"The Final Chapter" is widely regarded by "Friday" fans as one of the best sequels in the series, and the best of the original four films. Call me an oddball, but I'm just not feeling it. Like all "Friday" movies, this one is still largely entertaining for sure, but there's something different this time around. It's not just the addition of a kid into the usual mix of horny teenagers, or the fact that we see a family in peril for once--it's the atmosphere and tone of the film that feels off.
The plot picks up directly where part III left off: Jason is "dead" and taken to the morgue, where we encounter some of the most irresponsible and vile hospital workers I've seen in a horror film. After dry humping near Jason's dead body (was the setting a turn-on?), our masked hero wakes up and the carnage begins anew. This time around, the setting for Jason's massacre is two adjacent houses in the middle of the country: one occupied by the Jarvis family (with young Corey Feldman playing Tommy Jarvis, a character who would go on to be in the next two sequels), and the other by a vacationing group of young, slutty teenagers. You can guess what happens when Jason makes his way from the morgue to find more kids partying on his lake.
While the acting is probably the best of the series and Tom Savini returns to do the gory make-up effects once again after being absent since the original, something just doesn't quite feel right here. Maybe it's the fact that this is the first film in the series to feel so obviously '80s, or the fact that none of the teenagers are likable in this one. Among the usual group of stereotypes, we get two twins, one of whom wastes no time in trying to sleep with every male member of the cast (even while their girlfriends stand by watching), and a young Crispin Glover, who has a bit of a problem in the bedroom department. The guys exist to constantly compete with the women or pick on one another. As for the Jarvis family, young Corey Feldman is certainly likable as Tommy, and Kimberly Beck is a nice addition to the cast. There is also a sub-plot involving a character named Rob, whose sister was one of Jason's victims in the previous films. Now he's out to avenge her death.
The film suffers from some odd and confusing editing in the third act. Jason seems to be all over the place with no rhyme or reason to his actions. One second he's outside, then he's up on the roof, then he's out by Rob's tent in the woods, then he's in the living room, then he's outside again...I'm not sure if this was how the script was written, but it sure was pretty confusing trying to figure out why Jason couldn't just make things easier on himself. At one point, after Jason dispatches of one of the kids in the kitchen, instead of going straight into the living room to pick off his next victim, he goes back outside and goes onto the roof to get someone in an upstairs bedroom. Far be it from me to question Jason's methods, but this seems rather impractical.
The chase sequence at the end is certainly not a let-down, with Jason managing to be truly scary at some points. To those who claim Jason never ran, you obviously haven't seen this film.
As for the most advertised part of the film--Jason's demise--it is good, if not somewhat anticlimactic. But of course, we all know it wasn't the end anyway.
While I consider this the weakest entry out of the original four films, it is still certainly worth a watch. If you loved the previous films, you'll like this one. I just didn't have as much fun this time around.
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