Franchises: Friday the 13th. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

After Paramount gave up the Friday the 13th franchise following the dismal box-office performance of Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, for a while it seemed like that would be the last outing for Jason Voorhees. Then, New Line Cinema scooped up the rights and the hope was now that the often talked about Freddy vs. Jason would finally come about since both characters were now owned by the same studio. But, as that film languished in production hell, Sean Cunningham, who had returned as producer after not being associated with the series since he directed the original film, decided that another movie needed to be made to keep the series in the public eye. And that film was this... thing: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. (Remember my rule about movies that say they're the last in a franchise?), which is by far one of the most bizarre franchise entries since Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Right off the bat, I must say that if you've never seen this, you'd best have the same mindset that you should when going into that film: do NOT expect to get another typical sequel because this is definitely not it.

The film starts out like a typical Friday the 13th: a sexy woman drives up to Crystal Lake and prepares to spend the night when she's attacked by Jason Voorhees. He chases her out to a large field and just as he's about to do her in, he's ambushed by a large squad of FBI officers. As it turns out, the woman was an undercover agent and the whole thing was an elaborate trap. After being shot hundreds of times, they launch an explosive from the air that literally blows Jason to pieces and his remains are then taken to a nearby morgue. However, Jason's evil spirit takes control of the coroner and makes him eat his heart, allowing him to possess the man's body. Now back on his feet, Jason journeys back to Crystal Lake, jumping from one person to another along the way, in order to find his last living blood relatives so he can be reborn again.

Where do I even start with this? I guess I should start with the thinking behind it: director Adam Marcus said that he and his writing partner Dean Lorey didn't want to do another movie that was just about Jason killing people and, for better or for worse, they definitely succeeded on that score. Now, let me make this clear: I don't mind directors and writers doing something different. As I said, the reason I like Jason Takes Manhattan is because I thought it was a nice change of pace for the series. However, just because something is different and fresh doesn't mean it's automatically good, and that certainly applies to this movie. They're right when they say that this doesn't feel like Friday the 13th : as others have noted, it feels more like a rip-off of The Hidden, which alien creatures constantly possesses different people's bodies, much like the spirit of Jason does here. I'm not saying that Marcus and Lorey intentionally copied that movie but the point is that this concept isn't as new as they thought it was. They're also right when they say that this isn't a typical Jason movie. While it technically still is Jason going around killing people, whenever he possesses a person's body, no matter how much these actors try to act like him, it's not Jason to me: it's a bunch of not so good actors trying to mimic Kane Hodder's mannerisms and that doesn't work for me.

Besides a new type of story, Marcus and Lorey said they also wanted to create a mythology for Jason that hadn't existed before, and I can't say I like that much better. This concept of Jason needing to be reborn through another Voorhees is just all kinds of "what the hell?" to me. I always liked the idea that Mrs. Voorhees was a normal, loving mother who had a disfigured son who was accidentally drowned and that she went crazy as a result. Add to that the idea that Jason apparently didn't drown but was really living in the woods, became a homicidal maniac, got killed, and was later brought back to life through some supernatural means, and that leads to something else I always liked about the series, which is that Jason started out as an ordinary boy and eventually, through both normal and then supernatural twists of fate, became the monster he now is. But this mythology makes it seem like the Voorhees were some sort of evil family from the start, that they had ties to voodoo and the occult. And as for that dagger being the only thing that can kill Jason? Who carved that, gave it its power, and, above everything else, why? Was it someone who knew that the Voorhees family was evil or something? Speaking of which, the Voorhees family apparently has connections to the Deadites because the freaking Necronomicon is in the Voorhees house (let's not even attempt to figure out a way that connects The Evil Dead to this mess). It also amazes me that that house is still standing, considering all the scorn Crystal Lake must now suffer from the rest of the country due to Mrs. Voorhees and Jason's killing sprees. You'd think they would have torched that place years ago, as happened to Ed Gein's house shortly after he was arrested (of course, if we're going by that logic, I might as well ask why they never burned down the Myers House in Haddonfield).

Exactly when this movie takes place in the series' timeline is a mystery as well because it ignores the ending of Jason Takes Manhattan and doesn't explain at all how Jason changed back into the hulking, hockey-masked monster that he is. I understand why they ignored that since that ending was crap but this movie seems to also ignore that film completely and Marcus has even said that it does. So, if that's the case, when exactly does this one take place? Who knows? Oh, and just in case they weren't flying into the face of enough of the series' established backstory and lore, Jason now suddenly has a sister. Yeah. I don't know about you but I've always felt that part of the reason Mrs. Voorhees went insane was because Jason was her only child, which she even mentioned in the original film. If she had another child, I'm sure she would have still been heartbroken but would have been able to move on. And when was this daughter born anyway? After Jason's drowning? You'd think Mrs. Voorhees would have stopped holding a grudge and tried to raise this second child right, making sure that tragedy didn't repeat itself. This also damages Mrs. Voorhees' character because, as I said, even though she was insane, she was a great mother who would both kill and die for her child; if she neglected another child and only focused on Jason, that makes her, and, as a result, Jason, less sympathetic.

