Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
Evil has finally found a home.
Year of Release: 1993
Also Known As: Friday the 13th Part IX
Genre: Horror
Rated: Not Rated
Running Time: 91 minutes (1:31)
Director: Adam Marcus
Cast:
John D. LeMay ... Steven Freeman
Kari Keegan ... Jessica Kimble
Kane Hodder ... Jason Voorhees / Security Guard #2 / Freddy Krueger's arm
Steven Williams ... Creighton Duke
Steven Culp ... Robert Campbell
Erin Gray ... Diana Kimble
Rusty Schwimmer ... Joey B.
Richard Gant ... Coroner
Leslie Jordan ... Shelby
Billy Green Bush ... Sheriff Ed Landis
Kipp Marcus ... Officer Randy Parker
Andrew Bloch ... Josh
Adam Cranner ... Ward
Allison Smith ... Vicki
Summary:
Jason Voorhees, the living, breathing essence of evil, is back for one fierce, final fling. Tracked down and blown to bits by a special FBI task force, everyone now assumes that he's finally dead. But everybody assumes wrong. Jason has been reborn with the bone-chilling ability to assume the identity of anyone he touches. The terrifying truth is he could be anywhere. Or anybody.
Review:
Jason Goes to Hell, remindin' us that there *is* such a thing as gettin' too much credit. You've really gotta wonder after all these years if Sean Cunningham appreciates that "the creator of the first returns to bring you the last" tagline bein' plastered all over the promo poster. Now, if you're readin' this Sean, don't get me wrong; *I* like the movie just fine, but the folks on the IMDB seem to lack my enthusiasm. Seriously though, the studio hadda know what to expect, havin' seen what happened when the Halloween folks ignored all their previous canon an made Season of the Witch. I liked that one too, but let's face it; that thing flopped with the fan base harder'n Big Van Vader slippin' off the high dive, an then the Friday the 13th people went an did the same thing. This's why we need film historians, cause there's always gotta be somebody at the script meeting capable of warnin' the executives about the mistakes of the past. Course after that they've got nothin' left to do but sit there powerless to stop 'em from ignorin' every word, graph, chart, an financial report that's been presented on the subject, but hey, it pays the bills.
An speakin' of stuff nobody wants to listen to; why is it that as human beins we're unable to just ignore the noise when some horrible racket starts up? We *know* the source of the commotion is gonna complicate our lives, but we ALWAYS hafta check it out anyway. Neighbor's wife's standin' out in the street screamin' somethin' along the lines of: "You'll never be able to keep that little tramp with an oyster mallet that small! An don't you come grovelin' to me the next time your worthless hide passes out on your tackle box an ends up with an ass fulla rooster tails neither!", so what do we do? Open the door to watch, of course. Which inevitably ends with the gal spottin' you, invitin' 'erself into your livin' room, an unloadin' every infraction the jerk's committed over the last 32 years, startin' with the time he danced with that slut, Tonya Sanchez, at the prom while she was gone to the can. So we *know* that investigatin' the noise always ends badly, but we keep doin' it anyway, why? Reason I bring this up is cause the other night I was sittin' in my recliner eatin' a macaroni an hotdog burrito, mindin' my own business, watchin' Night of the Living Dead again, when this godawful racket erupts from the wood stove. Course, like every other night around dinner time, Apollo has his chin restin' on my knee while he stares at me like he hadn't had anything to eat since Reagan ripped Carter's solar panels offa the White House. Then, all the sudden, this god awful racket explodes outta the stove an he immediately whips his head around, knocks the TV tray over, an sends my pop can flyin' through the air like a Tomahawk missile, until it ultimately comes to rest in a box of old Betamax tapes I'd grabbed at a yard sale an hadn't gotten around to puttin' away yet. So about 10 seconds pass an the noise's gettin' louder an angrier, an we both creep over real slow like to have a look, when all the sudden this FLAMING CROW comes flyin' outta there. Goddamned thing sets the antelope mount on fire, then the bed sheet coverin' the bathroom doorway, an all the while Apollo's chasin' it from one end of the house to the other tryin' to bring it down. Slipped on the linoleum three or four times, ran his face into the fridge, busted five cups I had sittin' on the night stand includin' my collectible '92 - '93 Portland Trailblazers Dairy Queen glass of Cliff Robinson (which was my favorite one) with his tail. Guess mosta you already heard what happened after he eventually ran it into the back room where I do my reloadin'. I'm hopin' I can get a new window installed before it snows again. As for the walls, I'm prolly gonna hafta make like The Rolling Stones an paint 'em black, cause the explosion pretty well coated everything with soot that seared its way into the drywall, an nothin' I've tried seems to take it off. The one saving grace is that the celebratory gunfire from the election still hasn't stopped around here, so Sheriff Hardassian musta assumed it was just some goob firin' off a cannon when the bird landed on my powder keg. Ah well, I guess these things happen.
