Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) (USA)

aka Friday the 13th Part IX

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Wonderfully, a trap is set and Jason is blown to pieces in the opening of this ninth entry to the long-running slasher series. Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a movie if this kept the hulking psychopath down. The essence of his evil lives on in his black heart and when a coroner is supernaturally compelled to consume that heart and the black viscus fluid within it, he is possessed by the hockey-masked monster. This leads to more death, as the spirit of Jason jumps from body to body and hunts down his half-sister (I’m just as surprised as you), his niece and her newborn daughter. He’s gonna need her to get himself reborn into this world (I know, I’m still just as surprised as you). A bounty hunter (Steven fuckin’ Williams) shows up to lend his expertise, collect on 500,000 bucks (the man knows his Voorhees) and help the woman and her family put an end to the Jason curse for good. There’s a slimy news anchor hanging around (he offered that 500,000 dollar bounty) and the niece’s boyfriend (cleverly casting John D LeMay from the TV series of the same name that had nothing to do with one of America’s favorite slashers) is being fingered for the murder of Jason’s half-sister (after all, the cops think the big man is long gone). That charming pixie-of-a-man Leslie Jordan is there, we get to see the old Voorhees house (way larger than I thought it would be), a man gets bound and shaved (less sexier than I thought it would be), the Necronomicon shows up, a dude melts, necrophilia is implied, violent ends hit a good amount of folks, we get some bewbs and a familiar glove makes an appearance. I appreciate the different spin on things and Steven Williams is fan-fuckin-tastic as the obsessed man who knows how to end things for good, stealing every scene he’s in. A little extra effort goes a long way in adding some spice to the franchise and I’ll always love me a “magic” dagger (ya got to put it through the heart, ya know). There’s a lot of forgettable characters, the niece of Jason being the most damning, and as intriguing as the direction is, it still feels a little underdeveloped.