Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

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Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAdam Marcus
Screenplay by
Story by
  • Jay Huguely
  • Adam Marcus
  • Dean Lorey
Based onCharacters
by Victor Miller
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyBill Dill
Edited byDavid Handman
Music byHarry Manfredini
Production
company
Distributed byNew Line Cinema[1]
Release date
  • August 13, 1993 (1993-08-13)
Running time
88 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$3 million[2]
Box office$15.9 million[3]

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is a 1993 American

Jay Huguely and Dean Lorey, and produced by Sean S. Cunningham. The ninth installment in the Friday the 13th franchise and a sequel to Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), it stars John D. LeMay, Kari Keegan, Steven Williams, and Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees; the latter reprising his role from the previous two films. It is the first film in the series to be distributed by New Line Cinema. Set after the events of Jason Takes Manhattan, the film follows Jason's spirit as it possesses
various people to continue his killings after his death. To resurrect himself, Jason must find and possess a member of his bloodline, but he can also be permanently killed by one of his surviving relatives using a magical dagger.

The film was conceived by co-writer and director Marcus under Cunningham, producer and director of the first film. After the low box-office returns of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Paramount Pictures sold the character rights of Jason Voorhees to New Line. Jason Goes to Hell was theatrically released on August 13, 1993, and grossed $15.9 million at the box office on a budget of $3 million, becoming the second-worst performing film in the series, after Jason Takes Manhattan. The film was panned by critics and fans alike, criticizing its supernatural elements and elimination of Jason Voorhees as a physical character.[4]

The next installment in the series, Jason X, was released in 2001, and a narrative sequel/crossover, Freddy vs. Jason, was released in 2003.

Plot

A few years after

FBI SWAT agents attack and obliterate his body with a grenade launcher / mortar. Jason's remains are sent to a morgue, where his still-beating heart entices the coroner
to eat it, allowing Jason's soul to possess him. Jason, in the coroner's body, escapes the morgue, killing another coroner and two FBI guards in the process.

At Crystal Lake, Jason finds three partying teenagers and kills them while they were having sex. When two officers are called to investigate, Jason kills one of them and possesses the other. Meanwhile, bounty hunter Creighton Duke discovers that only members of Jason's bloodline can permanently kill him, and he will return to his near-invincible state if he possesses a family member. The only living relatives of Jason are his half-sister Diana Kimble, her daughter Jessica, and Stephanie, the infant daughter of Jessica and Steven Freeman.

Jason heads to Diana's house and attempts to possess her, but Steven defends her. Diana is killed and Jason escapes. Steven is blamed for Diana's murder and arrested. In jail, he meets Duke, who provides Steven with information about Jason and his relation to Jessica. Determined to get to Jessica before Jason, Steven escapes from jail. He goes to the Voorhees house to find evidence to convince Jessica of her ties to Jason. Jessica's boyfriend, TV reporter Robert Campbell, enters the house and receives a phone call. Steven overhears the resulting conversation, which reveals that Campbell is attempting to "spice up" his show's ratings by emphasizing Jason's return from death, having stolen Diana's body from the morgue for this reason. Jason then grabs Campbell, and transfers his heart to him through their mouths. Now in Campbell's body, Jason leaves with Steven in pursuit and attempts to possess Jessica to be reborn. However, Steven hits him and drags Jessica to his car. He tries to explain the situation to Jessica, who does not believe him and goes to the police station without him.

Jason arrives there and kills all officers along his path to Jessica, whom he nearly possesses before Steven stops him again. In the resulting chaos, Duke escapes from his cell. Now believing Steven, Jessica accompanies him to the diner to retrieve Stephanie. Jason arrives and is attacked by the shop's owners and a waitress, all of whom he kills. Jessica and Steven discover a note from Duke, telling them that he has Stephanie and demanding that Jessica meet him at the Voorhees house alone.

Jessica abandons Steven, meets Duke and is given a mystical dagger with which she can kill Jason permanently. An officer enters the diner and gets possessed by Jason. Duke falls through the floor of the Voorhees house, just as Sheriff Landis and Officer Randy arrive to confront Jessica. Landis is accidentally killed with the dagger, which Jessica then drops. Jason, possessing Randy, attempts to be reborn through Stephanie, but Steven arrives and kills him with a machete. Jason's heart, which has grown into a demonic infant, crawls out of Randy's neck. Steven and Jessica pull Duke out of the basement as the creature discovers Diana's body and slithers into her, allowing Jason to be reborn and burst up through the floor in his original body, fully clothed and masked.

While Steven and Jessica attempt to retrieve the dagger, Duke distracts Jason and is killed. Jason turns his attention to Jessica before Steven tackles him through a window. The two battle outside while Jessica retrieves the dagger and stabs Jason in the chest. As the souls Jason accumulated are released, demonic hands burst out of the ground and pull Jason into Hell. Though the killer tries to take Steven with him, Jessica pulls him free, leaving Jason to be dragged into hell forever. Steven and Jessica then reconcile and walk away with their baby. Later, a dog unearths Jason's mask while digging in the dirt. Freddy Krueger's laugh is heard as his gloved hand bursts out of the dirt, pulling Jason's mask into Hell.

Cast

Main article: List of Friday the 13th characters


Brooke Scher appears, uncredited, as the infant, Stephanie Kimble.[citation needed] John D. LeMay is one of only two actors from Friday the 13th: The Series to appear in the film franchise; the other is John Shepherd, who played Tommy Jarvis in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.[citation needed]

Production

Development

Producer

Jay Huguely was hired to flesh out Marcus' ideas into a script. According to Marcus, he had originally written the character of Steven Freeman to be Tommy Jarvis from part 4–6, but New Line Cinema only owned the rights to Jason and not Tommy and so could not legally use that character at the time. Marcus also explains that New Line Cinema did not own the Friday the 13th title, explaining why the film titles after Jason Takes Manhattan did not include the franchise name up until the 2009 remake.[11]

Huguely's draft was reportedly "[...] a hodgepodge of a script"

Michael DeLuca of New Line disliked Lorey's rewrite but greenlit the film regardless. Lorey moved onto another project, prompting the studio to turn to Leslie Bohem, who provided a polish to the script over a weekend.[13][16] Lewis Abernathy of House IV: The Repossession was enlisted for further rewrites for the opening sequence.[17]

The film marked Adam Marcus' debut feature; having just graduated from film school, Marcus was originally attached to direct

My Boyfriend's Back for Touchstone Pictures, but the studio's parent company, Walt Disney Studios, did not want to hire a first-time director, and Marcus was dropped from the project. Marcus, who was a lifelong fan of the Friday the 13th series, developed a story in which Voorhees is destroyed at the beginning of the narrative, only to manifest in the bodies of other people and continue his rampage. Marcus would later acknowledge the concept's similarity to that of The Hidden, though he stated he had not seen the film at that time, and that the similarity was coincidental.[4] Marcus decided that he wanted to create the most deliberately stereotypical and cliché-ridden opening of the film as possible to toy with the audience's expectations, only for the story to take an unprecedented turn with Jason's unexpected "death" by the hands of the SWAT team.[14]
The special effects were provided by Al Magliochetti and effects studio KNB, the former having signed on to the film after friends of his from KNB notified him of its development. The colors of the visual effects were chosen by Marcus.[18]

Casting

Tony Todd auditioned for the role of Creighton Duke, which went to Steven Williams.[19] Laurie Holden was Adam Marcus' and Dean Lorey's choice for the role of Jessica Kimble, but Sean Cunningham overruled them and pushed for Kari Keegan instead.[16]

