| Friday the 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter Released: 1984 MPAA Rating: R Genre: Slasher Nuts and Bolts: Jason Voorhees rises from the dead to return to his fabled campground. As a group of college kids rent a cabin for the summer, they slowly fall victim to Jason’s wrath. Only one will survive to end Jason’s rampage once and for all! Summary: Police vehicles and paramedics converge on the scene of Jason Voorhees’ last bloody rampage at Camp Crystal Lake. But unlike previous massacres, this one yields a slightly different result; Jason is dead! Having been hung by Chris in Friday the 13th Part 3, Jason’s body is collected by paramedics and taken to the morgue. At the morgue, a coroner named Axel tries to get frilly with Nurse Morgan while Jason’s body lies prone on the stretcher. Unbeknownst to the two, Jason revives himself and promptly slaughters both staff members. We now cut to the countryside not too far away from Camp Crystal Lake. A new gang of victims-to-be drive along in their car on their way to a house they rented for the summer. Included in this cast are: Sara (The virgin), Doug (her boyfriend), Jimmy (The geek), Ted (The horn-dog), Paul and his girlfriend Samantha. The twins Tina and Terri later join them. Across the way from the summer retreat is the Jarvis home, where Mrs. Jarvis routinely jogs around the camp with her daughter Trish while her son Tommy (Corey Feldman) stays at home making life-like horror monster masks. And rounding out the cast is the enigmatic Rob Dire, who has set up a tent in the middle of the woods for the purposes of bear hunting (Or so he says). Trish and Tommy meet their new neighbors and Trish is invited to party with them down by the lake. The partiers go down to the lake and begin skinny-dipping. Teddy berates his pal Jimmy for being such a loser and constantly refers to him as a dead fuck. Meanwhile Samantha tries to cajole the ultra-prim Sarah into swimming with them. Sara is definitely the black sheep of this little troupe and has no interest in skinny-dipping with her amoral friends. Trish and Tommy come upon the scene and Tommy gets a bit of an education watching the older men and women cavorting about naked. Trish takes her brother back up to their car. This is when they meat the backpacking mountain man, Rob Dire. Trish is smitten by Rob and offers him a ride back to their house. When they ask what he is doing around these parts, he tells them that he is bear hunting. Tommy instantly knows that Rob is lying. Rob spends a few moments at the Jarvis home before returning to his tent in the woods. Later that night, the college kids begin partying again at their house. Samantha gets angered at her boyfriend Paul who seems to be paying a little too much attention to the redheaded Terri. Samantha storms off in a huff and decides to go skinny dipping in the lake again. She swims out to a raft and hops in. While lying in the raft, Jason Voorhees erupts from the water and shoves a knife up through the bottom of the raft into Samantha’s stomach. Now the fun begins. Back at the house, Tina has taken an interest in Jimmy and the two go upstairs to make love. Unlike most horror movie victims, the two actually succeed in fulfilling their sexual escapade before being slaughtered by Jason. An elated Jimmy comes downstairs to brag to Teddy about how he is no longer a dead-fuck. Meanwhile Jason begins working his way through the rest of the crew. Paul is the next to go followed shortly by Terri who had decided to leave. Terri is killed off panel. (Although we DO see her body later) At this point, Trish decides to investigate the mystery behind our rugged hunter. She comes upon Rob’s tent and learns that he is not really hunting bear. Rob is the older brother of Sandra Dire, another of Jason’s victims. (Sandra was the girl from Friday the 13th part 2 who was impaled on a spear while making love to her boyfriend Jeff.) He has collected many newspaper clippings of Jason including an artist’s rendition of what Jason may have looked like as a boy. He is determined to hunt down Jason and avenge his sister’s death. They return to the Jarvis home only to discover that Mrs. Jarvis is nowhere to be found. Back at the cabin, Jimmy goes into the kitchen to crack open a bottle of wine while Teddy watches old burlesque movies. Sara and Doug meanwhile have decided to take a shower upstairs. Jason enters the kitchen and kills Jimmy. He then surreptitiously enters the living room and stabs Teddy through the back of the head with a blade of some kind. Jason then goes upstairs where Sara and Doug have just finished making love in the shower. Jason crushes Doug’s skull and takes to Sara with his machete. In the immortal words of Tanjina from Poltergeist, “This house is clean now.” Now