I've always had major mixed feelings about Adam Marcus, both as a filmmaker and as a fan in general. On the one hand, he seems like a fun, energetic guy and he freely admits that Jason Goes to Hell isn't perfect, which I'm glad of. But, while he also acknowledges that many fans still hate him and the movie to this day, I don't think he understands exactly why they do. His impression is that everybody was angry because it wasn't another typical Friday the 13th with Jason just walking around and killing people, and that could be true for many people, but for me, I think it has more to do with all of the crap he and Dean Lorey introduced. In Crystal Lake Memories, he says that people got onto him for ruining the mystique of Jason and he defended himself by saying that what made Norman Bates scary to him was his demented relationship with his mother and that what made Michael Myers scary to him was the fact that he killed his sister when he was a little kid. To that, I respond, "Yes, and those backstories for those particular characters were established from the beginning. What you did was make up a bunch of bullshit that flies in the face of everything we've known about Jason and his mother, effectively screwing up what was already established. This is not the first Friday the 13th. There had been eight movies before this one that already established stuff." Also, he mentions Quint's speech in Jaws about the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and describes that as backstory for the shark. That was backstory for Quint, you moron! The only thing you got about the shark is that he's either really smart or really dumb but that was it. Remember how dumb it got when they gave the shark an actual backstory and motivation in Jaws: The Revenge? I rest my case. (Oh, and they completely ripped off one of Quint's lines and put it in here. Spielberg ought to sue Marcus for that.)

Okay, after all that ranting, let's get to the characters. Our lead here is Steven Williams, played by John D. LeMay, who, ironically, was the original star of the unrelated Friday the 13th TV show. He had a relationship with the lead woman, Jessica, that didn't work out but did lead to a baby daughter. He also ends up accused of murdering Jessica's mother due to circumstance and spends the majority of the movie trying to clear his name. All in all, he seems like a nice enough guy who just got dealt some bad hands by fate. He's really loving and sweet when he first sees his little girl and steps up to the plate to save Jessica even after she's made it clear that she still thinks he killed her mother, which makes him someone to root for. He's a decent enough lead and it is nice to have an actual leading man in one of these films, which is very rare.

Jessica Kimble, played by Kari Keegan, is another decent enough character, although the fact that she thinks her old lover killed her mother and refuses to let him help her even after he saves her from Robert, who was clearly trying to kill her, is very frustrating since we know the truth. (It also doesn't make her look good when it takes her a few seconds to get the gumption to save Steven from getting pulled into hell with Jason at the end.) At the same time, though, her attitude is understandable and what saves her for me is that she's a mother who will fight for her child, even if it means having to go up against a supernatural boogeyman like Jason. I especially love when she's trying to get her child from Joey B., the foul-mouthed owner of a diner, and ultimately clocks her right in the face with a big mug, knocking her out. That was just awesome.

The stupidest character by far is Creighton Duke, played by Steven Williams, a bounty hunter who's apparently been tracking Jason for a long time and is the only one who knows how to truly kill him. He's the one who spews out all of the stupid mythology in this film and has the dagger that can permanently kill Jason. I just can't help but wonder how he knows this stuff. How long has he been following Jason and how does he know that he can jump into different bodies if his is destroyed? During the final battle with Jason after he's reborn, he says to him, "Remember me?" Remember you from when?! Have you actually fought Jason before? Again, if so, when? Plus, he's just weird. At one point when a TV interviewer asks him what he thinks of when he hears the name Jason Voorhees, he says, "That makes me think of a girl in a ballerina outfit sticking a hot dog in a doughnut." WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?! Also, when he and Steven are in jail, he forces Steven to allow him to break his fingers (after caressing in a potentially homoerotic way) just so he can tell him how to kill Jason. What the hell did that accomplish? This character is just so stupid.

Erin Gray plays Diana Kimble, Jason's sister (ugh). Not much to say about her other than she seems like a nice enough lady who would like to see things be made right between Steven and Jessica. (Ultimately, Jason is reborn through her body.) Steven Culp plays Robert Campbell, the host of an America's Most Wanted-type show who is dating Jessica and later turns out to be a complete scumbag because he steals Diana's body from the morgue and hides it in the Voorhees house in order to use it to spice his show up. It's right after that when he becomes possessed by Jason. Rusty Schwimmer plays Joey B., the foul-mouthed owner of a diner. I must confess that I do kind of like her because she's an over the top stereotype like Ethel in Part V but, other than that, she's not as likable or memorable. I have nothing at all to say about Leslie Jordan as Joey's boyfriend Shelby or Adam Cranner as her son Ward (I think that was his name). Billy Green Bush has a small role as the sheriff who has feelings for Diana and Kipp Marcus plays Randy, a cop who's friends
with Steven and tries to help him but gets beaten up multiple times for his trouble. He also ends up being the last person Jason possesses before his rebirth and Jason actually talks when he's inside his body! I actually kind of liked him since he was such a decent guy and was bummed when he got possessed. There are other nothing characters like Allison Smith as Vicki, a waiter at the diner, veteran actor Richard Gant as Phil, the coroner whom Jason possesses first, and Andrew Bloch as Josh, the second person he possesses. The latter is the focus of the most bizarre scene because Jason kidnaps him, takes him to the Voorhees house, straps him to a table completely naked, and shaves his beard before possessing him. Um, does Jason secretly have some obsessions we didn't previously know about?

Maybe it's a good thing that Jason himself is only really in this movie for the first and final scenes (you also see his reflection whenever a possessed person is near a mirror) because the design they went with this time is pretty bad in my opinion. For some reason, Jason's skin is all lumpy and his head is like a swollen goiter with a hockey mask on the front. Not only that but it now looks like the mask is his face
because the skin is starting to grow around it. His wardrobe looks more like the jumpsuit that Michael Myers wears and he makes way too much noise as well, grunting and yelling a lot during his brief appearances and actually roaring when he's being shot to pieces by the FBI. Kane Hodder once again plays Jason and does the best he can given his limited screentime but it goes almost unnoticed. When his body is destroyed, we find out that his heart is larger than a normal heart, is filled with a black viscus fluid, and apparently is where his evil soul is housed. The thing seems to hypnotize the

coroner into eating a bit of it, leading to him becoming possessed (Jason roars like a lion when he's possessing this guy) and later on when he tries to transfer his soul into someone else, his heart becomes a black, wriggling worm-like thing. The weirdest part, though, comes when Steven slices off Randy's neck after he's become possessed, revealing that the heart has apparently grown into this bizarre creature with two front legs and a long tail that crawls out of the neck, skitters around the room while squealing, and eventually goes into Diana's dead body (through her vagina, no less), leading to Jason's rebirth. Interestingly, his jumpsuit and hockey mask suddenly reappear along with his body. Is that just part of the package?

