For those who haven’t seen Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter, this article contains spoilers.
Jason Voorhees is one of the most enduring figures in horror. Regardless if you love or hate the franchise, there’s no denying its impact on popular culture. Often overlooked is what went into making the 12-film series. Through extensive research and interviews, I’m inviting you to take a closer look at each of the Friday The 13th films. This is Crystal Lake Confessional.
Bringing the Crystal Lake saga to a close meant a grand finale for Jason Voorhees and his three-film arc. No theatrical gimmicks or disco-funk theme songs, Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter was put into development as the end of an era. Despite Part 3 being another success for Paramount Pictures, the slasher boom was showing signs of fatigue. Producer Frank Mancuso Jr felt pushing the horror element to the forefront was the only way the franchise could go out on top.
After the complicated shoot of Part 3, Steve Miner turned down the opportunity to direct The Final Chapter, leaving Mancuso Jr scrambling to find a competent filmmaker before the fall start date. Impressed with the graphically violent slasher, The Prowler, Paramount reached out to director Joseph Zito and hired him after only one meeting.
Paramount was convinced Zito’s knack for nightmarish surrealism would be the perfect way to end the franchise.
Although Zito was originally hired to both write and direct, he took it upon himself to employ a writer, Barney Cohen, to help flesh out the script. To avoid issues with the union, Zito paid Cohen out of his own pocket. The finished product was lean, focused, and grounded in reality, bringing the horror elements front and center. Unlike Parts 2 and 3, Jason wasn’t presented as a local legend but a seemingly unstoppable serial killer.
Going in knowing this was to be the finale, it was important to Zito and Cohen to bookend the film with a dead Jason. The Final Chapter begins the second Part 3 ends. Local authorities are all over Chris Higgins’ summer home removing all the bodies, including Jason. Later that night it’s revealed Jason wasn’t dead but in a death-like coma.
Jason kills the coroner, flees the hospital and makes his way back to Crystal Lake to continue his killing spree.
The next day we’re introduced to the Jarvis family, living near the lake. The recently divorced Mrs. Jarvis, the conservative oldest daughter Trish and her younger brother Tommy. Meanwhile, a group of suburban teenagers rents the house next door for a weekend of partying. Plans are ruined, the body count rises, and Jason’s murderous rampage continues.
For the first time in the series, the cast is the brightest element of The Final Chapter. Each teenager has a fleshed-out arc and genuine dialogue. They feel like teenagers the viewer knew growing up, or even themselves. This intimacy alone places the film well above the standard slasher movie fare.
In addition to unforgiving horror, Zito was adamant about having the young cast relatable.
In fact, he instructed Cohen to not write elaborate death scenes to trivialize their ends. Zito felt if the audience genuinely cared for the characters, anything happening to them would carry more weight. This was something both Miner and Cunningham failed in their respective films. The chemistry of the young actors was so good, Zito welcomed natural conversation. Most of Ted and Jimmy’s scenes (portrayed by Lawrence Monoson and pre-Back To The Future Crispin Glover) were improvised. The chemistry between characters is that good.
Adding a layer of nuance, Jason was played by legendary Hollywood stuntman, Ted White. His portrayal is a constant source of dread throughout the film. Even when he is kept in the shadows, Jason is never fully hidden. White sheds the cartoonish villainy for a brooding and menacing character monstrous enough to kill anyone who gets in his way, from innocent bystanders to a child.
The Jarvis family is the greatest asset to The Final Chapter.
Bringing in a family, especially one with a child, changes the dynamic dramatically. Each character is oddly specific and relatable. The Jarvis family are outsiders. Trish wants nothing more than to hang out with the teens next door but she knows her mother doesn’t approve so she gives her no grief. Tommy (wonderfully portrayed by pre-Goonies Corey Feldman) is a horror-obsessed mechanic. When he isn’t helping fix technical issues with the family car, he’s hand-crafting horrific Halloween masks (an obvious nod to special FX guru Tom Savini). But each character’s nuanced performances are real and heightens the tension.
Zito and Cohen go to great lengths to project Tommy as Jason’s most vulnerable victim and in an unexpected twist, a potential new Jason. But most importantly, Tommy is a metaphoric representation of the Friday The 13th fanbase. He’s a lonely kid who looks at horror movies and faux-gore as a means of entertainment where others would turn away. In the third act, Tommy utilizes his penchant for horror to create a unique distraction long enough to hack Jason to death with a machete.
For all intents and purposes, The Final Chapter defies the typical slasher movie and becomes a straight-up horror movie.
An effective one at that. Everything from set design, writing, and Savini’s FX are there to elevate the horror. When Jason is on the screen, it counts. When he kills, it counts. Even when characters are annoying, you’re never rooting for him. It’s not only the best-paced film in the franchise but a strong contender for one of the best-paced horror films of all time.
As far as everyone working on the film was concerned, The Final Chapter was the legitimate finale. So instead of leaving an ambiguous ending alluding to Jason’s survival, Zito closes the film with an interesting question. What kind of damage did this trauma do to Tommy? Could Jason’s evil be contagious? As Trish and Tommy embrace after surviving their ordeal, Tommy stares ominously at the viewer before the screen fades to white. Leaving Tommy’s fate up to the viewer is just another layer of dread that permeates The Final Chapter.
It’s interesting how the unrelenting, bleak nature of the film insinuates there are no winners in life.
While surviving a marathon of grisly murders, you would think the survivor could breathe a sigh of relief. A glimmer of hope despite taking down a seemingly unstoppable adversary. But The Final Chapter suggests that even victory could come at a cost. The horrors in life are bigger than a singular monster behind a hockey mask and inside of us all along.
The subtle peek of introspective horror clearly struck a nerve with audiences. The Final Chapter took $11 million dollars in its opening weekend and closed its theatrical run at $33 million. Like the 3 films before it, The Final Chapter received mostly negative reviews from critics yet currently stands as the highest-rated entry in the series. While Mancuso Jr may have originally intended a grand finale, multiplex receipts proved The Final Chapter was just the beginning.
Catch up with previous installments of Crystal Lake Confessional here.
Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – –Part 6 – Part 7
Part TS – Part 8 – Part 9 – Part HM – Part 10 – Part FvJ – Part 2009