It's alright though, I ain't gonna let a minor thing like a foot of snow in my back room ruin the holiday. That's right, it's that time of the month again. Time for the J-man to grab his toolbox an start turnin' more teenagers into summer camp sausage. It's Friday the 13th, an even though New Line was too cheap to pay for the name, we all know the drill. Only downside this time around is somebody brought this gallon size Ziploc freezer bag fulla cocaine to the writers' brainstormin' session, an when everybody finally emerged two weeks later they realized they'd just stolen the plot to The Hidden. Actually, they did more'n that, cause the title of this flick really aughta be called "Canon Goes to Hell," but we're gonna keep an open mind about things. So, as a gesture of goodwill, I'd like for everyone to take a quick look at these fascinatin' rules to live by that I dredged up outta this mess. First, never kiss on the first date. Cause if the person's possessed by a sentient demonic gutworm the size of a muskrat, they just might slip ya more than the tongue. Second, a label reading: "eyes only" on a binder is not an effective way of securing classified information. Somebody might wanna let the DNC know about that one. An third, when the woman starts crying, the shower scene is pretty well ruined. But ya know, I think this flick really stuck its foot in the proverbial turd when it comes to future sequels, cause now everybody knows how to get the drop on Jason. See, normally, if a dozen or so people go stompin' around in Jason's woods he can sense it from halfway across Crystal Lake an turn 'em into bumpkin pie filling inside 30 seconds. However, it seems that if you stick an entire army of FBI SWAT Beret Seals out there to wander around, the vibrations in the ground become so intense that the J-man's mental trespasser receptacles get jammed up like a covert pipe fulla beer cans, which causes a complete shut down of his brain. It's like tryin' to get your Pentium II processor to run RealPlayer, AOL Instant Messenger, an Yahoo! Spades all at the same time, the poor thing just can't handle the load an dies. So by the time it gets itself back online, it dunno what the heck happened or how long it's been out. I know this hasta be what's goin' on here, cause the only other possibility is some screenwriter's just tryin' to pull a fast one on us an hope we'll be so dazzled by his big action sequence that we'll forget everything we've learned about Jason up to this point. Now surely to heck they wouldn't try something as silly as that, knowin' everyone watchin' has already bore witness to Jason's previous seven outings, would they?
The movie begins with this gal drivin' out to Crystal Lake all by 'er lonesome where she promptly gets nekkid an hops in the shower to wash all the enclosed space road stank off 'er, cept the lights go out almost immediately an she hasta hustle her jugs on outta there before Jason carves a swath of Double D-struction. We're talkin' vintage Jason Voorhees here; hobbled babe gimpin' it through the woods like a gut shot deer, plenty of time for the ole vanishing act routine to screw with 'er psyche, it's basically a done deal. Only when Jason eventually materializes behind 'er an rares back with his machete to see how many times he can skip 'er head across the lake, somebody kicks on the Yankee Stadium lights, an approximately 9724 FBI commandos pop up outta every crevice in the area an pump 726,000 rounds of ammunition into his water-logged body an proceed to blow what's left into zombits. Where the heck was Admiral Ackbar when he needed him? An if you think these vultures're gonna let Crystal Lake's biggest name rest in pieces you're sadly mistaken. Oh no, then they wheel what's left of the severely disparted into an autopsy room where this mortician keeps crackin' jokes, that is, until Jason's heart starts beating again. I assume it must be sayin' "eat me" in Morse Code or somethin', cause that's exactly what the mortician does, an instantly gets the worst case of indigestion I've seen since Dick Buford ate 6 tubs of nachos at the Grime Time. Then all these Satanic Tinkerbells start flyin' outta the corpse an into the mortician's chest (who for all intents an purposes is now Jason), an once that's over this other mortician comes in an starts makin' disparagin' remarks about Jason's mama til the J-man gets P.O.'d an mashes the guy's face through a grate in the autopsy table an turns 'im into cube steak. The security guards outside can't seem to pass up the chance to badmouth the deceased either, an promptly join the Dead Mullet Society. Then we move on over to this TV studio where an anchorman (Robert) is pretty well ruinin' everyone's dinner by runnin' a story about the missing mortician an a whole slew of dead people between the morgue an Crystal Lake, which includes a prerecorded segment with this badass bounty hunter (Duke) who tells the guy that that little Pearl Harbor job the FBI pulled on Jason out in the woods only destroyed his body, an that he'll just start tryin' on new ones until he finds someone that fits. Duke also says that he's the only one who knows how to make Jason sleep with the fishes at the bottom of Crystal Lake, an that he'll only take care of business for half a mill. An now over to Dave with Sports.
