Just like the last one, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter picks up immediately after the end of the previous film. With Jason finally having been stopped (spoilers) his corpse has been taken to the local hospital morgue while the police sort out what happened. As you might’ve guessed he’s not actually dead and, also just like the last movie, he murders a couple of non-plot-related characters before peacing out to go hunt down some more teens.
The first thing I noticed about this one is that the production seems much more scaled up than any of the previous films. We’ve got a bunch of different locations that are more than just a room and an exterior shot and we’ve also got some actors I actually recognize including Crispin Glover and Corey Feldman. Since this is early in their careers, it probably has little bearing on whether or not this one had a bigger budget, but it certainly contributed to the feeling that I watching something a bit more “put-together” than previously displayed in the series.
After the initial killings, I feel like half of the movie passes before we see anything else involving Jason sticking a sharp object into people. Instead, we’re treated to a bunch of horny teenagers renting out a house next door to Corey Feldman and his family. While this film continues the trend of infusing its characters with more personality, I found them to be a bit more annoying than the cast of Part III. I think they’ve finally begun to strike that balance of “oh no it’s sad these teens are dying but it’s also kind of satisfying because I kind of hate them all.” Once Jason gets to the killing, however, he rips through their cabin like a hot machete through face. These are some of the best kills in the franchise so far.
It’s so strange to me that the franchise is still building up steam four films in. I can’t for the life of me think of another series of movies that get progressively better across the first four (and perhaps onward?), improving on nearly every aspect with each iteration. While I’m fairly certain Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter isn’t the last Jason movie, it’s definitely something I would identify at this point as a “classic” Jason movie, but I can’t say for sure until I’ve seen all there is to see.
7