Jason Goes To Hell was my entryway into the Friday the thirteenth franchise. A junior in highschool, I’d lately fallen in love with Scream and overcome my childhood concern of slasher killers. My boyfriend recommended we watch certainly one of his favorites: the ninth and purportedly “closing” installment within the storied franchise. On the time I used to be in full settlement with Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and had little interest in a formulaic movie. “What’s the purpose,” I quoted, “they’re all the identical.” However he assured me this one was particular.
I begrudgingly pushed play and was hooked from the opening scene. Whereas opinions fluctuate wildly about Jason Goes to Hell, there’s little question director Adam Marcus is swinging for the fences. The plot is joyfully bananas and ends in a smorgasbord of murderous possession, decaying our bodies, magic books, and minions from hell. However amidst the B-movie lunacy, lies a artistic movie that breaks the slasher mildew and pokes enjoyable at itself whereas taking the franchise in an sudden route.
Right here’s why I nonetheless love essentially the most underrated chapter within the Friday the thirteenth saga.
1. The Intro
At first look, the film begins like every other: a lovely lady making unhealthy choices. She arrives at a Crystal Lake cabin and wastes no time moving into the bathe. When a pesky lightbulb burns out once more, she investigates the darkened room and finds Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) getting ready to strike. Carrying solely a towel, she runs for her life by the moonlit woods. We’re sure this poor, clueless lady is about to endure a horrendous dying when huge flood lights illuminate the clearing. The girl, Elizabeth Marcus F.B.I. (Julie Michaels), dives behind a barricade whereas a veritable SWAT workforce opens fireplace. They riddle Jason with a whole lot of bullets earlier than dropping a bomb and blowing him to bits.
It’s a improbable twist on a drained sample. Feigning helplessness, Elizabeth makes use of her sexuality to lure Jason right into a entice whereas sustaining management all the time. Marcus deliberately created essentially the most stereotypical opening possible, enjoying with the viewers’s expectations earlier than turning the style on its head.
2. The Gore
Friday the thirteenth movies have at all times pushed the envelope in particular results, starting with Tom Savini’s spectacular work within the authentic movie. Jason Goes to Hell turns the gore as much as eleven and revels in disgusting dismemberment, decay, and disintegration. Because the opening credit roll, Marcus lingers on shut photographs of Jason’s mangled physique whereas Coroner Phil (Richard Gant) stares at his jumbo-sized coronary heart. Entranced by evil, the nonetheless beating organ one way or the other compels him to take a chunk. He devours the guts as a sinister black fluid pours down his chin and his eyes start to shine with murderous glee.
Whereas this scene could trigger audiences to place down their popcorn, a later sequence proves to be equally disgusting. Possessed by Jason’s stressed spirit, a doomed cop’s physique begins to quickly soften right into a gooey mess. Like a contemporary pizza with too many toppings, the person’s jaw sinks to the ground, related solely by strings of liquifying flesh.
3. The Possession
Speedy opinions from the movie’s detractors lamented the shortage of conventional Jason. Once more enjoying with viewers expectations, Marcus obliterates his titular antagonist simply minutes into the movie. Although Jason does return moments later, it’s solely in spirit. Bounty hunter Creighton Duke (Steven Williams) explains that the Crystal Lake killer is greater than the physique of an undead maniac and might be contained inside any certainly one of us. We watch Jason’s spirit bounce from physique to physique, providing infinite variations of the enduring monster.
Marcus additionally will get factors for tying the movie to a different legendary horror franchise. The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis could be seen within the deserted Voorhees home, implying that Jason is a Deadite of Evil Lifeless fame. And Jason can solely be killed by a Kandarian dagger as seen in Sam Raimi’s traditional collection.
4. The Tropes
Although Jason Goes to Hell is way from a conventional slasher, Marcus does take pleasure in some normal tropes. Whereas driving alongside a moonlit highway, Steven (John D. LeMay) picks up a trio of hitchhikers headed to Crystal Lake. Effectively conscious of the slasher lore, he asks in the event that they’re planning on, “smoking a bit of dope, having a bit of premarital intercourse and getting slaughtered?” This harkens again to the unique movie during which debaucherous camp counselors have been punished for making love whereas a younger Jason drowned.
