Macabre Movie Mausoleum: Friday the 13th – The Final Chapter
The big day will soon be upon us. Just 4 days from now, Geekade will conclude its 31 Days of Halloween on the greatest holiday of the year and so, Gravediggers and Undertakers, this will be the final Macabre Movie Mausoleum of the month.
Furthermore, with a heaviness in the empty void where my black heart once resided, I must announce that this will be the final monthly installment of MMM. However, don’t fret. I will continue to add to the cemetery that is Macabre Movie Mausoleum, just not on a monthly basis.
Additionally, if you’ve been paying attention to the 31 Days of Halloween, you’ll have noticed that I’ve created a new series that will be taking more of my attention for the next few years. Rising from the Crypt is my review series of the entire episode list of Tales from the Crypt, and this will be running on a monthly schedule until I’ve reviewed all 93 episodes of the 7-season show. I hope to see you there!
Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter (1984)
Director: Joseph Zito
Starring: Erich Anderson, Crispin Glover, Corey Feldman
The movie starts with a deceased Jason being taken to a hospital morgue the night of Part 3’s climax. Sure enough, as horror movies would have you believe, Jason mysteriously resurrects, and begins his killing spree anew. He kills a coroner and nurse in quick fashion with a hacksaw and scalpel respectively.
The next day a group of friends arrive at Crystal Lake for a weekend of fun (that’ll end well). They pass a hitchhiker near Pamela Voorhees’ grave, who is quickly dispatched by Jason. Thanks for coming, goodbye.
They meet a family that lives close to the house they’ll be staying in: mother, daughter Trish, young son Tommy, and their dog Gordon. Later, the group of friends come across twins Tina and Terri (lots of ‘t’ names in this movie) and they all decide to go skinny dipping in the lake.
While this is going on, Trish and Tommy stumble upon the scene, and Trish tries to quickly usher her 12-year-old brother away. She’s invited to a party at their house later that night. On the way back home, Trish and Tommy’s car breaks down, and although Tommy tries to fix it, they’re saved by a camper, Rob, who is offered a lift for his help. Tommy bonds with the stranger, but Rob decides to leave and head back to his camp site.
That night, the party starts at the teens’ house, who are nowhere near teen age, and the fun can really start. After getting into a fight with her boyfriend, Sam decides to skinny dip into the lake and relax on an inflatable raft. Unfortunately for her, Jason can move in the water as silent as can be, and so Sam is impaled from the bottom of the boat. Not long after, her boyfriend, Paul, goes to make up and finds her on the lake. Thinking she’s sleeping he swims to her, but is impaled in the groin with a harpoon (let that sink in for a minute).
Terri, one of the twins, is tired of Ted’s advances (another ‘t’ name) and leaves the party, but before she can get far, she’s killed from behind with a spear. After sleeping with the other twin, Jimmy heads downstairs to get a drink. He’s met by Jason and a corkscrew pinshis hand to the kitchen counter. Jason then chops his head with a meat cleaver. This was Crispin Glover before he’d had a chance to create a legacy of outlandish characters.
Tina, thoroughly satisfied with the lay, looks out the window and sees her sister’s bike still there. Before she can do anything, Jason tosses her out the window, and she dies on impact of a car roof. Of all the death scenes in this franchise so far, I have to say this is the most unbelievable one. As I stated in my review for Part 3, Jason must be able to teleport. It’s the only way to explain how he is able to catch everyone while walking everywhere, and how he can be so silent when stalking his victims. Adding to lack of realism in this scene, a fall from a second story window onto a car isn’t likely to have been fatal.
Ted, after being rejected by every female he’s hit on, submits to watching vintage porno films on a projector drunk and high. Sloppily making his way to a celluloid woman who won’t reject him, he’s met with the pointy end of his life as Jason stabs him through the screen.
Teleporting upstairs, Jason kills Doug in the shower where he just had sex with his virgin girlfriend. Jason crushes his head against the shower wall. Sara re-enters the bathroom and finds the blood (no body, which supports my other theory that Jason is great at cleaning up his murder scenes), but she stops short. Jason pays her back, by chopping into her head with an ax before she can escape the bathroom.
Trish and Tommy return to their home from town and discover that the power is out and that their mom is missing. They are unaware she’s been killed by Jason, and so Trish goes to look for her while Tommy stays home in case their mom returns. Trish stumbles upon Rob’s campsite, and he admits he’s not there to camp. He’s hunting Jason, who killed his sister, Sandra from Part 2 (she was the one stabbed with a spear while having sex).
Remembering that she left Tommy alone, Trish and Rob rush home. Tommy is fine, so Trish and Rob decide to leave him and check on the party. The house appears empty, with not much damage to show for Jason’s carnage (if he ever tires of killing, he could work as a cleaner for a criminal empire). Checking the basement, Rob is caught by Jason, and fails to avenge his sister as he’s killed and joins her.
Trish rushes back to Tommy and tries to barricade the house from Jason, but they forget the house is practically lined with windows, and that Trish and Rob broke one of the doors in when they first arrived to check on Tommy. Trish lures Jason out of the house and to the teens’ house, hoping to give Tommy enough time to escape.
With no other plan, she returns her house again, but is upset when she finds that Tommy didn’t leave. Jason catches up to her, and she tries to valiantly fight him off, but is quickly overpowered. Tommy, who’s shaved his head and disguised himself as a young Jason, based off of an image in a newspaper article. He’s able to stop Jason long enough for Trish to attack, but Jason survives a machete chop to the face that simply knocks off his mask. Tommy picks up the machete, as Trish is too horrified by Jason’s face to do anything, and slices deep into Jason’s skull that cracks when he falls to the floor.
Jason is about to do the classic ‘killer thought to be dead isn’t dead and attacks again’ routine, when Tommy sees Jason’s fingers twitching. He repeatedly chops into Jason’s head, screaming the whole while.
At the hospital, Trish hugs Tommy as she tries to comfort him, but Tommy gazes creepily into the camera, still looking like a young Jason, and implies he’s the new killer. You know because this movie was subtitled “The Final Chapter” Jason can’t come back, right? Right?
On to the rating…
Honestly, this movie isn’t that bad, but the repetitiveness of the series, coupled with the crappy ending of Tommy turning evil, really hurts the movie.
I wish Crispin Glover was able to be weirder than he was, even though he was the weirdest of the movie, because he grew to be an amazing character actor. Other than that, the acting wasn’t anything special, however it also wasn’t anything horrible, except for the twins, but they did get naked often, so they earned their spots. Actually, most of the females showed plenty of skin, and I think it was this movie of the series that really earned the reputation of abundance of breasts in horror movies.
I actually don’t remember much of Part 5, but I believe I do recall Corey Feldman reprising his role of Tommy, and the movie begins with him standing over Jason’s grave. I’ll get to it eventually.
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