Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

Plot

Following the events of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Voorhees has resurfaced in Crystal Lake but falls into a trap set up by not the cops, but the FBI. He is destroyed by a grenade explosion. A mysterious person in the forest surveys what has just happened and says "I dont think so."

Jasons remains are sent to a morgue. The coroner conducting the autopsy becomes hypnotized by Jasons heart and is compelled to eat it. This causes the coroner to be possessed by the demonic spirit of Jason. The now possessed coroner begins a killing spree en route to Crystal Lake. Unstated in the film, Jasons supernatural abilities allow him to switch from body to body by eating them or their hearts.

After a confrontation between Creighton Duke and Diana Kimble, Creighton warns Diana that Jason will come to get her and her daughter, Jessica Kimble. Diana tells Jessicas former boyfriend Steven Freeman to meet her at their house to discuss some issues in private. Come nightfall, Steven picks up a few hitchhikers on his way to Dianas house and drops them off at Crystal Lake, where they have sex and get murdered by the recently arrived Jason. After arriving at her house, Steven hears Diana screaming and goes to her aid to find her being assaulted by Josh, a fellow policeman who earlier, had been eaten by the "coroner" and had Jasons spirit transferred into his body, as illustrated by Creighton Duke. Jason then finally kills Diana.

Steven is falsely accused and arrested, meeting the mysterious person, Creighton Duke, in jail. Duke claims that only members of Jasons bloodline can truly kill him for good. Therefore if he transfers the creature into a member of his family, he will be "reborn" back to his old form. Creighton goes on to tell Steven that the only living relatives of Jason are his half-sister Diana, her daughter Jessica, and her infant daughter Stephanie.

Unscrupulous news anchor Robert Campbell, who is dating Jessica, steals Dianas body, planting it in the house for an upcoming investigative show to boost his ratings. Jason bursts in and possesses Robert before leaving with Steven in pursuit. Jessica, who is unaware that her boyfriend is the undead killer, is attacked by him so he can be reborn through her but is disrupted by Steven, who manages to stop him and get Jessica into a car. He runs over Jason and explains the situation, but Jessica does not believe him and throws him out of the car and goes to the police.

Steven turns himself into the police and arrives at the station as Jason does; he frees himself again to protect Jessica, who now realizes the truth. In the chaos, Creighton makes his escape. Steven and Jessica discover a note from Creighton, telling them that he has Stephanie and ordering Jessica to meet him at the Voorhees house alone.

Jessica meets Creighton at the Voorhees house. Creighton throws her a knife, and when she catches it, the knife turns into a mystical dagger. Jason tries to possess Stephanie, but Steven arrives and severs his neck with a machete. A creature crawls out of his neck, and makes its way to the basement, where Dianas body was planted. Jason explodes through the floor in his original body.

As Jessica attempts to retrieve the dagger, the two men alternately fight with Jason. Duke is killed by Jason, and the fight between Jason and Steven ends up outside in the yard. As Jason prepares to finish him, Jessica jumps behind him and stabs him in the chest. This causes Jason to be dragged to Hell.

As the couple walks off with their daughter, a dog appears and unearths Jasons mask. Suddenly, a familiar claw-gloved hand emerges from the ground and drags the mask down into Hell with an evil laughter in the background.

Cast

John D. LeMay is one of only two actors from the TV series to appear in the film series; the other is John Shepherd, who played Tommy Jarvis in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.

Box office

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday debuted in U.S. theaters on Friday, August 13, 1993 to a weekend box office total of $7.6 million. It faced strong competition at the time of its release from other high-profile horror film releases such as the Stephen King adaptation Needful Things and the killer canine thriller Mans Best Friend. The film would go on to gross a final domestic total of $15.9 million, placing at number 86 on the list of the years Top 100 earners.

Critical reviews

As with the other Friday the 13th films, many critics panned the film. It maintains a 24% approval rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes based on 17 reviews. The main criticism is the idea of Jason "possessing" the body of people to kill his victims being too outlandish, and simply being another formulaic entry in the series with poor acting and plot holes. However, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday was received significantly better than its 1989 predecessor, Jason Takes Manhattan.

DVD release

The film was released unrated on DVD in North America, and includes both versions of the film: the censored R-rated version, and the unrated version, which runs three minutes longer than the theatrical version of the film. In certain regions of the world including Australia, the DVD was only released with the censored R-rated version of the film available to view.

Other media

A three-issue comic adaptation of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday written by Andy Mangels was published by Topps Comics. As the comics are based upon the original shooting script of the film, elements that were left out of the film are used in them. Topps also released a series of trading cards for the film.

The FBI sting that occurs at the beginning of the film is foreshadowed in the novel Friday the 13th: Hate-Kill-Repeat, which takes place between the events of the seventh and eighth films. The epilogue of the book states that the FBI, upon discovering Jason Voorhees actually exists, have begun making plans to trap him and "send him straight to Hell";

Freddy Kruegers clawed hand coming out of the ground and taking Jasons mask was a reference to the future crossover, Freddy vs. Jason between the two (similar to the Alien Skull scene in Predator 2, which was a production in-joke), which had been in development hell since 1987. It was finally finished in 2003, a year after this films sequel.

The film features the appearances of the skull dagger and Necronomicon from Evil Dead II. Jason, Freddy, and Ash Williams would later meet in the comic book series Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash (a story adapted by writer Jeff Katz from a Freddy vs. Jason 2 screenplay treatment he had written in 2004) and again in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors.