Starring: Kimberly Beck, Peter Barton, Corey Feldman, Erich Anderson, Crispin Glover, Alan Hayes, Barbara Howard, Camilla and Carey More.
Director: Joseph Zito.
There are a few things to like about this "final"(uh-huh) installment in the Friday The 13th series. One is, well, the whole "final" thing. The story goes that there was every intention of finishing the franchise off with this installment, with Tom Savini even coming back under the strength of a promise that he be allowed to kill off Jason. Obviously, since there ended up being Seven and a Half more installments, Paramount Pictures changed their minds on this edict.
Another is Crispin Glover. But we'll get to him.
A third is the spirited recap opening, something they'll repeat in later installments, this time using the footage of the camp fire story-time scene in the second film. It's a nice bit of business, and then the movie brings us right back to the end of part three, with authorities bagging up Jason's corpse a few hours after Chris has finished him off in the barn.
Other than those things, I'm not sure what else there really is. There's some awkward scenes between Axel The Coroner and the Nurse he makes out with(who seems to hate him), complete with some awkward dialogue. "You are the Super Bowl of Self Abuse!" and "Holy Christmas! Holy Jesus Jumping Christmas God Damn!"
I gotta get myself an imaginary computer to run my love life problems through. If it's good enough to call Crispin Glover a "Dead Fuck" it's good enough for me. Crispin Glover does some fun comedy stuff later, but for the most part he and his companion Teddy are among some of the most obnoxious characters the franchise trudges up. But there is this:
Oh, yes. There is this.
Trish and Tommy and their Mom, the family unit living in the house next door to our usual crop of interchangeable teenager are a bit more interesting, if a little under-developed. Tommy is a pretty A-typical horror movie kid: makes his own masks, plays a lot of video games, has a knack for machinery. Trish is...well, who really knows who Trish is. She seems a little stifled by her Mother(who seems lonely), and wants to let loose a little. Maybe she's a little resentful about hanging out all summer with her Mother and Brother.
We also have a woodsman type out hunting for Jason(even though the news reported that he was dead?) under the clever guise of a bear hunter. Nice call back, though: his sister was Sandra, part of the designated sex-crazed couple from Part Two. So, there is that.
There is one interesting thing done in this film that I haven't seen a lot of in other films: there are two different characters who fit the "final girl" criteria. Trish is one, the other is Sarah, the sweet, conservative girl who doesn't want to skinny dip, and is very shy about talking to the single guy on the trip who likes her. She wears nice sweaters and overdresses for their party with this big, fluffy red dress thing...she is beautiful, adorable, and I love her. She then very shyly-and adorably!-asks the other boy to sleep with her...it's just so wonderful and is probably one of my favorite things in the whole series. After she has shower sex with the guy, he says he might be in heaven. She says "I think I'm in love." D'Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!
I love you, Barbara Howard.
There's some sort of drama involving one of the Twins that the group of kids pick up trying to steal one of the other girls' boyfriend...but it's mostly an excuse to send out the first victims to the lake. In the meantime, Crispin Glover has sex and the rest watch a reel of vintage pornography(that Teddy finds impossibly funny)...I know it must be hard to write these movies. You've got an hour and a half with other a dozen characters and you have to at least attempt some sort of pacing and story but there's gotta be a better way to handle this stuff. Particularly in that at least two deaths happen off-camera. But, you have an audience to placate and I get that. Sex and Violence and all.
Sara more or less is the first final girl: out of everyone in movie B(Movie A basically being about the Jarvis family) she lasts the longest, with all of her friends being summarily killed off. They probably could have made her the lead without any stretching, but she had sex, so she had to die off. Trish never has sex, just kinda wants to with the bear hunter.
I choose to believe that Gordan The Dog is fine. Do not tell me anything else. Gordan is living happily on a farm some place up north.
Friday The 13th mostly codifies the tropes Scream has so much fun espousing to the audience but, as I said in the write-up of that film, those tropes are offered up without much reasoning as to the why of all of it. This seems like as good a place as any to discuss that a bit. Sara provides a great representation of a lot of it, as does this whole entry in the franchise. Sara IS Randy's "no sex" rule. Sara does not commit any sins, and that's what these movies are about. I've always said that every decent horror film needs, at its heart, a central metaphor. This metaphor can be sloppy, as it is in Friday The 13th, or be more subtle but it still needs to be there. In this case, Jason represents a religious notion of sin. Any deviation from a fairly strict moral code(sex, drugs and rock n'roll are a no-no, even if there IS probably a bit more to it than that) ends in death. I'd actually even go as far to say there almost an Eastern Philosophy of Purity of Mind and Body being represented here as well, even though more of those philosophies don't usually include any sort of punishment for violation(in fact, many usually consider the impure to be the natural state, and only by accepting that purity can you ascend past it. In other words, purity is to be achieved from a lesser state, not to be maintained from birth). But, in essence, Jason represents a Wrath of God. The rapturous judgement of a vengeful god. Sexual activity, foreign substances, even vengeance and betrayal all qualify as violations of what is considered Western religious values. Luckily, these films stopped at the moral judgement of adults on teens before it got too offensive (according to a lot of Western Moral Values, anybody who wasn't a straight, white, cis-male would basically be fucked in a Friday The 13th movie), but it's there and I think it's the real reason for the series proliferation and longevity over time. So, there you go...that's probably as much analysis as I am capable of offering for the first half of this franchise(I hope to have more to say about the gimmicky sequels later on, but this is what I have for the straight slasher film side of the franchise).
Jason's death works well enough when taken for what it is. A terrorized young boy assuming the form of his attacker(cosmetically, if not spiritually) and then losing his mind while hacking the assailant to pieces is a pretty shocking and memorable event, even if it does kind of come out of left field.
Final Thoughts: I briefly touched on the "two movies" idea. Movie A has Trish and Tommy, their Mother and The Bear Hunter dealing with Jason. Movie B is the usual movie with Jason wiping out a dozen or so teens in various ways. They merge in and out with each other, but it still feels like there were two movies going on. Movie A was much more subtle: there was some attempt at character development, a family unit that could have been fleshed out in any other horror film, and an outside force looking to disrupt their tenuous relationship. Movie B was the norm. No need for any subtlety, just hack and slash. I almost wonder what Movie A could have been if given the entire running time and some actual focused writing.
Final Rating: Three Stars.
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