Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
So here we are... The film that was originally supposed to kill of Jason for good. This was going to be the last movie in the series. That's it. Paramount hated the ill-will from parents' groups and critics that went along with the series, and really, how many movies can you make about a guy who goes around killing teenagers? The answer? A lot more than four.
This film takes place right after the ending of the 3rd film. The CSI team finishes up their investigation, and Jason's body is taken to the morgue. Of course, Jason isn't there long. He escapes the morgue and goes back to his old stomping grounds of Crystal Lake to terrorize more people. Now, I have one big issue with this movie. This movie isn't just teenagers getting killed. Sure, there's teens renting a house to have a party, but there's also a family next door to that house. A mother, a teen daughter, and a pubescent son. My issue is that there's been about 20 people killed around the lake in the past few days, and NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT IT OR SEEMS TO CARE!!! Are these people insane? Has the story been covered up? How?! But I digress. This film has two rather well known actors in it. There's Crispin Glover, who would star in Back to the Future right after this, as a shy nerdy teen at the party house. There's also Corey Feldman, who would star in The Goonies after this, as the little boy next door. Those two do give some weight to the film, as they are both pretty good actors. In fact, out of the first four films, this one may have the best acting out of them. The dog is pretty good too.
The film also is memorable for the return of makeup effects master Tom Savini, who did the work on the first film. By this time, he'd become pretty famous for his makeup effects, so I'm surprised he accepted the job. He says that it was the chance to kill his creation that made him come back. That it made him sort of a Doctor Frankenstein in some way. I dunno. I think he just enjoyed the first film and wanted more money, myself. In a nod to the series title, this is also the first of the movies to have exactly 13 kills in it, if I remember correctly. Speaking of the kills, they actually aren't too inventive for the most part in this one. Jason has his usual assortment of hatchets, machetes, and his hands. I will commend the film-makers for two very good deaths. There's one where a guy has a harpoon shoved into his crotch, is lifted up by it, and Jason then fires the harpoon into him. It's probably one of the more painful deaths in the series, and I don't think it even has any blood in that scene. It's carried merely by the guy's screams. The other really noticable death is one that involves a corkscrew through the hand and then a meat cleaver to the face. Again, the corkscrew just seems really painful to me. Jason's death is pretty great too. One of Tom Savini's best effects. (And that's not a spoiler. The ad campaign sold this movie on Jason's death.) It also includes a nice head shattering against a shower wall.
So what are the film's negatives? For one, the music. For the first time in the series, I feel that Harry Manfredini was simply going through the motions. The music just plain sucks. The lead girl in the film is probably the worst lead of the first four films acting-wise. She does scared very well, but other than that, she's not that great. Still, the other actors are much better. Those are really the only negatives I can think of besides the plot hole I mentioned at the beginning.
This installment also has the most brutal Jason of the first four films. The actor they got is imposing, he seems full of meanness instead of a playful sicko like the one in part 3, and the makeup they used for when his mask comes off is really great. Another thing people watch this film for is Crispin Glover's crazy dance moves. Apparently this is how he danced in clubs at the time, too!
Yeah... Crispin Glover is pretty crazy.
Anyway, so when the film was released, critics of course, again, hated it. Especially Siskel and Ebert.
Yet again, those guys attempt to be moral critics. I'm glad that Ebert ended up growing out of that a bit. However, as I've stated before, this moral panic was big at the time, so everyone was saying this stuff. It was a bit like the torture porn pushback against Hostel and Saw back in the mid-2000s, only amplified. Apparently critics had not known about Grand Guignol. This sort of stuff has been put up as entertainment since the late 1800s!
The film was released on April 13, 1984. For the first time, it had been over a year since the last film. It has gone on to be near or at the top of most peoples' polls of individual films of the series. In fact, it's usually at the top of most. I would definitely put it in the top 5. Besides part 2, it's probably the one I watch the most. I'd say it's probably 3rd or 4th best. The film went on to make more money than any other horror film, including Nightmare on Elm Street, released in 1984. It earned around $32 million, which to date makes it the 5th highest grossing in the series. Unlike Part 3, I can recommend this to any slasher fan. It's quite fun.
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