User reviews

If longtime fans of the "Friday the 13th" saga have anything to say about it, the people behind this film will burn in the same place as its hockey-masked star. "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday" is completely preposterous, out of place and an affront to what had been a dependable horror series.

Admittedly, director and co-writer Adam Marcus deserves credit for his boldness. He seemed inexplicably convinced that the wheel of the "Friday" series needed to be drastically reinvented, even though fans had lined up for basically the same plot eight times prior. But the brainwave of having Jason possessing one body after another alters the very fabric of what made these films good. Suddenly it's like we're watching an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" rip-off. Throw in Jason's newfound grunting, a far-too-heavy plot and a magical dagger (!) and you have something completely unworthy of the "Friday" moniker.

"Jason goes to Hell" is also incredibly lazy. All "Friday" films, by their very nature, require a leap of faith, but this is really too much. Firstly, this marked the first time that no explanation was given for Mr. Voorhees' reemergence. Were we all dreaming when we watched him get melted down to goo in the sewers of New York City? And what about Jason's rebirth toward the end (the most ridiculous moment of any "Friday" film)? How can a little slimy demon be reborn into a man already wearing ripped clothing and a hockey mask? And what about bounty hunter Creighton Duke? It's never explained how he knows so much about Jason and the mythical circumstances surrounding his life. In each of these instances, there seemingly are no easy answers. So rather than be inventive, the writers just threw all of this at us and hoped we would lap it up like thirsty kittens at a milk dish. This sequel completely ignores the continuity of the Jason legend that had been meticulously built up over the years.

What's equally tragic about "Jason goes to Hell" is its insistence on mocking the series. At one point, John D. LeMay's character sarcastically asks a trio of teens headed for Camp Crystal Lake whether they plan to smoke dope, engage in premarital sex and then get slaughtered. Har har. The transformation of Jason into some kind of media star is just as unnerving. Jason is a legend, a mythical figure whispered about in wildly imaginative campfire stories. Yet this movie turns him into a serial killer so well known he makes the TV tabloids and is targeted by the FBI. This is not the Jason we know, and "Jason goes to Hell" is not the "Friday the 13th" we love. It essentially breaks the fingers of the hand that feeds it.

The failure of "Jason goes to Hell," both in terms of concept and box office revenue, inevitably draws comparisons to the much-panned "Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning." That film drew plenty of boos for its Jason-less gimmick, but at least it had the feel of a "Friday" flick. "Jason goes to Hell" is substantially worse than any other entry, mainly because it is completely unrecognizable. Like "Part V," it probably would have worked better as a horror film independent of the Jason saga, rather than dragging Mr. Voorhees into a place he has no business being.

Clearly, Adam Marcus was wrong. The "Friday the 13th" wheel did not need reinventing. The failure of this film (and "Jason X" years later) shows that fans want a return to simpler times when horny teens in cabins were afraid to look out their windows. As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Not actually killed in Manhattan (surprise, surprise), Jason is still at it until an undercover FBI agent (Julie Michaels, who makes time to take a shower) tricks him into an ambush where he's blown to pieces. If you think being head and limbless will stop Mr. Voorhees from returning to his murderous ways, think again. Now we learn that he can be "reborn" through a blood relative and can possess victims by sending an evil black monster into their bodies (idea stolen from THE HIDDEN).

In a touching tribute to the good ol' days of simplicity, overage-looking "teens" make time for skinny-dipping and tent sex before Jason splits the girl in half with a tent stake. This ninth installment in the endless Friday THE 13TH series features a good cast, but is derivative, annoying, unpleasant and not likely to be the final word in the Jason saga, despite ANOTHER cheat title (remember "The Final Chapter" way back in 1984?).

It played theaters in a cut R version (where it flopped), but the unrated "Director's Cut" video and DVD version restores most of the excellent KNB Group gore effects and some nudity, redeeming factors in a low-grade production like this. Kane Hodder (in his third appearance as Jason) also gets a credit for stunts.

Okay, okay - its not the greatest of the series (I personally like Part 5 and Jason X for its pure unadulterated hamminess), but I think the problem with the film is more than just being bad but it was bizarre - it was so totally off the charts, I enjoyed it more looking at it from the perspective of a stand-alone film rather than part of the series. As part of the series, well, lets just say there is a lot to complain about, but on its own - its not bad. Certainly has a bit more personality than the other films. It felt a bit like Freddy Part 6 but made less sense! Its not that bad - worth a look if you like the series.

So, they decided to downgrade the series even more with cheap effects and trashy version of Alien. Didn't rate this 1 star only because it was slightly amusing. This franchise would've been better if it stayed in the 80s.