Where I will give this movie props is when it comes to its gore and makeup effects because they're just spectacular. This movie really benefited from being made in the era of laserdisc, where it ended up being the first Friday the 13th that you could see uncut, because KNB's effects are so amazing that they deserve to be able to be seen in all their glory. Given the nature of the story, they're far more than just typical stabbings. After chewing up the heart, the possessed coroner smashes this other coroner's (writer Dean Lorey) face on a table and then stabs his head with a probe. He kills two security guards (one of which is played by Kane Hodder) off-camera but you get to see the bloody aftermath. There is a typical Friday the 13th camp scene where Jason kills three horny teenagers who are dumb enough to camp near what was once Camp Crystal Lake. He slices one girl up with the probe

and then, in one of the best kills in the series, skewers one girl and slices her in half while she and her boyfriend are having sex. He kills the boyfriend off-camera (In the uncut version, the lead up to that kill looks like a damn porno.) He smashes the head of Josh's girlfriend with a car door (no blood), and after he possesses Josh, eventually kills Diana with a stab to the back. The most horrific makeup effect happens after Jason jumps into Robert's body. Josh regains consciousness but his body
literally melts in an absolutely disgusting but amazing effect, particularly when his jaw is ripped off by sticking to the floor. Jason then goes on a rampage at the police station, killing two cops by bashing their heads together. He later kills Ward by snapping an arm off, throws Shelby into a deep-fryer, smashes Joey in the face so hard that her jawbone is forced back into her head, and squeezes Vicki's head until her brain flies out. Duke is eventually killed by being impaled and the sheriff actually got killed by Jessica by accident.

I also must admit that Jason's final descent into hell is a memorable one. After a drawn-out fight with Steven (I have no idea why he didn't just the kill guy since he easily could have), Jason gets stabbed in the chest with the dagger by Jessica. A bunch of lights shoot out of his body up into the sky and gigantic hands burst out of the ground and grab him. Jason tries to drag Steven along with him but Jessica saves him (again, after actually having to think about it, though) and the two of them kick the dagger all the way into Jason's body, permanently sealing his fate. He's pulled down into Hell, leaving behind only his hockey mask, and Steven and Jessica walk off into the sunrise with their baby. And finally, to let audiences know that Freddy vs. Jason was coming, Freddy's hand bursts out of the ground and drags the mask down while he laughs evilly. (I don't think that was Robert Englund laughing, though.) I do think that was a good teaser for that movie, even if it didn't come out until a decade later. So, all the problems I have with the film aside, I have to admit that, if nothing else, this climatic battle was exciting.

After having been absent from the previous two films, with Jason Takes Manhattan totally lacking any compositions from him old or new, Harry Manfredini returns to do the score. Unfortunately, he might as well have not done it because I don't really like this film's score (I'd say it and Jason X are the two Friday the 13th scores I don't care for). The main theme has never struck me as being that good and just sounds uninspired and repetitive, as does the majority of the score. There are some cues here and there that are okay, and the, "ki, ki, ma, ma," is used in a nicely done way where it sometimes almost sounds like part of the environment, but it's ultimately a very ho-hum score. The title itself is interesting, with the fire within Jason Goes to Hell and The Final Friday dripping with blood, and the credits do come up in an interesting way between shots, but that's about all I can say on that score.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is definitely the most unique Friday the 13th movie but, as I've said, "unique," isn't always a good thing and it certainly isn't in this case. Granted, the gore and makeup effects are impressive, there are some very good kill scenes in the unrated version (some of the best in the entire series, in fact), and it's definitely not a dull movie, but the story and mythology are stupid, the characters are nice but mostly bland, and it doesn't feel like a Friday the 13th movie 95% of the time because it's not really Jason killing people. However, I will say that, even though this is definitely my least favorite movie in the franchise, I don't absolutely despise it (at this point, there's not one Friday the 13th movie that I can truly say I hate) and I would actually take it over other bad franchise entries like Halloween 5, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, and Seed of Chucky. But, all in all, I don't know if this is one I can recommend to fans. I'd say see it if you aim to experience the entire franchise at least once but be prepared for a nonsensical film that's unlike any of the other movies.

Franchises: Friday the 13th. Friday the 13th (2009)

After the enormous success of Freddy vs. Jason in 2003, everybody, myself included, assumed that Jason's next big-screen appearance would be in a sequel to that flick, maybe with Michael Myers or Pinhead thrown into the mix as well but, as the years passed, no such film came about. Then, in early 2006 I believe it was, I read an article in some magazine that Michael Bay would be involved in the next movie featuring Jason. I didn't really have an opinion on this turn of events other than I was just happy to know that another film featuring our favorite hockey-masked killer was being made. However, I did assume that it would be just another random sequel with Jason killing people at Crystal Lake and nothing more... and that's when the remake trend, which started in earnest in 2005, really kicked into high gear, with one beloved 1970's or 80's horror film after another being revamped with a fairly big budget and given a glossy, modernized look and feel. Although each one of those films had varying degrees of success in terms of box-office and whether or not they worked as entertaining movies, I still didn't think much of this trend in regards to stuff like Friday the 13th since they were mainly going after either obscure, cult titles like Black Christmas and When A Stranger Calls or films like Dawn of the Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that were certainly more well-known but hadn't already spawned huge, long-established, mainstream franchises. I honestly didn't believe that they would touch any of those really big series but that notion changed in 2007 when Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween came out, because I then knew that a Friday the 13th remake would be coming soon, something that I was very much opposed to. I liked very few of the remakes that were being released, especially the aforementioned Halloween one, and I didn't see the point of restarting a movie series that had been going on since 1980 and had encompassed ten movies (eleven if you count Freddy vs. Jason) by this point. Why not just do another entry in the franchise? And what's more, with James Bond having been rebooted as well (although when I saw Casino Royale, I loved it), it was as if studios were now trying to make you forget that the original movies you'd grown to love and cherish ever existed. But, all that said, when I heard the plan for this film was to make it a combination of the events of films 1-4 and to have Jason be the killer from the get-go instead of his mother, I thought, "This actually may not be that bad." Since the Friday the 13th formula is so simple and easy to pull off, they would have to try really hard to mess it up and as long as it was just Jason killing people, it would probably be an enjoyable flick. Therefore, this was one remake, or "reboot" given the film's nature, I wasn't all that nervous or concerned about.

