Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

A return to the near unwatchableness of certain earlier installments, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday kicks off with Jason’s death at the hands of a gun-toting, bomb-throwing SWAT team – with the remainder of the movie following Jason, now an entity that can hop from one host to the next, as he attempts to track down and possess a heretofore unmentioned sister (thus allowing him to permanently live again). Though the filmmakers perhaps deserve some credit for attempting something different this time around, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday primarily comes off as a hopelessly dull slasher that barely features the franchise’s central character – as the majority of the narrative details the murderous exploits of several nondescript, barely-developed figures. It becomes clear almost immediately there’s simply nothing here to get interested in or excited about, with the movie’s lack of a single compelling protagonist compounded by director Adam Marcus’ refusal to offer up any larger-than-life instances of gore. The progressively silly storyline – eg Jason can evidently only be killed by a special dagger – paves the way for a seriously anticlimactic final stretch, and it’s finally clear that Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday stands as one of the worst episodes in the entirety of this lackluster series.

*1/2 out of ****