So the next day, Duke heads out to this greasy spoon near Crystal Lake to grab lunch an tell the waitress (Diana) that he's lookin' to punch Jason's ticket an that he needs her help, only about that time the sheriff shows up an Duke... well, let's just say that Duke makes a coupla questionable invitations involvin' Diana, the sheriff, an his genitalia that result in a visit to the Crossbar Hotel. Then Diana sits down next to this wiener wearin' a junior varsity letter jacket for chess club (Steven) an invites him over to her place so they can talk about his failed relationship with her daughter (Jessica). So, upon recalling how many porno movies he's seen that begin with this exact premise, Steven agrees to drop by Diana's place that night, but first he hasta stop an pick up some teenagers who're hitchhikin' out to Crystal Lake to violate all the cardinal rules of partyin' at Jason's place on the basis that he's no longer around to enforce 'em. Joke's on them though, cause apparently Jason caught the 10pm Amtrack down to Crystal Lake, an when the kids start pissin' on his begonias an doin' squat thrusts on the shores of his incestral home, he's left with no choice but to ram a fence post through their guts to demonstrate how "cleavage" can be both a noun and a verb simultaneously. Credit where credit's due too, usually the censors won't let you get away with a double penetration scene like that, way to loosen up, guys. Then he heads over to the diner to check out the specials an gets so P.O.'d about the hours of operation that he hasta crunch some bimbo to death with the door of 'er car an kidnap 'er cop boyfriend (Josh) so he can take 'im home (yeah, Jason's had a pad this whole time), strip 'im nekkid, shave off his facial hair, an give 'im mouth to mouth fustigation. Meanwhile, Diana's gone home to wait for Steven, cept while she's talkin' to Jessica on the phone, Josh shows up an starts tryin' out some of that police brutality he's been hearin' so much about, only when she sees Jason's reflection in the mirror she grabs 'er self defense pistol an fires a coupla warning shots through his temple. Unfortunately, she's now faced with the question of whether to step directly over the corpse, or utilize any other path to leave the room, an so Jason grabs 'er ankle an tries regurgitatin' this big black squirmy critter that looks like a dried up Poblano pepper into Diana's mouth. Fortunately, Steven shows up before she gets deep-throated an pretty much gets the crap kicked out of 'im until Jason stops stompin' his face long enough to fire a kitchen knife through Diana's back. That at least gives Steven enough time to get his act together an ram a fire poker through Jason's back an send 'im stumblin' out the window, only when the sheriff shows up he's less than understanding about Steven's tale of the renegade deputy tryin' to burp up a foot long devil eel an stuff it down Diana's throat, so he introduces Steven to Miranda.
The next day, Jessica shows up at the house to mourn her mother's death for a full six seconds while the maid scrubs Mom's vital fluids outta the carpet, only that gets kinda bleak, so the two of 'em just skip it an start makin' goo-goo eyes at Jess's baby. Ain't that cute, baby's first crime scene. I sure hope somebody got a picture of the little cutie next to Gramma's spleen. Meanwhile, Steven's makin' a new friend down at the prison after gettin' stuck in the cell next to Duke. Duke thinks it's real funny an kinda ironic that Steven's gettin' blamed for the murder of his ex-girlfriend's mother before they could even get married an hafta deal with 'er constantly intrudin' on their personal lives, but other'n that they get along just fine. Really though, the reason the situation's so funny is cause they both know Jason's the one doin' the crimes while Steven serves the time, an eventually Duke lets slip that he's the only one who knows how to off Jason. This makes Steven feel so left out that he agrees to pay for the information by stickin' his paw into Duke's cell, only Duke ain't been in prison THAT long, so he just breaks a coupla Steven's fingers like a Cash Advance loan officer on delinquent accounts day. Then Duke explains that the only way to kill Jason is to destroy his heart, an that with Diana currently the front runner in the Crystal Lake County Morgue Beauty Pageant, that leaves only Jessica as a potential assassin. This goes on for awhile, with Steven's hands lookin' more'n more like a rooster comb that got bashed in with a tire iron after each Q&A session, but the long an short of it is that Jason's new bodies are gonna keep wearin' out on 'im like imported Chinese underpants from the GAP, an that the only way for him to regain his former gory is to be reborn through a Voorhees woman. Now, at this point, the writers would very much appreciate it if everybody just forgot the impassioned speech Mrs. Voorhees gave about her only child drownin' right before she went nutsoid an tried murderin' Adrienne King in the first movie, cause that was just a false flag plotline, an what's more there's nothin' to see here so we should all just move on an quit bein' such dorks. I guess. Now that I've gotten that outta my system, let's continue. Okay, so now that Steven's got the low down on Jason's exciting new backstory, he needs to get to the Voorhees House (I know, I heard it too, let's just try to get through this), so what he does is start squealin' like an old church lady who just discovered a homeless guy curled up asleep at the base of 'er organ pipe until Officer Screech comes runnin'. Fortunately for Steven, Officer Screech musta graduated from the same Police Academy as Steve Guttenberg, cause Steven gets ahold of his gun in about as much time as it takes for a stray dog to swallow a mound of roadkill, an next thing you know he's over at the Voorhees House tryin' to find Jason's diary so he can exonerate 'imself.
