Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984) ***
Once upon a time, I called Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter the most schizophrenic movie ever made and what I mean by this bit of hyperbole is that The Final Chapter largely alternates being a rather brutal, occasionally mean-spirited horror movie sequel and a jovial teenage sex comedy especially made explicit in casting Lawrence The Last American Virgin Monoson in one of the key supporting roles.

The Final Chapter has some of the best and also some of the worst moments in the entire 12-movie Friday series, easily the best cast and most likable characters from (almost) top to bottom, Tom Savini’s return as makeup artist, Harry Manfredini’s first-rate musical score, Ted White’s brutal conviction selling his kill scenes as Jason Voorhees, and it’s arguably the quintessential Friday the 13th movie.

Let’s hit a couple of the high points first.

The Final Chapter introduces us to Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman), a 12-year-old boy with a hyperactive imagination and penchant for monster make-up and masks not unlike Savini; Trish Jarvis (Kimberly Beck), Tommy’s older sister and our Final Girl; Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman), Tommy’s and Trish’s single mother; Gordon the Family Dog, the golden retriever whose fate remains uncertain. Anyway, this family dynamic is something fresh and new for the Friday series.

Crispin Glover, one of the great movie eccentrics, makes his mark on The Final Chapter and his Jimmy becomes one of the most unforgettable horny (dead) teenagers in a series that served them up by the hundreds as fodder for the slaughter. Jimmy and his buddy Ted (Monoson) especially feel like refugees from a teenage sex comedy, like they continued playing their characters from My Tutor (Glover) and The Last American Virgin (Monoson). Jimmy’s dance and exit line in this movie have become the stuff of slasher movie legend.

Feldman and Glover provide us two of the most likable characters in any of the dozen Friday movies, something that’s ironic given the fact The New Beginning (which arrived in theaters around 11 months after The Final Chapter) has almost no likable characters among the largest cast of corpses in series history. Never mind that Tommy did not exactly pan out in The New Beginning and Jason Lives like the endings of The Final Chapter and The New Beginning seemed to promise.

I almost forgot Rob (E. Erich Anderson), the older brother of a character killed by potato sack Jason in Part 2. Rob seeks revenge against Jason and fortunately he meets Trish and Tommy first, though ultimately it does not matter because Rob represents one of the great missed opportunities. Here’s a character who could have served as a basis for an entire movie and The Final Chapter makes him completely underwhelming. His death scene, designed to be poignant, instead becomes laughable (‘He’s killing me. He’s killing me’) and it wishes it could be as enjoyably bad as the bookseller’s death in Dario Argento’s Inferno. You might recall that the creepy old book retailer’s done in by rats and a homicidal Central Park hot dog vendor.

Now, we’ve moved on to the more negative.

Our first two new corpses in The Final Chapter represent one of my least favorite scenarios that’s commonly found in Friday movies. We spend several minutes, it feels even longer, much much much longer, with super horny morgue attendant Axel (Bruce Mahler) and super uninterested Nurse Morgan (Lisa Freeman) before they are massacred by Jason. Maybe it’s only a few minutes, but I never want to watch their scenes ever again to find out. I’ll use their introduction as my cue to go make some scrumptious butter popcorn.

Like the beginning of Part III and the obligatory murder of the lakefront store owners, these are minutes of my life that could have been attended to better things, even during a Friday movie.

The Final Chapter loves breaking glass and characters falling through windows.

The Final Chapter gets straight at the heart of the ambivalent relationship between parent company Paramount Pictures and the Friday movies.

One immediately gets the feeling that Paramount wanted The Final Chapter, you know, to be the end of Jason once and forever because the studio hotshots were ashamed to be associated with such a disreputable and sleazy franchise, but, alas, at the same time, The Final Chapter leaves the door open for more sequels with one of the series’ trademark endings. Paramount walked through that very door — actually, more like sprinted — when The Final Chapter returned a hefty profit.

The Final Chapter finished in the top 25 box office for 1984 and put together a $11.1M opening during the weekend of April 13.

Friday, April 13, 1984. The Challenger returned to Earth from their 11th space shuttle mission. India beat Pakistan by 54 runs to win the first Asia Cricket Cup in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

Paramount released A New Beginning on March 22, 1985, and 1983 and 1987 are the only years of the ’80s without a Friday the 13th movie. Do 1983 and 1987 belong to another decade?

I more or less grew up with the Friday movies, so I might be more forgiving of them for all their numerous faults than people who grew up in different times.

Then again, I might not be, because I only consider Jason Lives (the best made and the only entry that deserves a place near second- or third-tier classic horror movies like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man), Part III (the most suspenseful and the one where Jason acquires his legendary hockey mask), and The Final Chapter even worth recommending. Most of the rest of them have their isolated moments, all of them are excuses for reels of sex and violence and vulgarity, and the movies definitely created their own distinctive space in the cinematic marketplace.