When the movie finally came out in February of 2009, I didn't go see it but I did see some TV spots for it that looked promising. Those ads, though, weren't enough for me to drop what little guard I did have up, given that I had felt the same way about the ones for Rob Zombie's Halloween, which I had ended up hating with a fiery passion. But at the same time, Ramboraph (now known as Ramboraph4life), a YouTube user whom I deeply respect, saw it and said he'd liked it, and since he's a huge Friday the 13th fan, I figured there might be something to this movie. In any case, I finally saw the movie that summer when I got the DVD for my birthday. I'll tell you my initial reaction to it in a moment but first, here's the plot:

It begins with a black and white flashback to 1980, where Mrs. Voorhees confronts the last camp counselor left alive (who I guess is meant to be Alice). She's immediately beheaded with a machete but little do either of them know that little Jason, who didn't drown after all, witnesses the whole thing. Following the decapitation, Jason takes his mother's locket and the machete and walks off. Fast forward to 2009, where a group of kids, two of whom are searching for a rumored large crop of marijuana in the area, decide to camp out near the remains of Camp Crystal Lake. Needless to say, they quickly encounter Jason, who kills all but one of them who reminds him of her mother when she was young, opting to take her back to his lair instead. Six weeks later, another group of kids head up to Crystal Lake to spend the weekend at the lakeside cabin belonging to one's wealthy family, as does the kidnapped girl's brother in search of her. As you can probably guess, most of them meet a nasty end at the hands of Jason before the night's over.

I'll tell you this: after I got done watching this movie for the first time, I wasn't a happy person; in fact, I was quite mad. I was not mad because I felt that they had screwed with Jason's character (as was the case with Rob Zombie's Halloween), because they hadn't; I was mad because there didn't seem to be any heart in this film at all. The two writers, Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, who also wrote Freddy vs. Jason, do feel like sincere fans of the franchise, but I can't say the same for the actual filmmakers because the whole thing just felt like a hastily put together movie with mostly forgettable characters, unimpressive kills, and action scenes that are so darkly photographed and poorly edited that you can't see what's going on half the time. While my opinion of the film did get better after several more watches, I still view it as nothing more than a studio's attempt to make money on a franchise name and as a movie that's not great or terrible but just sort of there at the end of the day.

The director is Marcus Nispel, who had directed the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a fact that led to me holding out hope for the movie because I really like that remake (even though I shouldn't since it started the remake trend) and feel that it's one of the better ones. However, when you watch his Friday the 13th, you can tell that he really doesn't know how to make likable characters for the most part or to film action and kill scenes in a way that's comprehensible and enjoyable. For one, the movie has that murky, music video look that's common to movies nowadays and that I'm now getting fed up with. It's so damn dark at points that I can't tell what's going on or what I'm supposed to be looking at. And as if that wasn't bad enough, whenever Jason attacks somebody, the camera goes crazy, flying around all over the place, and the editing is so bad that it looks the editor is having a stroke. You can often just barely comprehend how Jason killed his victims. Nispel also doesn't seem to understand that, while Jason does kill people in very gruesome ways, he's not sadistic. There are some kills in this film that, while inventive, feel like something you'd see in a Saw or Hostel movie, although nowhere near that gruesome, and it didn't fit with the Jason I've always known and loved. I'm well aware that a remake or reboot is meant to give a new take on a character but I just didn't like that part of this new take on Jason.

The characters are fairly typical for this type of flick. The best one is the lead, Clay Miller, played by Jared Padalecki, the brother of Whitney, whom Jason took hostage because he seems like a genuinely nice, decent guy who just wants to find his sister. Speaking of which, you do get some backstory concerning him and his sister, that they used to be close but drifted apart and then had a fight over their cancer-stricken mother. He knows his sister well enough to know that she wouldn't just
not show up at their mother's funeral and he's also brave and decent enough to try to not only save her but his friend Jenna from Jason's attacks. I really liked this character and kind of wished he had more to do in the movie. Jenna, played by Danielle Panabaker, is the typical nice girl that you always have to have in one of these movies but, other than her having to put up with her asshole boyfriend Trent, there's not much to say about her other than she also goes out of her way to help Clay in finding his sister. She does get killed, though, which really surprised me since hers is the type of character that usually survives these movies. As I mentioned

already, Jenna's boyfriend Trent, played by Travis Van Winkle, is a major dick. He not only doesn't give a shit about any of the guys he's invited up to his dad's house, he also doesn't care one iota about Jenna other than he wants to get in her pants. He's a jerk to Clay from the beginning and doesn't like Jenna hanging around him, and he's also a cheater, banging Bree because Jenna wasn't around. And just to make him even more contemptible, right after he gets finished banging Bree, he accuses Jenna of doing the same with Clay. Unfortunately, like all slasher movie assholes, he doesn't get killed nearly soon enough either. Like her brother, Amanda
Righetti as Whitney, Clay's sister, does have some development to her. She's always been the responsible one in the family, acting as the caregiver for her sick mother and, as a result, doesn't even want to be at Crystal Lake. The group she's traveling with gets killed by Jason but, fortunately for her, she happens to look like a young version of Pamela Voorhees, prompting Jason to her hostage instead of killing her. After that, she spends most of the movie chained up in Jason's lair, trying to figure out a way to escape, and it's quite unbearable when she finally does escape, only for Jason to grab her and take her back right before she can reach any help. Ultimately, she and Clay are the only survivors by the end of the movie.

