The fourth Friday the 13th movie is taglined “The Final Chapter.” From a modern perspective, we know we’re not even halfway through, but it’s awfully nice of them to assume Jason will be going away anytime soon!
PART IV
I appreciated how this one opened with a recap of the last three movies, but you really don’t need much Jason lore to jump in blind. All you have to know is that Jason died via hanging last movie… I mean, never mind, he’s back up!
He just climbs out of his body bag, kills a possibly necrophilic doctor via bone saw, and bam – there’s the mask, and there’s the mama’s boy we know and love!
As do most F13 movies, we have a group of barely-clothed, horny teenagers about to have the worst summer break of the rest of their lives. And then there’s siblings Tommy and Trish. Little Tommy has a penchant for making monster masks, and Trisha pulls a move from the OG movie and refuses to strip, cementing her status as the final girl.
Also, this movie gave us a glimpse of Pamela Voorhees’ grave, but it just made me wonder if these movies even take place on Friday the 13th anymore.
Trish makes the very smart move of inviting a random, charming hiker back to her house, but it’s okay because this is the F13 universe and the central villain can’t really disguise himself as a hot teenager. We get a nice reveal of this guy being the older brother of one of the dead girls from movie #2, but it’s not like his fate is gonna be any different.
As is par for the course, Jason slashes his way through the cast, but he’s amusingly reliant on straight-up knife-stabbing before he starts getting creative. At least the dog was smart enough to dive out the window at the nearest opportunity! (One of my notes just reads “the dog wanted OUT”.)
Trish makes for a run-of-the-mill final girl: competent at times, but with a nasty habit of freezing up and not fighting back as much as the situation calls for. Interestingly, Tommy’s the one to try to summon Jason’s past to defeat him, and the final scene comes as a shock. This was a character the franchise would be returning to…
PART V
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning” takes its name seriously. Excluding the final scene of the original movie, Part V is the most grounded of the series (that I’ve watched so far). We have a sufficiently creepy opening dream sequence where all that’s needed to reawaken Jason is to dig up his shallow grave – and hey, it’s not like he’s come back from less. Even though the guy loves his machete and axe, he can be persuaded to take more creative measures!
Taking place years after the previous film, we have teenage Tommy moving into the world’s worst rural mental hospital. The details of him still having his masks and seeing visions of Jason everywhere are good ones, but come on… the man who built this damn place really thought having a bunch of troubled teens wandering around with no supervision would end well? It’s no surprise that giving an axe to the guy with anger issues would end poorly! And somehow this isn’t shut down yet??
The mental hospital parts are on the boring side, but at least we’re getting adult nudity AND teen nudity this time around! (And I’m going to critique the two horny kids who laid out a blanket in the woods, only to instantly walk on it with their dirty shoes.) Then there’s death via Porta Potty. And Jason really has a thing for going for the eyes this time around!
The final battle, however, pays off well. We have a final girl who knows how to use a chainsaw, a smart kid who can operate heavy machinery, and the way Tommy hesitantly asks “Jason?” as his hallucination finally becomes real…good stuff.
The hockey mask removal proves for a startling twist, and the film’s last scene implies a unique future for the franchise.
PART VI
And then with the beginning of “Jason Lives,” that whole damn scene is undone! I guess we have to assume it was another dream sequence, because if Tommy really did put on that hockey mask, he wouldn’t be back here trying to destroy Jason’s body!
God, this opening is weird. Canonically, Jason survived being hung between movies 3 and 4, but apparently Tommy killed him for good in #5? So good, in fact, that he’s fully dead and only climbs out of his grave when he’s accidentally struck by lightning, Frankenstein-style?
Eh, why am I looking for continuity in these movies? We’re finally returning to the roots of the series: a bunch of horny camp counselors at Crystal Lake on Friday the 13th!
Aside from the teens, we also have a group of sexist paintballers roaming the woods. It was satisfying to see a woman beat them before they encountered Jason – and it looks like he’s got his machete back!
This Jason is a beast. He’s super strong, almost invulnerable, creative in his murders, and can survive up to five gunshot wounds to the chest… but a shotgun blast will at least knock him down temporarily. At least he’s got some semblance of weakness, as Tommy is convinced that Crystal Lake itself will be Jason’s Kryptonite. So Jason gets to pull his old move of coming up from the water to grab a kid in a rowboat once again!
With Tommy playing opposite Jason, it’s hard to call his new girlfriend a “final girl,” but she’s capable enough for the franchise. As that former battle continues, Jason meets his end in a way reminiscent of the first Indiana Jones – you know, propeller-style. But even as Tommy climbs onto the banks of the lake and claims he’s defeated Jason, the underwater body hasn’t finished twitching yet. Oops, so much for that theory, Tommy. Maybe you just have to go by vampire rules – chop up the body and scatter it across different continents. Nothing else seems to be taking, yet!
(But now I’m even more confused on how Jason was dead-dead at the beginning of this movie, implying his death in #4 was enough to permanently incapacitate him, but the lake didn’t do it… eh, whatever.)
These movies are so enjoyably cheesy and always get me in the Halloween spirit. I’ve got 7-9 on the docket for next year, so let’s hope the trend continues!