How did the world end up with 12 Friday the 13th movies and legendary status for both the series overall and serial killer Jason Voorhees specifically, when similar movies like My Bloody Valentine, The Burning, Happy Birthday to Me, and Madman failed to produce one sequel among them. Granted, the original Friday finished 15th in the 1980 American box office sweepstakes and the first three sequels also proved to be solid hits among strong competition, while The Burning grossed $700 thousand, Madman $1.3M, My Bloody Valentine $5.7M, and Happy Birthday to Me $10.6M.

Money obviously talked for Jason.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

SLEEPAWAY CAMP

SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983) Two stars

This is one of those instances where I can remember seeing the poster long before the attached movie.

Undoubtedly like most of the jaded youth of my generation, I first saw the poster for SLEEPAWAY CAMP back in the late 1980s. It’s the one that stayed with me the most over the decades.

It has the dominant image of a dripping wet shoe being stabbed all the way through by a bloodied knife. Above, there’s a letter from a camper, “Dear Mom and Dad, I’ve been at Sleepaway Camp for almost three weeks now and I’m getting very scared. …” Right below the hand holding the knife are the title dripping blood from its bold type and the tag “You won’t be coming home!”

Now, hours after watching SLEEPAWAY CAMP for the first time, it’s just as unforgettable as the poster.

To a great degree, SLEEPAWAY CAMP chucks our traditional notions of what constitutes a “good” or a “bad” movie right out the fucking window. It’s more of an experience, an event, a rite of passage, something where you can ask friends and family if they have ever seen it. If they have or haven’t, dynamite conversation will follow either way. For sure, though, it would make a great watch party — of course, following proper social distancing protocol at this point in history.

Here’s a few notes on the experience:

— Melodrama is defined as such, “A sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions.” Addendum: See SLEEPAWAY CAMP. Early on, after the obligatory flashback to traumatic events of the past, Desiree Gould’s Aunt Martha establishes the basic tone for the rest of the movie: Campy with overacting possible. Yes, SLEEPAWAY CAMP goes over-the-top, gleefully, merrily, in every scene, including the end credits.

— Being bat shit crazy for 84 minutes has been SLEEPAWAY CAMP’s meal ticket to cult movie immortality. Because, let’s face it, it’s not as well-made technically as similar low-budget precursors BLACK CHRISTMAS, ALICE SWEET ALICE, and HALLOWEEN. Not even remotely close.

— SLEEPAWAY CAMP uses a musical score that also functions as bludgeoning device and melodrama amplifier. I just checked for any injuries after being whacked upside the head at regular intervals by Edward Bilous’ sledgehammer score. I survived without a single bump — amazing, I know. Anyway, I looked up this Bilous fellow. IMDb linked me to edwardbilous.com and a Bilous quote from the Wall Street Journal, “Artists today need a new set of skills to be able to tell the unique story of their generation.” He’s the founding director for the Center for Innovation in the Arts and the artistic director for Beyond the Machine, A Festival of Electro-Acoustic and Interdisciplinary Art at Juilliard. He joined the Juilliard faculty in 1984.

— “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Nature Trail to Hell” sounds like a spin on FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III and SLEEPAWAY CAMP. “Coming this Christmas to a theater near you / The most horrifying film to hit the screen / There’s a homicidal maniac who finds a cub scout troop / And he hacks up two or three in every scene / Please don’t reveal the secret ending to your friends / Don’t spoil the big surprise / You won’t believe your eyes when you see. …” and “See severed heads that almost fall right in your lap / See that bloody hatchet coming right at you / No, you’ll never see hideous effects like these again / ‘Till we bring you ‘Nature Trail to Hell Part 2.’” File “Nature Trail to Hell” alongside such “Weird Al” epics as “The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota,” “Albuquerque,” “Trapped in the Drive-Thru,” and “Jackson Park Express.”

— In his final performance, veteran actor Mike Kellin (1922-83) surpasses Gould in scenery chewing. He chews scenery to such a degree that he could chew through every picture’s scenery within an entire multiplex. Kellin plays Camp Arawak owner Mel Kostic, who keeps downplaying everything until about the 50th dead body. At least it feels that way anyway. He’s one of those characters who becomes creepier and more detestable over the course of the movie, especially when he lines up dinner with a camp counselor in her late teens and assaults one of the main characters who he mistakenly believes to be the killer. Mel loses his shit late in the picture, and it’s not pretty.

— By this point in the review, I should have already discussed the plot. Eight years after a tragic boating accident near Camp Arawak, Aunt Martha sends her niece Angela (Felissa Rose) to camp with Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten), Angela’s cousin and Martha’s son who’s a veteran camper. Mean girls Judy (Karen Fields) and Meg (Katherine Kamhi), as well as a group of their male counterparts both teenage and prepubescent, are relentlessly cruel and nasty toward Angela and Ricky, especially the initially painfully shy and quiet Angela. Ricky’s friend Paul (Christopher Collet) takes a shining to Angela and he’s able to break her silence. Over time, however, the picture develops a dread pattern: Every character who’s cruel and nasty to Angela or Ricky bites the dust in spectacular fashion. Yes, just like everything else in the picture, including the crop-tops and short-shorts, the murder set pieces are over-the-top.