Filming

Production began on July 20, 1992, in

Los Angeles, California.[20] Cunningham had asked for the film to be shot at twenty two frames per second as opposed to twenty four.[21] Marcus claims he clashed with Cunningham following a dispute over creative decision near the end of filming.[22] A shower scene involving actress Kari Keegan resulted in Marcus being removed from set due to a dispute between the two, as the actress protested from doing nudity for the film. Cunningham would step in as director in place of Marcus for the final few days of the film. Approximately half of the film was reshot as Cunningham was unsatisfied with the initial cut of the film.[23] Filming concluded on September 4, 1992.[20]

Retrospective insight

In November 2017, Adam Marcus revealed that an overlooked plot-point of the movie is that Jason Voorhees is actually connected to the Evil Dead franchise. The filmmaker stated, “Pamela Voorhees makes a deal with the devil by reading from the Necronomicon to bring back her son. This is why Jason isn’t Jason. He’s Jason plus The Evil Dead, and now I can believe that he can go from a little boy that lives in a lake, to a full grown man in a couple of months, to Zombie Jason, to never being able to kill this guy. That, to me, is way more interesting as a mashup, and [Evil Dead creator Sam] Raimi loved it! It’s not like I could tell New Line my plan to include The Evil Dead, because they don’t own The Evil Dead. So it had to be an Easter egg, and I did focus on it…there’s a whole scene that includes the book, and I hoped people would get it and could figure out that’s what I’m up to. So yes, in my opinion, Jason Voorhees is a Deadite. He’s one of The Evil Dead.”[24]

In December 2017 on the podcast Cinema Toast Crunchcast,[9] Marcus revealed Creighton Duke's intended backstory, "A teenage Creighton was out on Crystal Lake with his girlfriend. Jason capsized their small boat and pulled the girl down into the lake. Creighton tried to save her but could not. She was never seen again. Creighton vowed revenge and from that moment on he spent his life in the study and pursuit of Jason. He became a bounty hunter just to fund his work in taking down his nemesis."[25]

Music

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
Soundtrack album by
Harry Manfredini
ReleasedJanuary 29, 2005 (Edel Screen)
Recorded1993
GenreFilm score
Length52:52
LabelEdel Screen

The film's musical score was composed by Harry Manfredini, who had previously composed music for the first seven films in the series.[26] A soundtrack album was released by Edel Screen as a CD in the United States in 1993.[27]


Home media

The film was released on DVD in North America by

R rating from the MPAA, and the unrated (or director's) cut, which runs three minutes longer than the theatrical version and contains material beyond what is allowed under the R rating.[28]
In certain regions of the world, including Australia, the DVD was only released with the R-rated version of the film available to view.

On September 13, 2013, Paramount and Warner Bros. co-released Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection in a Blu-ray box set, featuring each of the twelve films in the franchise;[29] this marked the first Blu-ray release of Jason Goes to Hell. This collection is currently out of print, but the film has been released separately in the higher definition format with its successor, Jason X.[30]

Both the theatrical and unrated versions of the film were added to the Friday the 13th: The Ultimate Collection Blu-ray set that Scream Factory released in October 2020.

The movie was also released on VHS.

Reception

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 across 1,355 screens.[31] The film would go on to gross a final domestic total of $15.9 million and an approximate total of 3,849,050 admissions, making it the third-least attended film in the franchise, narrowly beating Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) and Jason X (2001). It placed at number 86 on the list of the year's Top 100 earners.[32]

Critical response

On the Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday holds a 16% approval rating, based on 19 reviews.[33] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 17 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".[34]

The Los Angeles Times's Michael Wilmington praised the performance of Gant as well as Harry Manfredini's score, but noted "ludicrous characters", "garbled nonstop gore", and poor lighting as notable faults.[35] Richard Harrington of The Washington Post wrote of the film: "The scriptwriters try to conjure some history/mythology to validate the plot's twists and turns, but the whole thing ends up more confusing than Days of Our Lives on fast-forward."[36] Terry Kelleher of Newsday similarly criticized the plot, referring to it as a "confusing mess," though he conceded the film "offers a little humor."[37]