The other characters are your standard slasher cannon fodder. I actually did like Aaron Yoo as Chewie, the Asian-American of the bunch. He's nothing more than a goofball stoner, granted, but he's quite funny and dies the most painful death in the film as well. Julianna Guill as Bree is your typical slut who just wants to bang some guy, no matter who it is. She ends up banging Trent (actually video-taping it at first, for some reason) and, naturally, dies for it. Arlen Escarpeta tended to annoy me as Lawrence, the African-American who's always lecturing people about being racial around him. The part that always gets me is when he reprimands one girl for assuming he's going to go into rap as a music career just because he's black but, when she apologizes and asks him what music he's going into, he smiles and says, "Rap," making me go, "Wha- then why did you make such a big deal out of it?! That was a waste of thirty seconds." And the part not too long before his death when he says, "I told you, you can't get a handle on me. I surprise you every time," made me almost yell, "Shut the hell up!" Nolan and Chelsea (Ryan Hansen and Willa Ford) are a stereotypical chunk-head guy with a dumb blond girlfriend, although Chelsea does have the distinction of water-skiing topless (which, I must say, is something you'd expect to see in a Friday the 13th movie). Then you have the kids who get killed in the prologue. There's Wade (Jonathan Sadowski), who looks like a nerd but is actually quite funny and foul-mouthed and hopes, along with his friend Richie (Ben Feldman), to find some purported marijuana to make money off of (yeah, apparently, Jason has a lot of weed growing on his property!) Richie, at the same time, decides to bang the very hot Amanda (America Olivio) and she wants to do the same, leading to a pretty funny interplay between the two of them behind Wade's back at the campfire. Finally, there's Whitney's boyfriend, Mike (Nick Mennell), who does want to have sex with Whitney as well but comes across as infinitely more sympathetic than Trent.

As for Jason himself, I will say that, other than the sadistic streak, I did like this new version of the character. He's played by Derek Mears, who is not only a great guy (he's the type of person you want to meet at conventions) but also is simply really good in the role. This Jason is much more human than the zombie version we've had since Part VI and, as a result, is able to run again and move much quicker than in some of the previous films, which I liked. I also like the angle that he's kind of a deformed, psychotic hermit who lives in an old cabin by Crystal Lake and kills anybody who enters his territory because, ever since his mother was killed, all he's wanted is to be left alone. The cabin he lives in appears to be the old house where he and his mother lived together, given that you see a child's bed with his name on it, and I liked that the place is right beside the camp because it gives both Jason and, by extension, his mother, a more direct relation to it. In addition, Jason also has an underground lair and a series of tunnels beneath the camp, one of which leads right to his house. Many seem to not like that aspect but it's never really bugged me, and neither has his being much more resourceful here than before, using trip wires connected to small bells to let him know when someone is nearby and a big lighting system to see outside his cabin at night. He has plenty of other resources at his disposal as well like boats, plenty of different weapons, barrels of kerosene, and such, and he takes things from his victims that he thinks might be useful. As before, he keeps his mother's head in a type of shrine in his house. As for Jason's actual look, you don't really get to see his face save for a brief cut but the pictures I have seen of the makeup looked nicely gruesome and horrific. I thought his wardrobe was also fair (I'm not really going to complain if he's not wearing the exact same clothes he used to wear). Since the events in this movie are a combination of the first four movies, when Jason first appears, he's wearing the bag from Part 2, which still has the same eerie feel to it that it did originally, and he later finds the hockey mask after he kills this very pervy character and realizes that his bag has been ripped open during a struggle with him. That part,

though, which should have been a big moment, is played off in a very trivial way: the hockey mask is just sort of lying around this guy's place and Jason simply sees and puts it on. That said, I do like the way the mask looks, which is simply like an updated version of the classic one he's always worn. And finally, in regards to the backstory with his mother, I liked that they didn't mess the basics: Mrs. Voorhees thought Jason drowned, got killed, it turns out Jason wasn't dead, and he begins killing anybody who comes near Crystal Lake. I also did think it was nice that, during the opening scene in 1980, we actually see young Jason watch his mother get killed, which adds more to it rather than just being told about it like before.

The kills here are kind of lame and unremarkable to me. There's plenty of gore, yes, but as I said, some of the kills are so badly photographed and edited that you can't see what's going on. After the decapitation of Mrs. Voorhees, the first person to be killed by Jason is Wade. We don't see the actual kill but his body is found later and it looks like his throat was slashed. Amanda is actually stuffed in her
sleeping bag and tied above the campfire, slowly burning her to death, while Mike gets stabbed in the foot and leg by Jason's machete several times before he gets pulled through the floor (Jason was in a tunnel beneath the cabin). Richie gets his foot caught in a bear-trap set up by Jason and then gets the machete in the head. Jason kills the pervert who has the hockey mask by slashing his throat (originally, he sliced his head off and, after watching that alternate version of the kill, I think they really should have
stuck with it). While Nolan is driving a boat and Chelsea is water-skiing, Nolan gets an arrow right in the head (I thought the sight of Jason using that weapon was pretty cool, like, "Shit, Jason's packing!") and Chelsea eventually gets the machete in the top of her head after a long game of cat and mouse that ends with her hiding under the dock. Chewie gets a slow and painful death when he tries to stab Jason with a screwdriver and Jason grabs his hand, turns it around, and slow pushes it into his

neck. Lawrence gets an axe in the back and then Jason grabs him and slams him down, pushing the blade all the way through him. I'm not even sure how he kills Bree. He grabs her and then crushes her to death maybe or impales her on something on the door (it's so dark, you can't see). A cop that arrives at the house gets a poker shoved through his eye and all the way through his head. Trent gets the machete shoved all the way through him and then impaled on the back of a truck. Finally, Jenna
gets impaled by the machete as well. Jason himself supposedly meets his end when Clay ties a chain around his neck and the chain gets caught in a wood-chipper, slicing up the back of his head.