*May contain spoilers! (Not that I am spoiling much)

This had to be the worst Friday the 13th movie to date, and lets face it there weren't that many great ones. The huge problem with this is what the heck happened. The last time we saw Jason he was in Manhattan and he was somehow turned back into a kid, in this movie he is again a walking corpse. I can live with that, but then he gets blown up, they made it look so easy, they should have done that from the start. Now though it gets strange as Jason becomes something from like the movie alien or all those body snatcher movies. At this point I am wondering "didn't I pay to see Jason hack up people directly?". Then comes the startling revelation that Jason has a sister! What! Get Real!!! There is no way the woman in the first one had a daughter before or after Jason (or before or after her head was chopped off for that matter). If she had a daughter she would have had someone to fall back on and Jason's death wouldn't have pushed her over the edge (most mothers like their daughters more anyway). In the end Jason is killed by another relative, because apparently a relative is the only one who can kill him (how did they come up with that) and the movie thankfully ends.

If there's one thing that can and should be said in defense of "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday", it's this...

...this is one bold, gutsy move for the franchise! Completely subversive and joyously disparate when placed in comparison to the previous eight films. A bizarre, red-headed-stepchild with a strange and sharp leaning towards the overly fantastical and blatantly magical. Taking what had been to that point an increasingly repetitious series, and attempting to inject some fresh blood for what was at the time considered to be the one... last... film to cap it all off.

Is is a success? Well, I'd say for the most part, fans do consider it a failure because it strayed so much from the formula in trying to establish a grandiose finale. And I think I would probably consider it to be a bit of a failure for that very same reason. But it's definitely a fascinating and daring failure. One that I can get behind. Especially after the increasing monotony of the previous two films.

Sue me, but I'll take an interesting failure that attempts to shake up the formula over a bland retread any day of the week!

Jason Voorhees has finally been killed. After an FBI Sting Operation blows his body to smithereens, the town of Crystal Lake is finally able to settle down, knowing the figment that has haunted them for so many years is finally gone.

Or is he?

Nope! As it turns out, Jason has become something more than human, and his evil has given him the ability to possess others through some sort of relatively-unexplained magical means. Now, Jason is coming back to seek vengeance, taking the forms of various characters through body-swapping, intent on locating surviving members of the family, so that he may be reborn again through them in his original form. Now, his only living relative (Kari Keegan), her ex (John D. LeMay) and a bounty hunter who knows the truth about Jason (Steven Williams) must team up to stop him once and for all!

Look, this movie's ridiculous. It's completely out of left-field. It doesn't really connect properly with the previous films. Its storyline is just bizarre. And it's a completely different beast tonally from any of the other flicks...

...but it's a lot of fun!

Director Adam Marcus and writers Jay Huguely and Dean Lorey seem to have a ton of ideas on how to exploit this ridiculous concept, and are given free reign to just go crazy. There's a little something for everyone here. From a touch of the self-aware laughs that made "Jason Lives" so enjoyable, to some wild and whacked-out imagery (you won't look at a straight-razor the same way again!) to some good old-fashioned kills that harken back to the first couple of movies, this film aims to deliver a roller-coaster ride from Hell... and it does deliver on that promise.

Add to that some likable performances, fun and inventive kinetic camera-work that knows how to make the best of it's lowish budget, weirdly entertaining humor and plenty of gore to go around... and it produces a film that I find to be a decent bit of dumb-fun.

This movie is stupid. Beyond belief. And it doesn't feel anything like the previous eight outtings. But I'm OK with that. It's got a lot of insane-o concepts and ideas to play with, it knows exactly what it wants to be, and it's got some fiendishly creative minds at it's helm.

It's a failure... but an entertaining and wildly ambitious failure that I can't help but root for.

So I'm giving it a middle of the road 5 out of 10. If you're a fan of the franchise and are open minded, give it a shot. You might be one of the proud few who really enjoys this off-the-rails nutcase- of-a- flick.

how can this film get a higher rating than parts 5 and 8, this is incredible, i mean it's gone beyond being funny cos it's crap, and delved into just plain crap crap. Unbelievable. only gave it a 2 because it has Jason and i was able to watch the whole thing with out switching off. The plot of this film is so diabolical, it's not even got anything to do with Jason, it's over the top cheesy Hollywood, but is so bad u can't even laugh at it. They even used Kane Hodder (Jason) to play the part of a security guard, perhaps cos they couldn't be bothered to cast someone else. IF they used him twice to be funny or give the Friday fans something extra, this is equally as bad. There was big gap between part 8 and 9 so you would have expected them to have come up with something better than this. If this is the only Friday you have seen, this film has no reflection on the others in the series. This film should not have been made. But if u want a good example of a poo movie, this is perfect as it is easy to get hold of.

This is without a doubt one of my favorites of the franchise. It all begins when Jason tries to takedown an undercover FBI agent (whose footwear keeps changing as she's chased through the woods) and he's blown to bits in a spectacular, over the top fashion. The doctor doing the autopsy is seduced into eating his black heart and from than on it's a whole bunch of body switching like 1987s The Hidden but way amped up. The masked maniac is a demon parasite in search of a family member so that he can become his old self again. It's all a bit goofy and there are some unintentional funnies but who cares. The movie is fantastically gory and overly entertaining. Not only does it have the best kills of the series but also has the best kill of any slasher ever. The "tent split" is beyond amazing and needs to be experienced in it's full unrated cut like the rest of the glorious film. And as a horror fan how can I not appreciate all the homages and genre universe expanding. From the Halloween references to the Necronomicon from Evil Dead which makes Jason a full fledged deadite to freddy's glove dragging his mask into hell. It's all an absolute crazy, goretastic, insanely fun bundle of genre goodness.

4.25/5

I understand the hate but it's entertaining.

Jason goes to hell is bad but it's still fun watching it!

It's almost not one good actor it's a weird plot but i like that they did something New to the franchise.🔥 This movie has some of the best kills of the franchise.

It's not a Friday the 13th movie🎃 It's actually a pretty fun movie and i recommend it if you just wanna watch a movie🌞

After a trap to get Jason results in his violent demise it becomes clear that there is a supernatural element within him and essentially his spirit takes over various bodies and carries on killing everyone he can although on this occasion there is some method in his madness.

Ok, this is utter rubbish with a ridiculous plot largely designed to set up the next elaborate, violent and excessively over the top death usually requiring one of the girls having to get her kit off and nothing more. It is though just about watchable, just, late night rubbish if you have a low IQ and have been down the pub for the last few hours.

'Friday the 13th' may have been panned by critics when first released but since then it is one of the most famous and influential horror films, the franchise containing one of horror's most iconic villains. The film is popular enough to become a franchise and spawn several sequels of varying quality and generally inferior to the one that started it all off.

'Jason Goes to Hell' for me is one of the worst of the 'Friday the 13th' films, a strong contender even for the worst. Is it irredeemably awful? No, not quite, don't think any of the 'Friday the 13th' films are. Then again this is coming from somebody who tries to see the good in bad films etc. and even tries to say where good to great films etc. could be improved on, not somebody who hates on everything or declare every film seen a classic. Sadly though, despite not caring hugely for the previous two instalments, 'Jason Goes to Hell' is indicative of the series has gone to hell.

Are there good things here in 'Jason Goes to Hell'? Yes there are. The highlights are the tense opening scene and the slicing in half death (very strange but both disturbing and not easy to forget). Kane Hodder does a lot with little and is suitably creepily intimidating.

There are instances too where the film is also inventively shot.

On the other hand, while a good deal of 'Friday the 13th' films are silly, the silliness here is overkill that it becomes insultingly ridiculous. It is certainly the most bizarre film in the series, and not in a good way, and it completely gets in the way of scares or suspense. 'Jason Goes to Hell' overdoes just as much on the weirdness as it does with silliness. A lot fails to make sense, with too many parts confusing the story, and things that beg for an explanation are left unexplained, anything explanations are like the previous films didn't happen because so much doesn't fit.

Hodder aside, the acting is really poor, even for the 'Friday the 13th' films where acting rarely was a strength. Likewise with the dialogue, which is 'Friday the 13th' at its most taking-simplicity-to-extremes, stilted, cheesiest and lacking in taste.

Nothing is truly scary here, apart from the opening and one memorable death and suspense is nil. The kills are generally neither creative or shocking (going for more quantity, with a very large body count, than quality where gore feels too much and gratuitous. The pacing is far too hectic, the film never stops moving and everything here feels incredibly rushed, and this hurts the atmosphere and the storytelling. 'Jason Goes to Hell' is also the first film in the series where the music score is a drawback and not a redeeming feature, not only does the music sound cheap here it also is so discordant with what's going on and like it was written for a different film.

Concluding, not a good film and indicative of a severe decline of a variable series of films. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Plot is stupid, characters are horrible, acting is bad, pacing is all over the place - sometimes it drags and then sometimes you feel like half of the movie is missing and you have a very vague idea what actually is going on.

Kills are done poorly, stalking scenes are done badly, movie has one single decent special effect, others look like they were done by a child for a school project.

Sound effects are horrible too - why did they add grunts for Jason, like he's some kind of cartoon monster? Big part of why Jason is scary is because he's a silent killing machine, adding random grunts to him totally undermines the character.

Oh and the intro credit scene is one of the most annoying things I have ever seen, because of the way it cuts back and forward what feels like a hundred times.

One of the worst movies ever made.

This is not friday the 13th this is a stupid bad movie

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is (supposedly) the last Friday the 13th chapter... FBI agents hunt down and destroy Jason at Crystal Lake - but Jason has the ability to possess other people's bodies and continues his bloodbath.

