SHITTY FLICKS: JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY

Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant camp-girl penis.

WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.

Abraham Lincoln’s last words were “Jason Goes to Hell is the biggest piece of shit in the world. And even though this bearded Confederate fuck is about to blow my head off, I want it on record that these were my last words: that Jason Goes to Hell is the biggest piece of shit in the world.”

He wasn’t kidding, folks. But before we get to reviewin’, let’s start with some history.

In 1980, a really cheap and simply-made horror movie, starring that guy who played the prep in National Lampoon’s Animal House, came out during the summer season. Its name was Friday the 13th, and its path to filmdom was paved when that movie’s screenwriter received a call from that movie’s director saying, “Halloween is making a lot of money, let’s rip it off.”

Actual quote.

Lineage be damned, Friday the 13th, the nothing-special-but-still-competently-made summer camp slasher movie, was released, and it was greeted by lines around the block, enthusiastic fans, and abysmal reviews.

One year later, Friday the 13th: Part 2 (originally simply titled "Jason") was released and introduced the world to the killer who took over for mama and made his name synonymous with Friday the 13th.

Paramount, though ashamed of the series, cranked these suckers out one after another on a yearly basis until 1988’s Jason Takes Manhattan, which due to poor box office, signaled the end of Paramount’s relationship with the hulked-out, rotting mongoloid known as Jason Voorhees.

Enter New Line Cinema in 1992. The rights to the series expired and New Line snapped them up, thus paving the way for Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, whose status as the most absurd entry in the franchise remains unchallenged to date.

So, for clarification:

June 13th, 1980: Mrs. Voorhees kills counselors, blaming them for the drowning death of her son, Jason.

August 13, 1993: Jason, having inexplicably been resurrected after his toxic waste exorcism at the end of the previous film and having retaken residence at Crystal Lake, is lured out into a field by an FBI agent in a bath towel, is blown up by a SWAT team, and has his heart eaten by a coroner, which leads to his spirit possessing the bodies of several people by way of regurgitating a giant worm demon thing into their unwilling mouths, his ultimate goal being to wriggle inside the vagina of his dead sister in order to be reborn in his meaty, stinky, lumpy, hockey-mask-wearing, machete-grasping body.

Yikes. And that happened in just thirteen years. (GASP—THIRTEEN!!)

"Hello, Space. ::narrows eyes:: See you soon..."

FBI Agent Elizabeth Marcus—undercover, naturally—shows up onsite at the former residence of the Voorhees family home in Camp Crystal Lake, NJ. Elizabeth walks into a cabin, flips a switch, and a light bulb sparks to life momentarily before pooping out and coating itself in brown goo, which is something I must say I’ve never seen a light bulb do. She then strips down, revealing her very unsexy and masculine body, to take a shower.

I’ll give her credit for knowing what draws Jason out.

Sho'nuff, Jason shows up, attacks her with his trusty machete, and sends her hurtling down over the balcony to crash into a coffee table.

Jason, despite the presence of the brutally brilliant KNB EFX, looks the absolute worst he has in this series. And not in the good way. His previous bad-ass visage consisting of an exposed spine and a face only a decapitated mommy head could love has been replaced with the look of a dumpy voo-doo doll and a big round head that looks like Aqua Teen's Meatwad.

I don’t approve.

Jason hauls ass after the toweled girl to the middle of a field, where spotlights suddenly flash on, and SWAT team members open fire on him (positioned in a circle around him, which means odds are in real life, some members on either side would have blown each other’s faces off).

An expertly-placed bomb blows Jason to literal smithereens, limbs, head, and heart flying in every direction.

Miles away from the explosion, Creighton Duke ("The X-Files'" [and The Blues Brothers'!] Steven Williams), apparently-famous bounty hunter, lowers his binoculars and gives a steely glance.

“I don’t think so…”

Sigh.

Say, since Jason is dead forever and ever now (ha ha) can I briefly ask if anyone else can hear a single fucking thing said in this movie? Why is the goddamned volume so low on this thing?

Jason’s remains are flown to Youngstown, Ohio, to be given a once-over by a couple of coroners who don’t take their jobs all that seriously.

As Older & Blacker Coroner performs his autopsy, Jason’s heart (which we learn is twice the size of a normal heart, kinda like the Grinch post-Christmas) begins to beat methodically, hypnotizing Older & Blacker Coroner until he literally picks up the heart, growls animalistically, and shoves it into his mouth for a huge bite.

Eating Jason's heart is grounds for death by alien lasers.

Hang on, folks, because we’re now officially in please-check-your-disbelief-at-the-door territory. Older & Blacker Coroner, (now Jason), finishes his hearty meal (OMG!) and stands around, waiting for something to happen.

And something does: Annoying Weiner Coroner (aka the movie's screenwriter).

Annoying Weiner Coroner walks into the room, having just been felt-up by some FBI agents (why security for a dead body is necessary remains unknown). Annoying Weiner Coroner begins showing what a man he is by calling the dead body of Jason a “faggoty, blown-up fuck.”

Then a probe gets up in his face.

As Jason, wearing the body of Older & Blacker Coroner, exits the room covered in blood, the FBI agents (one of whom is actually Kane Hodder, the man responsible for playing Jason in Friday the 13ths VII-X), says that Jason was “nothing but a big ol’ pussy, anyway.”

And for the second time in this movie, a part Kane Hodder is playing is cut very short.

Later, in the backroom of a diner located in Crystal Lake, a woman named Diana fearfully watches an episode of “American Casefile,” which is detailing the disappearance of Jason’s body from the morgue, and the path of dead bodies seemingly on the way back to Crystal Lake.