One of this film's strengths to me is that the environment does have an atmosphere to it. The woods and the surrounding area, especially the deserted Camp Crystal Lake, do feel very eerie, as does the way Jason's cabin looked. I thought the montage of deserted areas after Jason's supposed death was a nice, eerie touch as well. A lot of that atmosphere also has to do with the music. Steve Jablonsky, who has scored pretty much all of the Platinum Dunes remakes, does manage to create some eerie sounds and music, with the opening music and the cue that plays when Jason is sharpening his machete in his lair being particularly effective. I also really like the chase music that plays during the opening kills and the final fight between Clay and Jason, although the chase music that plays when the last ones finally leave the house is pretty forgettable. You do hear the infamous, "ki, ki, ki, ma, ma, ma," every now and again but I don't particularly like the way it sounds here so I'm not too disappointed that it's not used more often.

Ultimately, I think that Friday the 13th '09 was mostly a missed opportunity. It was cool to see Jason in a new film and I didn't mind the portrayal of him they went for but for the movie is just unremarkable for the most part. All of the original Paramount movies surpass it and, in fact, I'm not even sure if it's better than Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X. The tone just felt far too serious and it wasn't as fun as the past movies. I am glad that it wasn't quite as goofy as Freddy vs. Jason but, at the same time, that film, for all of its flaws, had more of the feel of the overall franchises and its kills and gore sequences were fun instead of feeling sadistic. And finally, this movie feels like it was something that was just thrown together in a by-the-numbers way by some people who didn't really care about the series and just wanted to make some money of it, which they did succeed in doing. However, all that said, I don't think it's unwatchable and that fans of the series should see Friday the 13th '09 at least once.

At the time I originally wrote this, it seemed like there was a script for a sequel to this film ready to go that simply needed studio approval in order to do so... and, nothing ever came of that. The rights to the franchise have since reverted back to Paramount and apparently there is another film planned but I don't know anything else about it. I've heard all sorts of things about that I can't confirm: that it's supposed to be yet another reboot set in wintertime instead of sequel, that it's going to be released in either November 2015 or spring of 2016, that Derek Mears will be back as Jason, etc. I don't know what the status is on the series' future. But ultimately, no matter what happens, I can't see Jason Voorhees going away any time soon, and no matter how bad any future movies may be, I will see them simply because I love that hockey-mask-wearing mama's boy. So, I hope you've enjoyed this little personal retrospective on Friday the 13th and I will see you next time.

Franchises: Friday the 13th. Jason X (2002)

Jason in space. It was inevitable, I suppose. If Pinhead and the Leprechaun could end up in space in one way or another, why not Jason Voorhees? For that matter, I'm actually amazed that Michael Myers never made it to space. In any case, as any horror fan worth his or her salt knows, space may be the final frontier but when a franchise character like Jason ends up there, it's a sign that the creators have reached the final frontier of their imagination. In my case, though, at the time of the film's release I was so unfamiliar with this notion that when I first heard about this movie, I thought it was a joke. But when I saw it on DVD in stores, I figured, "Huh. I guess it is real." My cousins said that they rented the film not too long after it hit DVD and immediately returned it to the shop because it was so bad. I don't even know if they made it through the whole film. But, when I started getting into the franchise, I decided, "What the heck?" and went and watched it. I had no idea what to expect but needless to say, my expectations were low. After I got through with it, I thought to myself, "Well, that... sucked." I honestly thought it was one of the worst movies I'd ever seen and I held that opinion for a good long while. But, while I still think it's really bad and one of the series' lowest points, it has grown on me upon subsequent viewings as being enjoyable due to its sheer stupidity and cheese factor, unlike Jason Goes to Hell, which is so idiotic at times that it's almost unbearable.

Like its predecessor, Jason X was merely meant to fill the void when, after six to seven years in development hell and another thousand script ideas, Freddy vs. Jason was still nowhere close to being ready to go. Frustrated, Sean Cunningham decided that another Friday the 13th needed to be put out there to keep it in the public eye and he and Todd Farmer bounced around a bunch of different scenarios (Jason in the Arctic, Jason in Africa, etc.) until someone came up with, "Jason in space." I don't know if they were desperate or what but I can guess their reaction was the same as mine when I first decided to check the flick out: why not? So that's how this thing came to be, and they also decided to set it very far in the future so it wouldn't cause any continuity problems with Freddy vs. Jason.

By the year 2008, Jason Voorhees has finally been captured and is being held at the Crystal Lake Research Facility (yes, a research facility at Crystal Lake) but, as he's about to be transferred somewhere else for more research, Jason breaks free and kills all but one scientist. Said scientist eventually manages to trap him in the cryogenic freezing chamber but Jason ruptures the chamber with his machete, causing the place to go into lock-down mode and leave the scientist, Rowan, frozen with him. Centuries later in the year 2455, a team of students and their teacher discover the facility and the frozen specimens while on a field trip to the now uninhabitable Earth. They take them aboard their ship where Rowan is quickly thawed out and regains consciousness. Unfortunately, Jason is also unintentionally revived and goes on a killing spree throughout the ship, eventually whittling the crew down to a small group of survivors who try to figure out a way to make it to Earth 2 before they're slaughtered as well.