After eight installments of the horrific story, these teenagers already know the principles Randy Meeks (Jaime Kennedy) will define simply three years later. After a lifetime of concern, they lastly really feel protected skinny dipping in Crystal Lake now that the camp’s one-man morality police has been eradicated. Sadly, Phil/Jason is again on the beat. Whereas a doomed younger lady rides her boyfriend, Jason impales her with a metallic rod then pulls it upward to separate her in two. It’s a stunning second of intimate gore and one of the brutal deaths in all the franchise–made worse by the truth that we by no means discover out what occurs to her traumatized boyfriend.
5. The Household
Admittedly, one of the weird parts of this convoluted plot is the connection to Jason’s dwelling family. Borrowing from the Halloween franchise, Jason immediately has a secret sister, Diana (Erin Grey), who now tries to neglect about her undead sibling. Sadly destiny has different concepts. It appears Jason can solely be killed (or rebirthed) by a blood relative, placing the frightened waitress in mortal hazard. Now that he’s misplaced his authentic physique, Jason wants Diana, her daughter Jessica (Kari Keegan), or toddler granddaughter to supply a proxy for his resurrection.
The unique Friday the thirteenth gave us certainly one of American horror’s first nice feminine villains positioning Jason because the manifestation of a grieving mom’s rage. Now a three-generation matriarchy stands as the only line of protection towards this unstoppable killer.
6. The Human Monster
Although Jason could have simply been brutally killed, one other villain steps into his place. Robert Campbell (Steven Culp) anchors American Casefile, an exploitative True Crime TV collection. Hoping for salacious content material, Robert begins courting Jessica solely due to her connection to Jason. When Diana is murdered by a decaying avatar, he steals her physique in a despicable plan to “uncover” it on air. Regaling his producer along with his devious success, he claims, “I stole Diana’s physique and I hid it right here within the closet. After which I went residence and f*cked her daughter.” It’s a pleasure to see his physique brutally commandeered by Jason moments later.
Robert/Jason stalks Jessica and her child by the city, struggling a collection of cathartic deaths in his unsuccessful try and move on the demon.
7. The Bounty Hunter
Whereas planning his sensational protection, Robert contacts a bounty hunter acquainted with the case. Creighton Duke has spent his life chasing the Crystal Lake killer and is the one one who is aware of methods to take the beast down. Although Duke’s intentions are virtuous, his strategies defy classification. He’ll solely give Steven essential data whereas breaking his fingers one after the other, and he kidnaps Jessica’s child to lure her to the Voorhees home. With a perpetual gleam in his mischievous eyes, it’s not possible to know if Duke is buddy or foe.
Regardless of his confounding motivations, Duke is an thrilling unfastened canon on this wild story and delivers fascinating additions to the Friday the thirteenth canon.
8. The Humor
Along with copious quantities of grisly gore, Jason Goes to Hell is bizarrely hilarious. With information of the monster’s demise, Joey B. (Rusty Schwimmer) presents a “Jason is Lifeless 2 for 1 Burger Sale” at her namesake diner. Within the wake of Diana’s homicide, she arms herself with a gun she barely is aware of methods to use. Whereas shape-shifting Jason is undoubtedly terrifying, he’s additionally shockingly petty. After escaping the morgue in Phil’s physique, he walks in the direction of the elevator however turns round when he hears disparaging remarks from two safety guards cracking jokes about his ugly demise. We then minimize to footage displaying their brutalized corpses implying that Jason has gone out of his technique to punish them for his or her ill-timed snark.
9. The Tease
After seven sequels (one subtitled The Last Chapter) did anybody actually imagine this may be Jason’s swan tune? Dragged to hell by devilish minions, a stray canine scratches across the scene of Jason’s “dying” and uncovers a discarded hockey masks. Moments later, a well-known glove with knives for fingers drags the deserted masks into the crumbling earth, organising a long-anticipated monster showdown. Audiences must wait one other ten years to see Jason battle his iconic foe, however this coda stays one of the thrilling closing teases in horror historical past.
After a decade dominated by more and more predictable slashers, the early ’90s started to see deviations from the norm. In 1994, Wes Craven would launch the proto-meta-slasher New Nightmare earlier than reinventing the style with the 1996 masterpiece Scream. However earlier than these two iconic movies redefined the style, Jason Goes to Hell broke the slasher mildew. Sure, it’s a schlocky gore-fest with a nonsensical plot, however this enjoyably ridiculous “so unhealthy it’s good” movie deconstructed a well-known idea and commenced pushing horror in the direction of a brand new technique to slash.