Stephen Holden of The New York Times noted: "The ninth episode in the phenomenally successful series, which began in 1980, The Final Friday is a largely incoherent movie that generates little suspense and relies for the majority of its thrills on close-up gore...Such gratuitous sadism gives The Final Friday an edge of sourness that is unusual for a horror movie. It doesn't help that Jason's intended victims (and the actors who play them) are pallid sitting ducks."[38] The Boston Globe's Betsy Sherman wrote: "First time director Adam Marcus plays around nicely with the F13 cliches, but doesn't have much original to add. The movie has a crowdpleasing final shot that suggests that the real joy ride to hell will be next time around. Maybe."[39]

Writing for Variety, Greg Evans criticized the screenplay as well as Marcus's direction: "With one or two exceptions, freshman director Adam Marcus forgoes the camp humor and inside jokes that marked the tail end of the slasher craze, opting instead for a straightforward Saturday night drive-in approach...Blame Marcus for the film’s complete lack of tension and style, but also point a machete or two at a bland, occasionally inept cast and scripters unable to contribute a single innovation to the genre."[40]

Robert Cauthorn of the

The Courier-Journal also criticized the film's gratuitous violence, adding that "the plot is ridiculous, the dialogue wooden and the acting a laugh. But you know that going in. The question is: Is it scary? Not really. It's more disgusting than frightening."[43]

Other media

Comic books

The unmasked Jason Voorhees from Jason Goes to Hell, as depicted in Friday the 13th: The Game.

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.

Trading card

Topps also released a series of trading cards for the film.[citation needed]

Novelization

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."[44]

Other references

Video games

The Jason Goes to Hell depiction of Jason Voorhees is featured in 2017's

Gun Media developers explained, "In [Jason Goes to Hell], everyone kind of knows there was a mistake made with Jason's undermask. It's Jason's left eye that’s supposed to be damaged, 'cause in Part 4 he takes the machete to the head. But in [Jason Goes to Hell], it was reversed on accident. So we decided to fix it." The game officially reveals Jason's facial appearance from underneath the mask, which was not seen in the film.[47]