This's about where things start to go south, cause when he gets there he ends up havin' to hide from Robert. Robert is now tryin' to simultaneously date Jessica an jack up his show's ratins by plantin' Diana's body inside the house so he can bring in a camera crew to make the discovery, thus becoming famous enough to finally compete with John Walsh an America's Most Wanted. Fortunately for us, Jason just happens to come home about the time Goldy Crocks is settin' up for his ratins bonanza, an decides to pass his lung tar coated lamprey into Robert an save us from anymore of the bastard's creepy Jim Webb-esque smiles. Elsewhere, Jess is gettin' into the shower so that 'er tears can fade away like Rutger Hauer's memories, when all the sudden the lights go out an she ends up runnin' into Jason out in the garage tryin' to figure out what kinda wimp motel he's busted into on account of there bein' no power tools layin' around. Course, she's used to Robert (whose body Jason is now inside) starin' at 'er like a George Romero extra mosta the time, so she don't really think nothin' of it until Steven pulls up an runs the guy over like a rattler sunnin' itself on the highway. Then he kidnaps Jess an tries explainin' to 'er that 'er boyfriend's been taken over by a supernatural stomach leech that wants to get inside 'er an cause the worst labor pains in the history of mankind, an you'd THINK she'd be grateful to be findin' out about this, but instead she groins 'im, shoves 'im outta the car, an guns it on over to the cop shop. Needless to say, when Officer Screech drives out to pick up Steven, he's pretty P.O.'d about what that little escape is gonna do to his chances for advancement when a Sergeant's position opens up, an the two of 'em end up havin' a little scuffle until Screech tells 'im about Jess bein' down at the station. But in the meantime, Jason's dusted off the treadmarks an gotten his decayin' keister over to the police station where he proceeds to use the 3 Stooges cymbal skull crash to murder the night shift, an purt'near gets his mutant mollusk monstrosity down Jess's gullet, when Steven an Screech arrive just in time to bury a 9 round clip into Jason's meat tuxedo. Also of note, in the ensuing chaos, another guard goes runnin' past Duke's cell faster'n a mugger who just lifted Dolph Lundgren's wallet, allowin' Duke to put his fist up the guy's nose an swipe the key. So with that ugly episode behind 'em, Steven an Jess head over to the diner to grab an order of their offspring to go, only Jason ain't nearly far enough behind for that to go smoothly, an he wipes out the entire staff in slow motion. Snaps one guy's arm in half, drowns another in the fry daddy, an elbows the fat broad who owns the place so hard that she ends up lookin' like The Flukeman from The X-Files. Which is a real downer, cause when Jess gets back to the crib she finds a note from Duke sayin' that he's taken the baby to the Voorhees House, so she pretty much got all those people killed for nothin'. Anyhow, this's where I'm gonna cut the summary off, even though the title kinda gives away the endin'.