I don't think this would be a favourite of the fans - it is quite corny, Jason doesn't feature a lot in the movie... but I think the movie half-way through takes a turn for the better. Instead of being another mindless slasher - the movie goes all John Woo with some cool gun fights and slow motion camera. It was like the director had watched a couple of John Woo films for the first time half-way through shooting the movie and decides... "it would be cool to use this stuff in this movie"!

The "Invasion of the Body Snatcher" plot doesn't work - but I think the stylish gun battles redeem this film somewhat. Sort of recommended!

It seemed like New Line tried a little too hard to be innovative with this installment. I thought Part VII was too over the top with a telekinetic girl, but the whole body-switching approach was ridiculous even for the most hardcore Friday fan. If Jason can "wear other peoples' bodies the way you and I wear clothes" as is said in the film, then why didn't Jason use this power in any of the previous installments? Also, by following this format, the audience is basically just watching a generic slasher flick as "Jason" only appears in the film for about fifteen minutes. It was especially sad to think that critics had been lambasting the franchise for years and this bomb just gave them all the more ammunition. After it was all said and done, I was very disappointed to think that this may indeed be the "final Friday," because to end the series with this load of trash would be desecration. If you ever want to watch the entire series back-to-back, start with part one, go through part eight and then skip ahead to Jason X.

I think its a travesty how this movie has taken so much heat compared to the rest of the series. While I love this kind of camp, every character, plot and film in this series has largely been interchangeable with the others.

Fast forward to 1993 and we have a film that attempts to add innovations like pop horror references to the films Evil Dead and Nightmare on Elm Street without resorting to half-baked comedy (I'm looking at you Freddy). We have a film that updates Jason's by-now clichéd features to a more sublime grotesque, looking like a serial killer would look if he ignored hygiene for 20 years during his hacking and slashing hayday.

The plot makes a marked improvement from "I know they're all gonna die, but how?" to "What the hell could possibly kill Jason? What does the Necronomicon have to do with it (merely a mystery in the mythology)? Jason has family? and We're finally going to get some friggin' resolution here?" Come on people: Jason X should have been shunned by any self-respecting fan after all the promos claimed this to be "The Final Friday". Plus finished it in what I considered to be a climactic finale. Instead you crawled back on your knees like the creatures of habit that you are, always willing to settle for another broken promise and failed expectation from a marketable franchise. Note: Let's be fair though, none of us could have helped wanting to see Freddy Vs. Jason.

To the creators of this movie, I give you props. Besides most of the people on IMDb who hated this movie either don't like the slasher genre or can't friggin' spell "slasher genre".

If you watch it like a any normal old horror movie, its not too bad actually but if you expecting a classic friday movie you wont really like it.

I have been a big Jason fan for years and this was actually the first film I saw pretty interesting since this is known as the black sheep of Jason films. I really like this movie it's scary for one and the acting is excellent for a horror film. John D LeMay and Steven Williams are awesome maybe the best characters from any other Jason film. This film's deaths are only rivaled by some of the things I've seen in the Final Destination films they are that good. Adam Marcus and Dean Lorey are hilarious in their director commentary I recommend listening to it. I just bought the unrated DVD on special order at a Best Buy go buy this movie!

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

1/2 (out of 4)

For this ninth entry in the long-running series we saw studios changed hands as New Line took over after Paramount had grown tired with the series. New Line's attempt was to bring some new blood into the series but what they ended up doing was delivering the worst film. This time out we start off with Jason (Kane Hodder) chasing a victim through the woods when a SWAT team jumps out and blows him to pieces. The only problem is that his heart is still alive and after a doctor bites into it the soul of Jason enters him. Turns out Jason had a sister so the spirit, jumping from body to body, now tries going after her and her daughter. As you can tell by not having Jason in the movie except for the start and finish, the studio certainly tried doing something new and I can still remember my father taking me to see this with a sold out crowd on opening night. The crowd was certainly pumped up and ready to go but by the twenty-minute mark people were bored out of their minds. At the end of the film people were throwing popcorn at the screen, cussing and everyone walks out mad and cheated. So has time helped this film? Certainly not as it's clearly the worst in the series just because of how stupid the spirit jumping in. Not only does the film have logical plot holes it also has some really bad direction, bad dialogue and, as I said, a really bad story. The only thing that really saves this turkey are some rather good kill scenes as well as the now well-known cameo at the end, which gave fans something to look forward to (even though it didn't happen for over a decade). With this film the characters are all poorly written and for the first time in the series there wasn't a single one I cared for. I found all of them to be very annoying with a leading man who couldn't carry a grocery sack let alone an entire film. The female heroin isn't any more interesting and Hodder really doesn't get to do much with Jason since you see him and then he's gone. Even the ending manages to be the worst in the series. All in all this is just a very bad movie from start to finish.