The thing that immediately struck me about this movie the first time I saw it was the look. This was one of the first movies to be shot completely in digital and, man, does it look it. It comes across as just so cheap and generic-looking. Some may equate it to a Sci-Fi Channel original movie but it reminds me more of those dated live-action sci-fi/fantasy shows I used to see on Saturday mornings. The way the scenes looked in the trailer was much better. There's also a lot of really, really bad CGI here, with the most egregious example being
the part where two guys are playing a virtual reality game and this alien creature attacks them. God, that looked pathetic, especially when Jason kills their in-game, hologram caricatures. Okay, maybe I should go easy on that given it was meant to be a game but I can't let really bad-looking CGI spaceships here slide. I know some of them were models, whose use I always encourage, but the computer work involving was just sloppy. This film is a testament to why you shouldn't use CGI unless you have the money and time to make it look good.

Since we're now centuries in the future, you'd think the characters here would be much smarter than your typical Friday the 13th cannon fodder... but nope. The characters in this film, especially the teens, are as stupid and throwaway as ever, with still having not learned anything about the dangers of unsafe sex. Also, much of the stuff we take for granted today has apparently been forgotten by this point. For instance, when Tsunaron recognizes that Jason is wearing a hockey mask when they first find him, Janessa doesn't even know what a hockey mask is (or a bike, for that matter, as we learn later). DVDs are also so passe by now and, I must confess, I actually like when Prof. Lowe says he's found a gold-mine and he's told, "A box of DVDs isn't a gold mine." Okay, some of it is funny.

The characters here are as basic and generic as you can get. Lexa Doig as Rowan, the lead, is the tough scientist who knows all about Jason and tries to warn everyone about what they're dealing with but, naturally, no one listens. Two points I have to make about her: one, I don't ever remember her screaming, and two, I do like that she was concerned about innocent civilians when the government wanted to move Jason through civilized areas to another lab to conduct more research on him. Other than that, not much to say about her. There's Lisa Ryder as Kay-Em, the android, who I think did a decent job of playing a robot as well as wondering why she can't be completely human. Plus, you have to love it when she's given an upgrade and gets a new, snarkier, more badass attitude. I thought she was so cool there, and she does manage to actually kill Jason, albeit temporarily. I wish she weren't reduced to just a head for the last quarter of the film but, at the same time, I'm glad that she did live. Then there's Chuck Campbell as Tsunaron, the young guy who built Kay-Em. Again, not much to say other than he's fairly likable and funny and I'm glad he lived as well. Jonathan Potts plays Prof. Lowe, who seems nice and reasonable at first but, in reality, is a greedy scumbag who's willing to put his students in danger just so he can make a lot of money off of having an infamous killer in a frozen state. He's also a total perv, as you can see from that disturbing scene where he lets Janessa squeeze his nipple with ice tongs while he's wearing what looks like a blouse. As for Janessa (Melyssa Ade), she's definitely the sex-obsessed girl of the film but she's also pretty funny, with some great lines like, "What, are you high?!", "Oh, you think?" and my favorite, "This sucks on so many levels!", which, as she said in the Crystal Lake Memories documentary, is an apt description of this film.

There's Peter Mensah as Sgt. Brodski, the tough head of the grunts who attempt to hunt Jason down. I can't help but like macho, badass characters like this guy who just come and in take charge. I liked how he was good enough to refuse Lowe's offer to take Jason alive, how furious he seemed when Jason killed some of his men, and that he was tough enough to survive being skewered through the torso. He also sacrificed himself to save everyone else, which is another reason to like him. Melody
Johnson's role of Kinsa was probably the one that annoyed the most. I don't mind a frightened character but when they're so hysterical and whiny to the point that they're irritating, as is the case with Kinsa, it makes me hope that they die as soon as possible. The worst thing about her, though, is that she ends up ruining their escape plan because she gets scared. Again, I don't care if she died in the process. I was glad that the stupid slut was dead. Philip Williams as Crutch, the engineer, is a typical

jaded, lazy smartass and I didn't really care much for him. He was pretty forgettable. Derwin Jordan as Waylander has nothing special about him other than he's one of the few black guys in the film but, like Brodski at the end, he does sacrifice himself to give the others a chance to escape. Dov Tiefenbach as Azrael is kind of likable as the stoned sort of guy who gets a cup frozen to his hand, ends up getting
his arm cut off by Jason before he's even revived, and is dumb enough to forget his arm when he gets off the ship but other than that, nothing to him. Boyd Banks was kind of funny as Lou, the pilot, and I did wish he hadn't died. Other than being the victim of the coolest kill in the film, Kristi Angus as Adrienne was forgettable. (I did like her line when she removed Jason's mask and upon seeing his hideous face remarked, "Oh, poor baby. No wonder you wore this thing.") The only other noteworthy character is David Cronenberg as Dr. Wimmer, the greedy scientist who wanted to move Jason somewhere else for further research. The director having been a longtime friend and former assistant to him was the only reason he's in this but he's worth mentioning simply because of who he is.

The late James Isaac was the director of this film but, to be brutally honest, I don't have much to say about him. He seemed like a nice guy and it's cool that he learned from a true master like David Cronenberg, but it just didn't seem like he knew what he was doing as director of this film. I do commend him and Todd Farmer for taking Jason to a new environment and, as I said, I do think this movie is enjoyable for how bad it is, although I doubt that was their intent. In fact, I've heard that Jason X was originally supposed to be a much darker film and not as silly but the script was tampered with throughout filming, which I do think is clear when you watch it. Isaac said himself that it took a few years for him to finally come to terms with what the movie eventually became and then, he could finally talk about it with a smile on his face. I guess we all learn from our mistakes but at the same time, it wasn't too surprising that Isaac didn't direct that many films after Jason X. In any case, RIP Mr. Isaac.