Alrighty, well, do you sense that the canon of the series bein' flushed down the ole crapper in favor of "new and exciting" plot possibilities kinda irks me? I mean, I like the movie alright and all. Matter of fact, I like it almost as much as The Hidden, which was a movie New Line released back in 1987 that had the same parasitic plotline wherein the evil critter controlling its human hosts hopped between bodies via people's mouths. I never have been able to get a firm grasp on why New Line did this, because even though there'd been a decline in the Friday the 13th revenues over the years, the movies still made good money despite all of them having been essentially the same. That's what people liked about it. You could miss Friday the 13th Parts 3 - 7, go see Part 8, and still know exactly what was goin' on. So it's a mystery to me why they bought the rights to the Jason character (but not the name Friday the 13th, which is why all the New Line sequels have "Jason" in the title, rather than Friday the 13th) just to ignore most of the series canon and add in a buncha new elements that they never get around to explaining. It's actually not that different from what Dimension did with the theatrical cut of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. They've got all this crapola about the villain's backstory, but not enough exposition to really explain what any of it means, or how it came to be the way that it was.
In Jason Goes to Hell, we learn that he's got this evil demon critter livin' inside him that makes him functionally immortal unless he's killed by a fellow Voorhees (of which there were none after Betsy Palmer got decapitated at the end of Part 1, which the writers of that first movie made pretty clear), and we also see the Necronomicon from The Evil Dead series in the Voorhees house at one point, but there's really nothing that definitively explains where the demon came from or why, if Jason was born evil, there was never any allusion to it before he became an adult. Not to mention why he would've stayed down long enough to be buried after being killed at the end of Part 4, or why the lightning was necessary to resurrect him at the beginning of Part 6, but I could go on like this forever and I think that by now you probably see what I'm driving at. The script is really my only objection to the movie. It's got great characters, excellent action sequences, and some really nasty special effects, I just can't stand when people screw with the canon of a series so they can do something "fresh." As though it's somehow impossible to do something new without chucking the entire history of the character. Something else I don't understand is why this movie doesn't get the kind of hate Halloween III gets, because to me, what they did here was much worse than what happened with the former title. Here, they're trying to shoehorn impossible BS into the series' history, while Halloween III simply tells a story that's wholly separate from the first two movies, with different characters. Now sure, you could argue false advertising, but it at least left the series' integrity in tact. So how come everyone thinks Halloween III's a big ripoff, while this movie gets away with historical suicide? Prolly not important in the grand scheme of things, but it bugs me.
Anyhow, let's paw through the guts on this thing and find out if its heart's as big as its colon. The plot, as previously stated, is disjointed as heck. Both in terms of its inability to reconcile all the new storylines with the history of the series, and in the sense that several scenes have some interaction or dialog that doesn't match up with what we've seen up to that point. For instance, when Duke handcuffs himself to Jason near the climax and says "son of a bitch, you remember me?", that comes completely out of nowhere, because from what we've seen, the two had never had a scene together up to that point. But apparently, the original version of the movie was over 130 minutes long and had to be pared down, and this is the likely explanation for *most* of the intra-film conflicts. Still, there's a lot of other weird stuff in it that missing footage can't explain, like why Jason feels the need to strip the cop down to the buff and shave his face. Bottom line; the script for this flick is far and away its greatest detriment, and the film fails big time with regard to this particular aspect. The acting is pretty good, with the supporting cast completely stealing the show away from the principals. Steven Williams is unquestionably the best thing about this movie. The guy's a complete badass, and his delivery has the perfect blend of mild sadism and eccentric humor. The scene that takes place in the jailhouse where Williams is breaking LeMay's fingers in exchange for the dirt on Jason is one of the highlights of the movie, and honestly, his performance alone accounts for around 10% of the movie's total score. Also highly entertaining are the couple that own the diner, played by Rusty Schwimmer and Leslie Jordan. Leslie's kind of a less sleazy version of Michael J. Pollard, and the two of them have some of the best dialog exchanges in the entire movie, in addition to their great chemistry as a rather bizarre and disgusting couple. Schwimmer's "nobody's gonna touch that fucking ray of sunshine" line after having previously been opposed to having the baby in the diner is hilarious, and her deathly serious delivery is absolutely perfect.