References

  1. ^ a b "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday". American Film Institute. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
  2. ^ "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)". The Numbers. Retrieved April 10, 2016.
  3. ^ "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2023-08-14.
  4. ^
    ASIN B00YT9IS1G
    .
  5. ^ White, James (September 30, 2009). "The Story Behind Friday The 13th". GamesRadar. Retrieved June 23, 2022.
  6. ^ Click, Joey (September 4, 2017). "Friday the 13th: Jason Goes to Hell Director Says Cunningham Told Him Get Rid of Jason". 1428Elm. Retrieved June 23, 2022.
  7. ^ Cooper, Aaron (October 30, 2020). "Crystal Lake Confessions: Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday". BeardedGentlemenMusic. Retrieved June 23, 2022.
  8. ^ Sean Cunningham (October 2016). "Sean Cunningham: That's a F*ckin Lie" (live panel). Scarefest 2016, Lexington, Kentucky. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved December 24, 2019 – via YouTube.{{cite interview}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  9. ^ a b "Adam Marcus Interview".
  10. ^ Martin, Ben (March 6, 2021). "Franchise Expansion (Or Implosion) — Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday". Comicon. Retrieved June 23, 2022.
  11. ^ "Adam Marcus" (Podcast). Without Your Head. May 18, 2018. Event occurs at 21:22. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
  12. ^ John LeMay (2006). "Crystal Lake Memories: Complete History of Friday the 13th" Friday the 13th DVD (Special Features) (DVD (Region 2)). United States: WB.
  13. ^ a b Brack, Peter, pp. 518
  14. ^ a b Marc Shapiro (September 1993). "I Wrote For a Zombie". Fangoria. No. 126.
  15. ^ Kennedy, Michael (January 21, 2020). "Friday the 13th Part 9 's Original Story (Before Jason Goes To Hell)". ScreenRant. Retrieved June 23, 2022.
  16. ^ a b Lorey, Dean (May 5, 2011). "FRIDAY THE 13TH PT 9: JASON GOES TO HELL". DeanLorey.com. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  17. ^ Konda, Kelly (March 28, 2014). "13 Things You May Not Know About Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday". WeMinoredInFilm. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  18. ^ Bene, Jason (December 19, 2017). "[Exclusive] Artist Al Magliochetti Talks the Visual Effects of 'Jason Goes to Hell'". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
  19. ISBN 1-84576-343-2
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  20. ^ a b "Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday - Cast and Crew". Lair of Horror. Retrieved June 23, 2022.
  21. ^ "Vern's Reviews: Jason Goes to Hell". OutlawVern. October 18, 2021. Retrieved June 23, 2022.
  22. ^ Midnight's Edge (August 25, 2018). "Friday the 13th: Jason Goes to Hell 25th Anniversary Interview with Writer and Director Adam Marcus". Youtube. Retrieved June 23, 2022.
  23. ^ Konda, Kelly (March 28, 2014). "13 Things You May Not Know About Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday". WeMinoredInFilm. Retrieved June 23, 2022.
  24. ^ "Friday the 13th's Jason Voorhees is Indeed a Deadite". Screen Rant. 2 November 2017.
  25. ^ Squires, John (December 27, 2017). "'Jason Goes to Hell' Director Reveals Creighton Duke's History With Jason". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved December 31, 2017.
  26. ^ "Harry Manfredini: Filmography". www.harrymanfredini.com. Retrieved 2023-11-22.
  27. ^ "Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday- Soundtrack details - SoundtrackCollector.com". www.soundtrackcollector.com. Retrieved 2024-04-05.
  28. ^ Tyner, Adam (October 7, 2002). "Jason Goes to Hell: DVD Talk Review". DVD Talk. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  29. ^ "Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection". High Def Digest. Retrieved March 2, 2018.
  30. ^ "FRIDAY THE 13TH THE COMPLETE COLLECTION Coming to Blu-ray, 9/13". Broadway World. June 11, 2013.
  31. ^ Fox, David J. (August 17, 1993). "Weekend Box Office : 'The Fugitive' Continues Fast Run". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 1, 2018.
  32. ^ "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved April 10, 2016.
  33. ^ "Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday". Rotten Tomatoes. 8 October 2002. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
  34. ^ "Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday". Metacritic. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
  35. ^ Wilmington, Michael (August 17, 1993). "'Final Friday' for Jason? Don't Bet on it". The Palm Beach Post. West Palm Beach, Florida: Los Angeles Times. p. 3D – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  36. ^ "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday". The Washington Post. August 14, 1993. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
  37. ^ Kelleher, Terry (August 16, 1993). "'Jason' takes stab at humor". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Cincinnati, Ohio: Newsday. p. C3 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  38. ^ Holden, Stephen (August 14, 1993). "Review/Film; Jason's End? You Gotta Have Heart". The New York Times. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  39. ^ Sherman, Betsy (August 13, 1993). "Latest 'Friday' not very scary or stylish". The Boston Globe. Boston, Massachusetts. p. 22 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  40. ^ Evans, Greg (August 16, 1993). "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday". Variety. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  41. ^ Cauthorn, Robert S. (August 20, 1993). "'Jason Goes to Hell' zips down hack-and-wink horror road". Arizona Daily Star. Tucson, Arizona. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  42. ^ Cowan, Ron (August 20, 1993). "Let's hope this really is 'Final Friday'". Statesman Journal. Salem, Oregon. p. 9 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  43. The Courier-Journal. Louisville, Kentucky. p. 25 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  44. ISBN 1-84416-271-0
    .
  45. ^ Bracke, Peter, pg. 238
  46. ^ "'Freddy vs Jason vs Ash' Script Treatment!!!". Bloody Disgusting. 2005-03-08. Archived from the original on 2005-04-15. Retrieved 2009-07-03.
  47. Gun Media. 2017-03-15. Archived
    from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved 2017-03-15.

External links
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