Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter review.
The fourth installment of the Friday the 13th series stands as many people’s favorite. It makes sense…this is the chapter where everything finally came together. When people think about classic Jason Voorhees…there’s a good chance The Final Chapter is what they’re thinking of.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
Directed by Joseph Zito
Screenplay by Barney Cohen
Starring Kimberly Beck, Corey Feldman, Crispin Glover, E. Erich Anderson, Joan Freeman and Ted White
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter Review
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is the Goldfinger of the Jason saga. Like that James Bond entry…it is the installment where everything came together for the long running franchise. When you picture a James Bond movie…it’s going to look a lot like Goldfinger. All the tropes and tricks are there…the iconic character now fully formed. Jason is in the same boat here. This is the Jason you expect. He’s slashing his way through a movie that has finally (like Goldfinger) perfected the formula. It’s no surprise that both Goldfinger and The Final Chapter are many people’s favorite movies in their respective series.
As is often the case with Friday the 13th movies…it’s best not to think too deeply about the plot. At this point in the saga the timeline is a complete mess. The Final Chapter takes place just days after Friday the 13th Part 2…which doesn’t add up at all. We have a character here who is looking for his sister…a character who was killed by Jason in Part 2. He acts as if she’s been missing for years…but in their world she was killed just a few days earlier. Which also means none of this is happening on Friday the 13th anyway. Like I said…the writers haven’t put any thought into it so you shouldn’t either.
What The Final Chapter focuses on is delivering a complete Jason Voorhees experience. Long time fans will know that he isn’t (physically) in the original movie…and he’s doesn’t get his hockey mask until past the midway point of Part III. The Final Chapter would be our first movie with a fully formed Jason from start to finish. Given that we already know the series is about to go off the rails…it can be argued this is the only version of Friday the 13th that is a pure hockey masked Jason movie. The sole entry without some strange gimmick or hook attached to it.
A New Beginning would give us an imposter Jason. Jason Lives is a comedy and Jason is a zombie going forward. The New Blood sees him fight a telekinetic protagonist. Part VIII puts him on a boat and eventually he takes…Canada. Jason Goes to Hell is a body swapping movie. Jason X is in space. Freddy vs. Jason is a crossover battle. The 2009 remake starts us off with a pre-mask Jason once again. Though all of these movies have some form of Jason killing unsuspecting teens somewhere in there…The Final Chapter is the only one where a masked Jason shows up from the start…kills people…and that’s the whole movie. The victims aren’t camp counselors (again)…but we can never quite have it all with this series, can we?
That was all a very long-winded way of saying that Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is the closest the series has ever been to what the public thinks the franchise is. It makes a compelling argument that the series should never have strayed far from the model. This is a fun movie full of memorable moments and great pacing. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel…it just, finally, rounds out the edges.
For a movie with very little in the way of plot…it also has a lot of things going on. Mainly…a giant cast of characters for Jason to run through, literally. A large group of teens who come to the lake to party. The family that lives next door. Local twins make their way into the proceedings as well. And poor Rob who isn’t going to find his sister because she died somewhere between 3 days and 3 years ago.
Before Jason can even get to the lake he has some business to take care of. Left for dead at the end of Part III, he awakens in a hospital and makes short work of the nearest staff he can get his hands on. A hitchhiker is taken care of as he makes his way home. All told, a total of 13 people were murdered by Jason in this one. A perfect number of fatalities…but not the only ones.
It’s true…Jason dies in The Final Chapter. Officially and for real. This is why, to everyone’s disappointment, he isn’t in the next one. He’ll be brought back to life at the beginning of the sixth movie. Funny thing about that…
The Final Chapter is the first movie in the Tommy Jarvis trilogy. Corey Feldman plays the young Tommy here…and he is the one who finishes off Jason in the end. The next movie would see Tommy have a nightmare that Jason was resurrected. In the sixth movie we find out that it is Tommy himself who brings Jason back to life. It’s an interesting, and surely unintended, story beat. Tommy then spends the rest of the sixth movie trying to put a now unstoppable zombie Jason down once again. He succeeds…but must not care after that since Jason will be brought back repeatedly. Not his problem at that point, I guess.
Feldman is excellent in this movie. Technically his sister ends up being our final girl…but she doesn’t really make much of a mark on the movie. Tommy is, for all intents and purposes, the main character of the story. They are the only people who survive the night. Tommy’s sister apparently stops caring about what happens to him after this movie too since we never see her again either.
The other character that people gravitate towards in the cast is Jimmy. There’s nothing special about Jimmy or the way he’s written…he’s just another lightly developed character who is there to get slaughtered. But he’s played by a pre-Back to the Future Crispin Glover so he stands out anyway. Glover’s acting choices are so much more interesting than anyone else brought to the table that he manages to create a memorable character out of very little on the page. Once you’ve seen Jimmy dance…there’s no way you won’t remember him.
Our Jason is played by Ted White this time around. He’s one of the best to do it. His Jason is a force of nature. This is one of the most intimidating versions of the character in the series. Strong, focused and despite still being human…seemingly unstoppable. When we talk about the formula coming together in this one…White’s portrayal of Jason is a big part of it. This is a much more confident Jason than we’d seen to this point.
So, is this the best movie in the franchise? Well…that’s up to you. I’ve always understood the argument for it. It’s undeniably one of the high points. The most important thing about Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is that it gives you exactly what you want from a Jason movie. It probably gives you the most of it too. Does that make it better than other series peaks like Part 2 and Jason Lives? Maybe. I’ve argued that it doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a great 80s slasher movie.
Scare Value
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is a fun movie. Teens head to the lake and get dispatched by Jason Voorhees. It’s a simple formula…and an effective one. It took a few movies to get here…but this is a fully realized Jason from the start of the picture. The timeline of events makes zero sense and there are a lot of characters who exist simply to be killed…but that’s the fun of the franchise, isn’t it? If you think this is the pinnacle of the series…I’m not going to argue with you. I’ll just quietly disagree and watch Part 2 again.
4/5
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter Links
Streaming on Starz
Rent/Buy on VOD from Vudu
Rent/Buy on VOD from Amazon
Buy on Blu-Ray from Amazon
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter Trailer
If you enjoyed this review of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 5 and the remake or where it ranks in the series ranking