“American Casefile” host Robert Smarmdude interviews Creighton Duke, who claims to know of Jason’s ability to possess people’s body.

During a round of word association, Robert asks Creighton what he thinks of when he says the name Jason Voorhees. Creighton responds with, “A little girl in a pink dress, sticking a hot dog through a donut.”

I’ve no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but it belongs on BrainyQuotes.

Creighton ends the interview with a nod to Jaws, offering to kill Jason for half a million dollars, which would include: “the mask, the machete, the whole damn thing.”

"A black cowboy? What is this, some kind of joke?"

Diana, who is Jason’s sister and was absolutely never mentioned before in this series, turns off the TV and goes back to work.

This is when we meet Steven (John D. Lemay, "Friday the 13th: The Series"), the dweebiest Friday hero so far. Steven, who was dating and is currently estranged from Diana’s daughter, Jessica, plans to meet Diana later on to discuss his failed relationship.

Later that night (in an obvious re-shoot), Steven drives to Diana’s, and picks up some hitchhikers who plan on fucking and doing drugs at Crystal Lake “now that Jason is dead.”

Good one.

Jason—smelling sex—shows up and slashes one of the girls in the face before proceeding to what will be the best kill in the series (just behind the sleeping bag death from The New Blood).

Jason picks up a tent spike and plows it through the belly of a girl currently giving her boyfriend the ride of his life, and gloriously rips it all the way up, out through her shoulder, splitting her into two very wet parts. The screaming boy’s head is then stomped in for good measure.

At the time of this movie’s shooting, the director was 21-years-old. Can you tell?

Later, Jason figures he’ll expand his horizons, so he kidnaps an old man, Deputy Josh, and shaves his buck-baked body, which is strapped down to a table in the living room of his old house. He even has a fire roaring in the fireplace (to make things as romantic as possible for the two dudes). Jason ’s got quite a big load for this old man, and he wants to be sure it will fit in his mouth.

Jason lovingly applies shaving lotion, shaves the man, and then some delightful kissing ensues, as Jason regurgitates some weird black-viscous covered thing into the man's throat.

Jason’s old body then drops dead, and after a few moments, Jason’s new body comes to: now that of Deputy Josh.

In that big list of things that people felt the Friday the 13th series needed, homoerotic shaving can now be checked off, just under a 3D eyeball, Horshak, and Crispin Glover’s frenetic dancing.

Steven gets to Diana’s house, where Jason also shows up.

Now, we don’t find this out for a little bit, but we eventually find out from Creighton Duke that Jason needs the body of someone in the Voorhees bloodline to be physically reborn, returning him to his dumpy potato-sack body, mask, and all.

So, in this scene, where Jason chooses to instead kill Diana, ignore her body, and go after Steven, you’ll wonder just what the fuck his problem is.

Steven pricks Jason with a firepoker and tosses him out the window. Luckily for Steven, the Sheriff shows up, sees his dead lady love on the ground and a bloody Steven claiming that the killer was actually the sheriff’s own deputy. Not to mention that, even luckier, the body of the deputy is now missing.

Dancing with the Stars got really intense
once Margot Kidder joined the cast.

Needless to say, Steven goes right to jail and does not collect $200. It’s at this prison where Steven meets Creighton Duke (locked up for strictly being a dick), who regales him with his expansive knowledge of the Voorhees family, and how Jason can finally be damned to hell for good...at the hands of a Voorhees. Welp…Diana’s dead, so I guess that leaves her daughter, Jessica…and Jessica’s newborn baby!

Plot twist!

Steven escapes from the prison and goes to the Voorhees house, where he spots an old book of spells and skeletons on the desk: The Evil Dead’s Necromonicon. Gosh, what a neat homage. If only it were in a good movie.

Smarmy Robert suddenly walks in talking on his huge cell phone about the truly exploitative segment he is planning on for his show: Secrets of the Voorhees House Revealed. He then details how he had (quite easily it seems) stolen Diana’s body from the morgue and planted it in the house in order to avoid the mistake Geraldo made many years ago. Jason then bursts in and kisses Robert, giving him the worm. Deputy Josh melts and Robert comes to, now more evil than even a TV executive.

After that it’s a race against time for Steven to get to Jessica before Jason does. Well, they kinda get there at the same time and Steven runs Jason over with her car as she screams and beats the hell out of him, leaving him on the side of the road to be promptly arrested.

Boy, this is exhausting, isn’t it?

Flash forward through a lot of bullshit, a talking Jason, and some glorious violence, and Jason is reborn when the demon worm slithers up into the vagigi of dead Diana.

Jason is finally actually in his own fucking movie, and it took 85 minutes.

Jessica, using the magic dagger given to her by Creighton, plants the sumbitch right into Jason’s heart. Big meaty puppet hands explode from the ground to grab at Jason and pull him down into Hell, slowly and awkwardly.

And in the now well-known shock ending to end all shock endings, Freddy Krueger’s glove bursts from the ground, grabs the mask left behind by Jason, and drags it down to Hell with him, laughing maniacally, and intentionally setting the stage for Freddy vs. Jason, the movie that everyone assumed was going to happen just a year or two later, and not the ten years that it actually took.

The filmmakers of Jason Goes to Hell pride themselves for taking on an iconic character and trying something new.

I don’t.

Had Jason actually been in this film the entire time, and with some slight plot modifications, and yes, even if the movie had just been a huge rip-off of Halloween (again), this still would have been one of the series' strongest entries. But these douchebags opted to add magic instead.

Drop Jason back off in the woods and leave him there. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to visit.