It's a good thing that Kane Hodder once again plays Jason here or this movie would have really been screwed. As usual, his presence, menace, and charisma keep the character consistent so, if nothing else, we can still enjoy him. I find it funny that he seems to sense when Kinsa and her boyfriend are having sex and that's what spurs him to life. I'm not sure about Jason's initial look in this movie, though. For one, I don't understand why the hockey mask looks nothing like the way it always has. It's not terrible but it just feels weird not seeing the traditional one we all know and love. His outfit is a real clusterfuck, as well. It looks like a bunch of different clothes thrown together and I think there was a chain in it somewhere as well. You don't get a good look at Jason's face in the brief moment where he's unmasked due to all the slime and goo that's on it. He also loses his machete after he's frozen and until he gets it back from Lowe, he uses this big, curved surgical knife that he picks up in the medical bay. As for Uber Jason, I honestly thought that was beyond ridiculous-looking. I know what they're trying to do: make him look cool and comic book-like but it looks over-the-top and silly with the silver metallic parts, the black ones with veins and sinews on the edges, the exaggerated redesign of the mask, and the blood red eyes. Also, his machete becomes an exaggerated, curved blade that looks strange.

Some of the kills in this movie are interesting and creative but a lot of them are rather lackluster. Jason actually goes into a killing frenzy in the first five minutes of the movie, stabbing people, choking them with chains, and throwing a spear that impales Dr. Wimmer. As I said, he actually manages to cut off Azrael's arm when he's still frozen: Azrael bumps the chamber and Jason's body falls forward, with the machete slicing the arm off (it looks fake, by the

way). Jason's first kill upon being revived is his awesome one with Adrienne. He shoves her face into liquid nitrogen, freezing it solid, and then smashes it on the counter, making for a whopper of an effect. He simply slices out the stomach of Stoney, Kinsa's boyfriend, which is nothing special. As bad as the effects are, I do like the virtual reality scene for how Jason seemingly kills Azrael and a grunt named Dallas (writer Todd Farmer in a cameo) by slicing one in half and cutting the other's head off.
That proves to be part of the game but when they turn it off, the real killing starts. Jason bangs Dallas' head against a stone pillar (not very bloody, though) and snaps Azrael's spine over his knee, which looks and sounds like it did hurt. Jason kills various grunts by snapping one's neck (the sound effects just make you cringe), slicing one in half from the waist down, pushing one onto a sharp, screw shaped structure, impaling one on another sharp object, and slitting one's throat. As I mentioned earlier, he seems to kill Brodski by shoving some spears through him but that proves to not be enough to him down. Lowe gets killed off-camera as well as Lou, although we do see Lou's mangled remains and Lowe's head later on. As I've described, Kinsa, Waylander and Brodski aren't directly killed by Jason and the same goes for Janessa, who gets sucked through a hole he tears in the ship.

One memorable scene is when they try to buy themselves some time by using the VR equipment to create a virtual Camp Crystal Lake around Jason. I've always enjoyed this scene, mainly because Harry Manfredini brings back some of his classic music from the original Friday the 13th, giving it a nice feeling of nostalgia. Also memorable are the virtual woman campers they put in to distract Jason. They blatantly ask him if he wants to partake in the three big no-no's in slasher films (drinking beer, smoking pot, or having premarital sex) and Jason, apparently understanding what they're talking about, becomes enraged and proceeds to attack them. While the pointing of the finger at the rules of the genre there is a little bit too on-the-nose for me, even more so than what many people complain about in the Scream movies, at the same time I can't help but smirk at how the filmmakers knew exactly what type of movie they were making and decided to just have fun with it. I also liked seeing Jason smacking one sleeping bag with another, an obvious extension of that kill in Part VII, but I kind of wished they'd done a bit more with it, like make it go on a little longer, put some more blood in, and whatnot.

The ever-loyal Harry Manfredini once again does the score for what, at this point, is his final composition for the series; unfortunately, the end result is not good. I think I may have said that Jason Goes to Hell was his worst score but, the more I think about it, I think that this is even more generic and uninspired. I can at least remember some of his cues from the previous film off the top of my head even if I didn't particularly like them, like the main theme, but here there are very few pieces that stick out to me. In fact, some of this music does sound like stuff I would hear on those low-budget Saturday morning shows I said that this film reminds me of, which I guess makes it mesh well with the visuals, but that's not a good thing. I do like the music he composed for the scene where Jason is resurrected after being killed by Kay-Em, which also plays over the opening credits, but aside from that, the only other piece of music that's memorable to me is what plays over the ending credits, X Is The Loneliest Number. It's a pretty cool, catchy techno theme, even though it doesn't sound at all like music you'd expect to hear in a Friday the 13th movie.

Jason X is certainly not one of the franchise's proudest moments. While it may be the best "horror franchise character in space" film, it's still very cheesy, with bad effects, mostly likable but very bland characters, mostly standard kills mixed in with some nicely inventive ones, average makeup effects, and some very uninspired music. I also think it's a shame that this had to be Kane Hodder's final performance as Jason because he deserved a better film to go out on (like Freddy vs. Jason but we'll discuss that whenever we talk about that film). And this movie tanked big time at the box-office, mainly because it sat on the shelf for several years and a bootleg copied of it was downloaded on the internet. I don't remember seeing a single TV spot for it and when I first saw the DVD, I thought it had ended up being a straight-to-video film. But, as I've said, I can enjoy this film as an enjoyably bad movie, although at the same time, I'm glad that there weren't any sequels to this. This storyline didn't need to be pushed any farther. In fact, the way I put this flick into context with the rest of the series is that I pretend it's one of those situations in Hell that Jason was going through at the beginning of Freddy vs. Jason; that's just me, though. In closing, if you want to see it, I'd advise going into it with the lowest of expectations and with the mindset of simply wanting to see an enjoyably bad movie, because I think that's the only way this movie works.