Here's who matters and why (less Kane Hodder, cause I'd hope there'd be no reason to hafta run through his resume): John D. LeMay (Ryan Dallian on Friday the 13th: The Series, The Freeway Maniac, The New Kids), Steven Williams (The Fear Chamber, Dark Wolf, Mr. X on The X-Files, Route 666, House, Twilight Zone: The Movie), Steven Culp (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, From Within, How to Make a Monster), Erin Gray (Hunter Prey, Ghouls, Official Denial, Colonel Wilma Deering on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century), Rusty Schwimmer (Candyman, Sleepwalkers, Highlander II), Richard Gant (Godzilla 1998, Ashes, Hood of Horror), Leslie Jordan (Fear Inc., Demonic Toys 2, Undead or Alive: A Zombedy, Madhouse 2004, Frankenstein General Hospital), Billy Green Bush (Critters, The Hitcher, The Deliberate Stranger), Andrew Bloch (Hangar 18), Allison Smith (Helter Skelter 2004, Terror Tract), Julie Michaels (The Scorpion King, Song of the Vampire, House of Frankenstein 1997, Batman & Robin, Witchboard 2, Doctor Mordrid), James Gleason (Shadow of the Blair Witch, Sawbones, My Demon Lover), Tony Ervolina (Crossworlds, Club Vampire), Blake Conway (Ghost Town 1988), Madelon Curtis (Eyes of a Stranger), Kathryn Atwood (Cyber Tracker 2, To Die for II), Diana James (Predator 2, Alien Nation, Watchers II, Terror Eyes). Fortunately for the cast (unlike the director), most of them managed to survive this flick relatively unscathed, so for those of you who enjoy snugglin' up on the couch to read Little Women, here's the list of mainstream credits. Steven Williams (Russell Lincoln on Linc's, Detective August Brooks on L.A. Heat, Captain Adam Fuller on 21 Jump Street), Steven Culp (Rex Van De Kamp on Desperate Housewives, Agent Clayton Webb on JAG), Erin Gray (Kate Summers on Silver Spoons), Richard Gant (George Washington Duke in Rocky V, Dr. Russell Ford on General Hospital, Lloyd Simpson in The Freshman, Owen Thoreau Sr. on Men of a Certain Age), Leslie Jordan (Lonnie Garr on Hearts Afire), Billy Green Bush (Elton in Five Easy Pieces, Donald in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), Kipp Marcus (Ward Cleaver on The New Leave it to Beaver), Allison Smith (Jennie Lowell on Kate & Allie), Michelle Clunie (Melanie Marcus on Queer as Folk), Michael B. Silver (Leo Cohen on NYPD Blue).
The special effects are excellent, and in several cases, pretty elaborate. Jason himself looks a little different this time around, with a head that is now completely covered with cysts. They'd done different things with his face in the past, but the cysts were an entirely new idea that, while cool looking, don't really fit in with past iterations. Of course, neither did the Jason from Part 7, and that's was probably the best version anyone ever made. Additionally we've got the bits and pieces of Jason's corpse (they look good, but there's no weight to them during the autopsy scene, and thus, they move unnaturally), Jason's bulbous heart (excellent), the mortician's face being shoved through the grate (brilliant), the steel post impalement and subsequent upward removal through the torso (very good, if a little dry), a deep fried face (brief, but good), caved in face (good, and kinda funny based upon the logistics), the compound fracturing of an arm (great), two heads being slammed together and crushed (good, if a little illogical), fire poker through the gut bucket (good), knife in the back (good), lots of bullet wounds, Jason's body exploding in the opening sequence (awesome), and a few more surprises near the end that're all very good as well. So, up to that point, this entry has not only the best special effects, but it's also the goriest movie in the series. Nicely done.
The shooting locations are kinda hit and miss. The diner is probably the best one, particularly when you get to see just about every single part of it. That fact makes it much more believable than a lot of movies where they only show the front counter. You've also got the police station (which is very authentic), the morgue (also good), the Voorhees House (bizarrely mismatched when comparing the outside to the inside), and the Crystal Lake cabin in the opening sequence (Doesn't look like a summer camp cabin at all, rather, it was probably just a residence. It actually looks a lot like the cabin from Communion). Perhaps most damning of all, though, is the fact that there's only one distant view of the lake, so the shooting locations are fair, but nothing special. The soundtrack, unlike the plot, manages to take an old theme and successfully update it into something enjoyable. The score was composed by Harry Manfredini, who did the music from all the previous Friday the 13th movies (less Part 8), and this new composition strikes the perfect balance between that original manic sound of the earlier movies, and a more intense modern sound. However someone might feel about this particular sequel, I think they'd still have to acknowledge that the soundtrack fits in well with the tone of the movie, and succeeds in giving the iconic sound a necessary update. Very catchy, and a great match for the movie's relentless pacing. Overall, I'd say this one, up to this point in the series, is the third weakest. It's better than Parts 5 and 8, in my opinion, but that's all. The asinine plot hurts it pretty badly on a technical level, but it's still pretty enjoyable if you can see your way past that. Definitely worth checking out, even if it is the black sheep of the franchise.
Rating: 72%