Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, 1993.
Directed by Adam Marcus.
Starring Kane Hodder, John D. LeMay, Kari Keegan, Erin Gray, Allison Smith, Steven Culp, and Steven Williams.
SYNOPSIS:
After dying, coming back, taking Manhattan and dying again, Jason Voorhees is now back as a body snatcher in Jason Goes to Hell.
When it comes to horror franchises that have overstayed their welcome, Friday the 13th has long been the poster child of diminishing returns. By the time Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday arrived in 1993, the franchise had already ventured from campfire ghost story to full-blown soap opera with a machete. Now, over 30 years later, it returns in 4K, not so much to be reappraised, but perhaps to be better understood for what it is: an outrageous misfire with moments of gory greatness and baffling ambition.
Directed by Adam Marcus, who was just 23 at the time, Jason Goes to Hell opens with a bang. Jason, the hockey-masked killer of Crystal Lake, is lured into a trap by the FBI, blown to bits in an impressive display of excessive force, and sent to the morgue. What follows is not a standard slasher, but a bizarre mash-up of The Hidden and The Evil Dead, complete with body-hopping possession, demonic mythology, and a dagger that looks suspiciously like it was borrowed from the prop room of Xena: Warrior Princess.
It’s easy to see why fans were left cold. Kane Hodder, returning once again in the title role, is barely present. Jason spends most of the runtime possessing other bodies, reducing one of horror’s most iconic physical performances to a spectral presence. And while the new lore – involving secret sisters, cursed bloodlines, and a magic dagger – tries to deepen the mythology, it instead feels like a soap opera penned after a long night of Jägerbombs.
And yet, there is something endearingly mad about Jason Goes to Hell. The opening ambush is gleefully over-the-top, the gore (when it comes) is practical and punchy – with a tent kill that remains among the most brutal in the franchise. Being resurrected by having his heart eaten by a pathologist unbelievably trumps the lightning rod in Jason Lives, and Steven Williams’ cowboy bounty hunter Creighton Duke is so ludicrously confident, he almost walks away with the whole film. You can’t help but admire a horror sequel that throws out the rulebook, even if it doesn’t know what to do next.
From a visual standpoint, the 4K upgrade does wonders for the film’s murky cinematography. There are moments of genuine atmosphere: the flickering lights of the Voorhees house, the glistening gore, the dark sheen of rain on backwoods roads. The film looks better than it has any right to. But no amount of remastering can tidy up a script this chaotic.
As a Friday the 13th entry, it flounders. But as a curiosity, a relic of early ’90s horror that tried to inject supernatural lore into a slasher icon, it has a strange appeal. It’s not good, but it is memorable. And in a series where sameness is often the enemy, Jason Goes to Hell stands out for daring to be different, even if it ultimately collapses under the weight of its own ideas.
A mess, yes. But an oddly fascinating one.
If the joys of revisiting this 90s gem in 4K isn’t enough, as always, Arrow delivers the restoration with bags of extras. There’s an introduction by Adam Marcus, and interviews new and old with cast and crew, including SFX maestro Robert Kurtzman. You also get the slightly extended ‘unrated cut’ to accompany the theatrical release, plus all that glorious Arrow artwork.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
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