— At this relative late point in the slasher film craze, a mere five years since HALLOWEEN, films in the genre needed a major selling point and SLEEPAWAY CAMP includes one of those (awesome but infuriating) endings that redefines the reality of every scene that came before, just like FRIDAY THE 13TH and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. This beyond bizarre ending is the first and foremost reason we still talk about SLEEPAWAY CAMP all these years later.

Friday the 13th Part III (1982)

DAY 30, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III (1982) Three stars
On their movie review program “Sneak Previews,” Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert hated just about every slasher film (Ebert called them “Dead Teenager” movies) that came down the pike after HALLOWEEN. They lambasted MANIAC, THE BURNING, MADMAN, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, HE KNOWS YOU’RE ALONE, MOTHER’S DAY, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (nearly all those picked “Dogs of the Week”), but seemed to save their greatest reserves of spleen for the FRIDAY THE 13TH series. That’s okay, they weren’t alone in condemning the series.

Coming of age in the late-1980s and early-1990s, slasher films played a formative role in my filmgoing experience. One way or another, I caught up with all the Jason, Freddy, Michael Myers, Chucky, et cetera, movies. Why were these films so popular amongst young people? Must have felt that we were rebelling against the decorum set for us young people by our elders. Also sure that we were reveling in the forbidden.

PART III was my very first FRIDAY THE 13TH movie (saw it about 30 years ago) and that must contribute to why it’s among my favorites in the series all these years later.

It’s not a good movie in any traditional way shape or form and it has a lot of the same underlying problems as the other movies in the long-running series, but it’s very entertaining and silly at least until the body count starts piling up. Hey, let’s face it, though, we don’t watch movies like FRIDAY THE 13TH for the same reasons that we watch other movies. We go for the body count, No. 1, then the other exploitation movie elements like gore, nudity, and general vulgarity. The characters are often superficial archetypes, the dialogue is nothing to write home about, and it’s all very predictable. To some degree, we like it that way.

With it being originally filmed in 3-D, that only adds to the silliness of PART III because there must be at least 50 gimmick shots for the sake of the 3-D, including ones where Jason squeezes our male protagonist’s head until his eyeball heads straight for us and Jason’s first kill wearing his iconographic hockey mask. Additionally, we have a disco variation on Harry Manfredini’s score over the gonzo opening credits and some new character archetypes for the slaughter, like a married couple with the male partner suggesting Tommy Chong and a would-be motorcycle gang who gives Jason his first opportunity to kill outside his race.

Just keep in mind the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies have a transcendent appeal; for example, Kim Jong-il (1941-2011) loved him some Jason along with Rambo and Godzilla and rapper Big Daddy Kane used Jason for a rhyme in “Ain’t No Half Steppin.'”

For whatever reason, PART III generates more suspense than any other entry in the series. Steve Miner, assistant director on the first movie, remains the only person to direct more than one installment and that just might be the difference maker. Miner directed PART 2 and PART III.

I mentioned problems and there’s about 10 minutes of my life (multiplied by every time I see this sequence unless I fast-forward) that I will never get back when Jason dispatches Harold and Edna early in the movie, two unfortunate proprietors of a lakefront store. I call this hallmark of the genre “filler killings,” ones that pad running time or serve a body count (PART V fills that bill) and no greater purpose to the movie as a whole. Of course, haters of the genre would say that “filler killings” describe the entire movie.

Also, we have another shock ending that’s only shocking in just how non-shocking it turns out to be. Just about every slasher film in the era had a shock ending. This one almost defies belief.

Larry Zerner, who plays the asshole prankster Shelly, became an entertainment lawyer and Tracie Savage covered the Heidi Fleiss and O.J. Simpson trials as TV reporter, so undoubtedly PART III both served them well in their later careers.

Jason acquires his trademark hockey mask from Shelly. Jason’s played in PART III by British trapeze artist Richard Brooker, who apparently believed that playing a psychopathic killer was his entry way into a successful movie career. “It felt great with the mask on,” Brooker said. “It just felt like I really was Jason because I didn’t have anything to wear before that.”

After his screen debut as Jason, Brooker (1954-2013) appeared in DEATHSTALKER, “Trapper John, M.D.,” and DEEP SEA CONSPIRACY. Brooker later went into TV directing, for example “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” A fan-made documentary FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE MEMORIAM DOCUMENTARY appeared on YouTube in early 2018, which memorialized Brooker by interviews with FRIDAY THE 13TH luminaries and an on-screen dedication to his memory.

Final girl Dana Kimmell appeared in the Chuck Norris action spectacular LONE WOLF McQUADE after FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III. There’s a meme out there, “Chris Higgins survived her encounter with Jason because Chuck Norris wanted Chris Higgins to survive her encounter with Jason.” That’s great and everything, but there’s an alternate ending to PART III where Jason decapitated Chris (Kimmell).

Still, that gets me thinking about what would happen if Chuck Norris met Jason Voorhees in a movie.