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Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday (aka Friday The 13th Part 9)
[New Line]
1993; color
Directed by Adam Marcus
Starring: Kane Hodder, John D. LeMay, Kari Keegan, Steven Williams, Steven Culp & Erin Gray
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Where do you go when you've pretty much milked the Voorhees saga dry? Well, you could attempt to re-invent the legend by adding in some mystical hoo-ha… or do something totally f'ed up and non-sensical like put him in outer space… (oh wait, that's the next installment.) The former was chosen this time around, starting with Jason being alive when the movie starts, only to be killed within the first 10 minutes when he's ambushed and, literally, blown up by the Feds. As the various pieces of his carcass are being collected, a shadowy figure watches from a distance. He comments, out loud and to no one in particular, that they didn't finish the job. Turns out the man is a bounty hunter named Duke Creighton and, as he soon reveals, only he knows how to truly kill this seemingly unkillable killing machine. Unfortunately for Jason's future victims, Creighton doesn't appear ready to share this information with anyone yet. Meanwhile, as a federal coroner autopsies the remains in a morgue in Youngstown (OH), he touches the oversized heart of Jason with a scalpel (it had been completely blown out of his chest by the explosion, yet remained curiously intact) and it starts to beat. The coroner then becomes hypnotized by the heart and, suddenly, picks it up and devours it! (And he doesn't just eat it, he attacks it like a starving man seeing his first meal in months.) This initiates some kind of weird transformation, and when the coroner walks past a mirror we see Jason's reflection. Within minutes he's killed another coroner and two guards and, as we learn from a TV report, an additional five people. (This is one of the dangling issues I have with JGTH; it is almost impossible to get a true kill count because there are multiple deaths that occur offscreen or just implied.) Back at Crystal Lake, Duke warns a diner waitress named Diana that Jason is coming back (meaning, apparently, that he'll be walking all the way from Ohio) and that she and her daughter, Jessica, are who he's gunning for. (Uh, so to speak.) Her boyfriend, the sheriff, doesn't like Duke's attitude towards his squeeze and throws him in jail to cool down a bit. As the story begins to get even more convoluted, we learn that Jessica has had a baby with a guy from Crystal Lake she's no longer involved with, named Steven. Soon enough, Jason (in the body of the coroner) shows up on the scene, kidnaps a deputy, takes him back to the long-abandoned Voorhees house and transfers his soul or heart or something black that slithers out of his mouth and into the deputy's. (It should be noted that this aspect is completely ripped off from the 1987 alien / slasher / action flick The Hidden.) This transference from host body to host body occurs a few more times throughout the movie and, after a couple more body transfers and a lot more killing, Duke finally fesses up that the only way to rid the world of Jason by sending him straight to hell is if he's killed by another Voorhees. And guess what? Diana is actually Jason's sister! (Huh?) Eventually we get to the point of having a showdown at ye olde casa Voorhees between Steven / Jessica / Duke and the real Jason. (Who, finally, winds up being reanimated in the exact same state he was in before being blown up!) During a struggle between Duke and Jason, Duke tosses Jessica some kind of dagger and, as soon as it's in her hands, all sorts of laser blasts shoot around it for a second and it turns into some kinda miniature sword. A few minutes later, the sword is embedded in Jason's chest, replete with an even bigger light show, and the big guy goes down once again. (Or does he?) This was the first installment of the series after New Line took it over from Paramount and, despite the return of original director/producer Sean Cunningham, it's still the most over-the-top ridiculous storyline yet.
—the Kommandant
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Cause Of
Jason's Re-Birth:
n/a
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Setting:
Crystal Lake; Youngstown, OH (briefly)
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Body Count:
22
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Methods Of Death:
probe through head (1),
slashing (1),
stabbing (1),
knife throwing (1),
impaling (2),
head smashed in car door (1),
head smashed into locker (1),
heads smashed together (2),
head shoved into boiling oil (1),
face crushing (1),
spine crushing (1),
unknown (9)
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Cause Of
Jason's Death:
explosion;
magical dagger
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