it’s just a matter of walking across the path to take care of those pesky Jarvis people. As per custom, Jason cuts the power to the Jarvis home casting the house into darkness. Trish and Rob go down in the cellar to check the fuse box. But Jason is already down there and Rob and he get into a throw down. Rob’s a pretty big boy and one would expect he would make a pretty decent showing. But alas, Jason stabs him to death quite quickly. He then takes to Trish who flees to the neighbors’ house. As Trish is racing through the home she comes upon the bodies of all of Jason’s earlier victims. Jason follows her over and the two play cat and mouse for a bit. Trish even manages to brain him with a hammer and hack him with his own machete. But that’s not enough to stop our boy and he chases her back to the Jarvis home. Meanwhile, Tommy decides to use a little child psychology on Jason. (Where have we seen THIS before?) Recalling the artist’s rendering, Tommy shaves his head in order to resemble Jason the way he would have looked when he was eleven years old. Jason is getting ready to kill Trish when he sees the now bald Tommy. Tommy keeps uttering the words “remember” over and over again. Jason pauses and seems to be caught in a hypnotic trance for just a moment. However he notices Trish getting up behind him and snaps out of it to attack her again. While Jason’s back is turned, Tommy leaps down picking up the killer’s bloody machete. He swings it about burying it deep into Jason’s skull. Jason falls forward, his face sliding down the blade of the machete. Believing the debacle to be over, Tommy and Trish rush to each other in a heart felt embrace. But out of the corner of Tommy’s eye, he sees Jason’s fingers begin to twitch. Tommy totally loses his fucking mind here and begins to hack away at Jason. Screaming “Die!” over and over he chops Jason Voorhees up into tiny pieces. Acting/Dialogue: There’s nothing really noteworthy here. Both acting and dialogue are what one would expect from a mid 80s slasher horror film. I suppose the worst part would be that there is nothing going on that really endears you to any of the characters. Most of them come off as flat and kind of boring. In the case of characters such as Teddy and Jimbo, they become so freaking annoying that you actually wish they would get killed sooner just so you don’t have to listen to them anymore. Gore: There are some nice gruesome bits in this film, but nothing that really compares to its predecessors. A particularly nice scene is when Jason nails Jimmy’s hands to the doorframe leaving his body to hang there. He later needs to make use of the egress and mercilessly tears the corpse down ripping Jimmy’s hands through the nails. Shweet. Then there’s the coup de grace. FX maestro Tom Savini gives our hero a gory send off as Tommy buries a machete horizontally across the left side of Jason’s face. Jason then falls forward onto the floor and we see his ruined features slowly sliding down the length of the blade. Guilty Pleasures: If you are into T&A, then this film delivers. Nearly the entire cast goes skinny-dipping and we are treated to boobs and butts galore. There is also a slightly humorous scene later, when the stoned Teddy is watching film reels of old burlesque strippers. Fairly amusing. The Good: Friday the 13th Part 4 represents what was originally meant to be the Swan Song to the Friday series. In this we are treated to the FINAL death of Jason Voorhees. Many fans regard this film as the last of the dignified Friday movies. Personally, I believe that Part 3 represented the last of the dignified Fridays, and this film marks the first of what we informally refer to as the Zombie-Jason flicks. In the first three films, the producers take our suspension of disbelief and push it to its utmost extremes. But despite Jason’s fantastic fortitude, he is still mortal and thus the movies are still somewhat ground in reality. Friday Part 4 not only pushes the envelope, but actually shreds it to pieces like Humpty Dumpty on a bad day. For the first time, we are introduced to the supernatural elements of the Jason story. Now although Jason has just returned from the dead, he is still somewhat human looking. Which is to say, he still has a human looking complexion and he still produces the occasional grunt of pain or heavy breathing. He still has a portion of his memories it would be interesting to see his perspective concerning his own apparent death and resurrection. There is one scene that I believe helps to illustrate this. As the college kids are on their way to the country, they pass a small cemetery containing the headstone of Pamela Voorhees. Moments later, Jason appears and we can assume that he was visiting his mother’s grave. This is important because it showcases