurrected by someone of his own bloodline. If that fails, just get a Prime! A bunch of underdeveloped characters die (including a diner full of people) and a police station gets wrecked. Jason's new body tries to change into the daughter's via slipping a weird slug from his mouth to hers. This is broken up and the body destroyed. All of this leads us to...a weird demon worm slithering around the place. That's the real Jason Voorhees?!? Unfortunately, a minor character dumped the mom's body there earlier and the Jason worm enters her...turning into his old body again. All of that to be the body that got killed so easily? Just to make my Lady Terminator joke more ironic, the girl stabs Jason with a magic knife and finishes him off. On the plus side, Kane Hodder got paid his normal rate to barely work here! This leads to the famous ending with Freddy's hand grabbing the Jason mask...which finally paid off ten years later in 2003. The End.

*

This movie is not terrible, but it's damn strange. Jason has gone from a scrawny, burned-up kid in a dream sequence (1) to a killer (2-4), to an impostor (5), a zombie killer (6-8), an evil spirit worm (9) and, ultimately, to a cybernetic-killer (10). What a strange journey for one guy to go on! As for this movie, the plot is completely nuts. It veers off into Halloween territory with the evil spirit, the magic (bonus points for the Necronomicon cameo) and the whole family murder aspect. Whose idea was it to do this? I also have to wonder how everyone is so keen to believe this idea that has never been set up before?!? Of course, I believe this new thing for no good reason because the second 'Deep Throat' guy from The X-Files told me so.' Also, look at this movie from a writer's point-of-view. You kill off Jason Voorhees and build up his return for 80 minutes...only for him to be stabbed to death mere minutes after his ridiculous return. The fight with The Fallen from Transformers 2 is the only big fight that was more disappointingly-short that I can think of. This movie makes no damn sense, but does have some charms. If nothing else, it has a sign that reads...

'Jason Voorhees is Dead'
Burgers 50% Off

*

Up next, I change gears with a Chinese film about ghosts, magic and felines. Stay tuned...