Tag: My Bloody Valentine 1981

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.

My Bloody Valentine (1981)

MY BLOODY VALENTINE

MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981) Three stars
Several elements lift MY BLOODY VALENTINE — a 1981 Canadian production that became renowned for nine minutes of excised footage so it could receive a “R” from the Motion Picture Association of America — above the average mad slasher film.

1) Valentine Bluffs (“The Little Town with the Big Heart,” elevation 200, population 3735) feels like a real place, definitely more than Springwood, Ohio in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and any of the locations in the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies.

You can almost feel the characters’ excitement as they plan a Valentine’s Day dance for the first time in two decades, you can almost taste the Moosehead beer, you can almost sense their dread they’re stuck in this small town, and you can almost articulate word-for-word both their frustration and thankfulness for that damn mine where everybody, just about everybody, in town works for all their lives.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE just might be the only horror movie that evokes THE DEER HUNTER, through its mine, its miners, its cars, its bar, its beer drinking, its tough talking, and its romantic triangle.

In an interview with Terror Trap, director George Mihalka touched on the environment in MY BLOODY VALENTINE, at one point mentioning how the film’s screenwriter pictured it as “THE DEER HUNTER of horror films.”

“One of the things that both (screenwriter) John Beaird and I wanted to do was that we wanted to take it out of the suburban bungalow context,” Mihalka said. “We wanted to set this in some place where there is a slight hint of social consciousness. This was really the first film in that era where teenagers are actually talking about the fact that there’s no future left.

“There’s no jobs, there’s no future. Not a lot of hope. It was, in a strange way, the first of a Generation X mentality. I think that’s what may still resonate after all these years.”

Valentine Bluffs rates with Kingston Falls (GREMLINS) at the top of my list for horror towns.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE used Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, for its location.

Their plants Sydney Steel (DISCO) and the Sydney Mines Steel (SCOTIA) helped produce 50 percent of Canada’s steel during World War I.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE filmed its mine scenes at Princess Colliery Mines, an operation from 1875 to 1975 that produced 30 million tons of coal.

Princess Colliery even had a famous disaster on December 6, 1938.

From the opening paragraph of Canadian Press staff writer Arthur Andrew, “A committee of miners and officials planned today to descend Princess Colliery and trace the death-dealing trail of a runaway ‘man-rake’ that killed 16 men yesterday. Their visit is the first step in an investigation seeking the reason the string of cars broke loose, spreading death and injury. … The evidence they gather, added to the testimony of the more than 200 men who survived the disaster, will be placed before an investigating commissioner. Hon. Michael Dwyer, minister of mines, will attend the probe into the worst accident in the last 21 years of coal mining in Cape Breton.”

2) MY BLOODY VALENTINE mines (pun intended) its holiday for all its worth.

Not only do we have Valentine Bluffs, we have a Valentine’s dance, we have red and white streamers all over the place, its killer has a future writing Hallmark cards … for psychos like this epic “ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE, ONE IS DEAD, AND SO ARE YOU!” (the killer underlines you three times for dramatic effect), and it makes brilliant use of a box of chocolates, only rather than candy hearts, well, think we should leave that a surprise for those who have never seen MY BLOODY VALENTINE. I’ve already said too much.

Paramount Pictures released MY BLOODY VALENTINE on February 11, 1981, and its profit proved to be considerably less than what FRIDAY THE 13TH produced for Paramount in 1980.

3) “The Miner” is one of the most iconographic killers, I mean, come on just take a gander at him on Google Images. Hell, better yet, go watch MY BLOODY VALENTINE.

He’s combination miner, Jason Voorhees, and Darth Vader.

4) These characters are years removed from HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: They’re adults.

Of course, that fact does not absolve them from doing any of the numbskull things horror movie characters often do at the most inopportune times for numbskull behavior.

5) A 25-year-old John McDermott sang “The Ballad of Harry Warden” over the closing credits and I remember being floored by this song upon first viewing MY BLOODY VALENTINE. I just could not believe it. Wow, it’s just about every bit as great as Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and it’s the closing song for a mad slasher movie.

A sampling of Paul Zaza’s lyrics: “Once upon a time, on a sad Valentine / In a place known as Henniger Mine / A legend began, every woman and man / Would always remember the time / And those who remain were never the same / You could see the fear in their eyes / Once every year, as the 14th draws near / There’s a hush all over the town / For the legend they say, on a Valentine’s Day / Is a curse that’ll live on and on / And no one will know, as the years come and go, of the horror from long time ago.”