how Jason still maintains a bit of his humanity and has not fully become a zombie killer just yet. One bit that I really enjoyed was the introductory prologue to the film. It begins as a series of vignettes showing scenes from the prior films edited in nicely within a stream of sound bites from Paul Holt’s ‘campfire tale’ from Part 2. This is a clever way to educate new viewers as to the back-story of Jason Voorhees. One of the most important pieces of archival footage is that of the death of Sandra Dire, which as we all know becomes important to the relevance of this story. Another aspect that I found to be infinitely amusing, are the similarities between this film and Friday the 13th Part 2. Both films have victims named Paul, Teddy and Terri. Both films feature a female character bathing nude in the lake at nighttime. Both feature a victim who owns a dog. Both films showcase a victim who tries to score with a babe and failing that, begins lamenting his frustration on an animal of some kind. In Friday part 2, Scott tries to score with Terri and then begins talking to her dog Muffin. In this movie, Teddy tries to score with (coincidentally enough) Terri, and then begins talking to a Teddy Bear. And last but not least, both films feature the movies’ hero using psychology to try and outfox Jason. There are some really fun moments in this film. The most notable is that of Tommy losing his mind and going ape-shit on Jason’s corpse. What is it about evil children that give us the willies? There’s also a great scene of Jason pressing his palm against Doug’s face and slowly crushing his skull into the wall of the shower. The Bad: Sadly, this film is just a pale reflection of its predecessors. I feel that Jason’s graduation from mortal to zombie really subtracts from the movie’s overall horror. A subject is more frightening if it is something that we as the viewer, can relate to. In earlier films we can almost empathize with Jason because he IS still human and we can share his sense of loss and betrayal at the hands of those bastard camp councilors. But now he is superhuman and that robs us of the ability to sympathize. As such, the suspense is not nearly as intense in this and even the gore is somewhat sublime. Jason no longer stalks his prey. He just pops up whenever it is most convenient and hacks them down. We never get the feeling of the unseen sadistic voyeur watching us as we sit feeling safe in our homes. With this film, the story of Jason Voorhees ceases to be one of psychological horror and merely becomes a splatter-house film. I’m also not a real big fan of pointless filler. There’s a scene like this fairly close to the beginning of the film. The carload of college kids is driving along the pike when they pass a fat hippie chick hitchhiking on the side of the road. They razz her and continue on their way. She in turn flashes a sign that says, “Fuck You” and extends them the finger. Apparently this has happened to her before. Frustrated she sits down and begins to ravenously devour a banana. Jason appears from behind and kills her. This scene appears to serve no other purpose than to extend the running time of the film and to up the body count. One part that really disappointed me involved the character of Rob. Throughout the course of the film, we are led to believe that we are going to see a real down and dirty knuckleduster between Jason and he. But Rob proves to be very little of threat and I don't even think he gets a solid punch in. Jason corners him in the basement and stabs him multiple times. The scene is mostly kept in the shadows and was an extreme let down. And lastly, there is the matter of Jason’s death scene. I really hate saying anything negative about Tom Savini, but I do have slight issue with this scene. Now don’t get me wrong; I LOVE the way they decide to finally put an end to Jason Voorhees. But as soon as Trish smacks the hockey mask off his head exposing his face, you can’t help but groan with disappointment. The actor looks like he is wearing a mask in this and the latex prosthetics used for his disfiguring features are quite apparent. In Friday the 13th Part 3, we see his face and we are repulsed because it is not only grotesque but is gruesomely realistic as well. In this, he just looks like a wax dummy. Great Lines: “Die! Die! Die!” --Tommy Jarvis going fucking berserk on Jason’s corpse. “Well what does it say?” “It says…it says you’re a dead fuck.” “A what?” “A dead fuck. A bad lay.” --Teddy analyzing Jimmy’s sexual prowess on an imaginary computer. “Jesus Christmas! Holy Jesus God damn! Holy Jesus jumping Christmas shit!” --Axel reacting when Jason’s dead hand falls from the stretcher. Overall Rating: 6 out of 10 severed heads. |
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