Friday the 13th Part IX: The Final Friday

Well the continuity may have a problem here. Hi folks. Friday the 13^th is upon us. Well there's a Friday I hadn't covered. I have put it off long enough. Bleh. After melting him with toxic waste in the 8^th film (somehow transmogrified into a small boy) and before he was sent into space. There was to be another "Final Friday". This is Friday the 13^th Part IX: Jason Goes to Hell a.k.a. Friday the 13^th Anniversary of Jason a.k.a. Friday the 13^th Part IX: The Dark Heart of Jason Voorhees a.k.a. Friday the 13^th: Heart of Darkness and Jason Goes to Hell

Um, my head's oozing out of my mask.

With no real explanation other than the writers forgetting about part 8, Jason is not a small lad but the size of Kane Hodder and already back to his wicked ways of butchery around Crystal Lake as he stalks after smoking hotty (Julie Michaels of Roadhouse, Jason Goes to Hell, Married...with Children, Batman & Robin, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and SEAL Team) when it appears to be a sting by the FBI and holy jeebus they open up on him with assault weapons and even a grenade launcher blasting Voorhees to charcoaled chunky bits. 

The End!

Okay no...not really but Hodder isn't going to be running around in his jumpsuit for some time because...we have exposition back story, establishing the Voorhees bloodline continued beyond Jason and Pamela. Yup an sister. Because? Oh why the hell not. Rather than the traditional undead mongoloid slasher, director Adam Marcus (Jason Goes to Hell: Final Friday, Let It Snow, Conspiracy, Fitz and Slade and Secret Santa)decided the body of Jason has been dead for ages and only a dark force or entity that resided in the body, waiting to be released again.

Woohoo! Jason found him a Regular Saturday Night Thang.

The morgue and surrounding guards and cops are all slaughtered in tried and true Voorhees style, leaving bits and body parts everywhere. Do we have a copycat or did Jason rise from the grave?..again?

Local anchor reporter Robert Campbell (Steven Culp of ER, JAG, Star Trek: Enterprise, The West Wing, Saving Grace, Desperate Housewives and Arrow) is doing an in-depth story of the mass murderer himself, showing the folks back home ALL THE DEAD PEOPLE on a local broadcast and even contracts a manhunter to kill Jason for the sum total of a quarter of a million dollars. Two things. 1) You just announced on the air you hired a contract killer. 2) that contract regardless if it is aimed at an undead mongoloid hillbilly, IS A FELONY!

Our manhunter himself, Creighton Duke (Steven Williams of 21 Jump Street, L.A.Law, L.A.Heat, The X-Files, DarkWolf, Stargate SG-1 and Supernatural) is poised to hunt Jason down even as that interview has been made. Yeah it will be tough to follow his trail of broken, bloody and gouged bodies laying strewn like so many rag dolls. It should be a cinch to find Voorhees except one minor detail...his body is lumped in the ravaged morgue. So who is doing all the killing?

Get off me, Gil Gerrard!!

Subplot adds a striving descendants of Voorhees, the Kimbles Diana (Erin Gray of Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century, Magnum, P.I., Code of Vengeance, Silver Spoons, Starman, Breaking Home Ties, The Princess and the Dwarf, Almost Home, Burke's Law,Baywatch, Port Charles, The Guild and Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return) and Jessica (Kari Keegan of The Prince of Pennsylvania, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Jerry Maguire, Maggie and Mind Games) trying to eek out a proper life in spite of the looming terror that is their family curse.

Yup, now we got lore. Supernatural lore. Like undead mongoloid hillbilly zombie isn't supernatural enough. Now we got a bloodline story. The darkness that makes up Jason can be reborn through one of his bloodline. While that is nutty enough; we have an alumni of Friday the 13^th: The Series, John D. LeMay (Friday the 13^th: The Series, Tour of Duty, Eddie Dodd, Sisters, Without a Map, Totally Blonde, and E-Ring) so sort of a universal crossover perhaps?

Now the nitpicks. The MPAA neutered the crap out of this flick. All of KNB Group gore effects are almost completely diminished, the nudity is mild and Kane Hodder third time at bat as Jason.  Also there are 3 versions of this movie, I'm having Highlander 2: The Quickening flashbacks!!!

So we have the theatrical release which was 87 minutes of garbled mess, the 91 minutes that added a bit more gore in it and finally a whopping 130 minutes of it being completely uncut (insert penis joke) and all cells used from what I understand.

Dukey Pukey is bestowing his knowledge of Jason and his new mystical aspect to Steven (John D. LeMay) because game knows game. Or something.  Don't worry fellas, there's titty as you so often demand. Yes we do get the vital element to Friday the 13^th films: horny teens, booze, nudity and elaborate death scenes.

While this is one of the more creative take away from the sequels similar creating a twist like Part V: A New Beginning; trying to break away from the stagnate of Crystal Lake inhabitants and horny teens getting gacked by unconventional means and over the top murders.

That being said, changing Jason as some malefic force of damnation, hopping from body to body creating mayhem and chaos. Creative yes but a tad late into the series to introduce a new story element like such, let alone additional unmentioned family members.

As for the burning question of Freddy's glove reaching up snatching up Voorhees' mask was a hint to New Line Cinema and Paramount scheduled to make the crossover movie; Freddy Vs Jason...a film stuck in development hell for 10 years!  Not to stir up old feelings but the director of that movie didn't want Kane Hodder vs Robert Englund. Because...6'3" wasn't tall enough for that director's take.

Many of the fans had issues with the dark soul of Jason body hopping and felt it did an injustice to the franchise. I mean if you can stay tried and true to a mother avenging the death of her son, who didn't die, later replaced by a pissed off EMT and soon a crazy Tommy Jarvis; only to have that story line thrown out to resurrect Jason as a zombie then later melt him in the sewers of New York with a nightly toxic waste dump that leaves him as a dead child; well I guess you just don't care about continuity.

Is this a vital watch? Not really. You could skip it as it holds next to nothing for the franchise. Is it a fan favorite? I have heard of these "people" existing but I attribute them as believable as R.O.U.S. (Rodents of Unusual Sizes) and thus call out utter poppycock. Absurd! Risible!

 Happy Spring Forward Zombie Jason Day!!!

Mhm, that is a tasty burger!