Review: "FRIDAY THE 13TH: The Final Chapter" Now Seems Quaint

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 56 of 2024 (No. 2000) by Leroy Douresseaux

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

Running time:  91 minutes (1 hour, 31 minutes)

MPAA – R

DIRECTOR:  Joseph Zito

WRITERS:  Barney Cohen; from a story by Bruce Hidemi Sakow (based on characters created by Victor Miller and Ron Kurz & Martin Kitrosser and Carol Watson)

PRODUCER: Frank Mancuso, Jr.

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  João Fernandez (D.o.P.)

EDITORS:  Joel Goodman with Daniel Loewenthal

COMPOSER:  Harry Manfredini

HORROR

Starring:  Erich Anderson, Judie Aronson, Peter Barton, Kimberly Beck, Corey Feldman, Joan Freeman, Crispin Glover, Lawrence Monoson, Alan Hayes, Barbara Howard, Camilla More, Carey More, Bruce Mahler, Lisa Freeman, Bonnie Hellman and Frankie Hill with Ted White

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is a 1984 slasher horror film directed by Joseph Zito.  It is a direct sequel to the 1982 film, Friday the 13th Part III, and is the fourth movie in the Friday the 13th movie franchise.  The Final Chapter finds Jason Voorhees revived after being declared dead and then, returning to Crystal Lake where he stalks a group of friends renting a nearby house.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter opens in the aftermath of the massacre at “Higgins Haven,” the old home near Crystal Lake (as seen in Friday the 13th Part III).  The police clean up the scene, picking up the bodies of ten victims.  They were all killed by Jason Voorhees (Ted White), the killer of Crystal Lake.  This time, however, Jason has also been pronounced dead, and his body is picked up and sent to the Wessex County Medical Center Morgue (apparently somewhere in southern New Jersey).  Somehow, Jason spontaneously revives and kills a morgue attendant and a nurse on his way out the door and back to Crystal Lake.

Meanwhile, a group of six teenage friends:  Paul (Alan Hayes), Sam (Judie Aronson), Doug (Peter Barton), Sara (Barbara Howard), Ted (Lawrence Monoson), and Jimmy (Crispin Glover), have arrived at the house in the countryside near Crystal Lake that they are renting.  Right across from that house is another home where Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman) lives with her two children:  her teen teenage daughter, Trish Jarvis (Kimberly Beck) and her twelve-year-old son, Tommy (Corey Feldman), along with their dog, Gordon.  The visiting group of teens also meets and befriends a pair of twin sisters, Tina (Camilla More) and Terri (Carey More).

Later, Trish and Tommy meet Rob Dier (Erich Anderson), a strapping young man who claims that he is visiting the area to hunt bear, but who is really hunting Jason for killing his sister, Sandra Dier.  What they don't know is that Jason is already hunting them all.

[NOTE: Rob's sister, Sandra, and her boyfriend, Jeff, were killed together by Jason in  Friday the 13th Part II.]

The first few minutes of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter are a sequence of highlights from the first three films:  Friday the 13th (1980), Friday the 13th Part II (1981), and Friday the 13th Part III.  The third film was originally going to be the end of the series, just as this fourth film was going to conclude the series, so the beginning of this fourth film summarizes for the audience what has been going on at and around Crystal Lake.  Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was the first film in the series that I saw, and is one of only two in the series that I have actually watched in a movie theater (the other being 1989's Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan).

So forty years later, what do I think of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter?  I remember that I kinda liked it the first time I saw it, although I was shocked by the number of people Jason killed – thirteen by my count, although fourteen is possible.  Originally, I was surprised by how fast the narrative had Jason dispatching his victims, and forty years later, I still think that.

Like the third film, I think The Final Chapter actually presents several good characters.  In fact, the six teens, the Jarvis family members, and Rob Dier all have personalities and potential that would make for decent character drama or melodrama, as it may be.  In the end, however, they are merely meat for this franchise's beast, Jason Voorhees.  Also, I think Corey Feldman's Tommy is the only character that really gets a chance at a showcase of character and emotion.

In the final analysis, The Final Chapter is better than most of the films in the series that followed it, but it isn't as good or as classic as the films that preceded.  If you want to know which is my favorite, dear readers, it is the second film, although I think the original is still the series' best film.  Still, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is a nice way to make a tetralogy out of a trilogy.

5 of 10

B-

★★½ out of 4 stars

Thursday, December 12, 2024

The text is copyright © 2024 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

---------------------