Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (Adam Marcus, 1993, USA)

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday was the first Friday the 13th film of the 1990s, and immediately something was very different. This film represented the longest gap between Friday installments, arriving 4 years after Jason Takes Manhattan. In the meantime, Paramount had sold the rights of the film to New Line. Sean Cunningham, director, and producer of the original film was brought back into the fold in producing Jason Goes to Hell. By the 1990s, the slasher genre was becoming tiresome. Most people had become very used to the formula, and Jason Goes to Hell was arriving somewhat before the revitalization of the franchise with tongue-in-cheek films like Scream. Expectations were low and the film did not even meet those, becoming the second-worst performing film in the series and being panned by critics and audiences alike.

Firstly, Jason Goes to Hell is not even a slasher film. It is more of a possession film. The film opens with Jason being entrapped by an FBI agent. There is an FBI standoff in which the FBI opens fire on Jason. When his body is brought to the morgue, he ends up possessing the coroner. Throughout the rest of the film, Jason passes from one body to the next through the form of a demon worm. The film has a very 90s look and incorporates much more disgusting body horror into it than previous entries. Even Jason himself looks grosser, as his mask is barely covering his face. There is a Loomis-type character in the form of Steven Williams as Creighton Duke. The film is interesting in that it tries to do something very different with the Jason formula, although it is a mess overall. Still, I would prefer to watch this film more than some of the more conventional entries in the franchise.

6/10