In all honesty, I really don't know where to begin with "Jason Goes to Hell." You've got to hand it to any movie that has the balls to actively and frequently take everything that the series had been known for up until this point and do a complete 180, but at some level, the "Friday the 13th" formula was fine just the way it was. It lived and died in the '80s, at least according to this reporter. It was just fine being a cheesy remnant of that glorious decade, and nothing less than the sum of all slasher parts. Or something. I at least TRY to make my paragraphs look long so that readers think that they may be substantive on some level. Since many of you are probably just glossing over this review anyway, I enjoy hardcore porn and your mother frequently has a starring role in them. What?Well, I'm sure that you're all just begging to know how the F13 series passed from the slasher-riffic '80s in the ironic '90s, but the truth is...well, the only truth I know is that Paramount let the series go and New Line Cinema, also the owners of a certain razor-gloved serial killer franchise, picked it up. A four-year gap in movies occurred between this flick and its predecessor, "Friday the 13th Part VIII," leaving a lot of fans of the series to wonder if Jason had indeed been drowned for good at the climax of that particular movie. Alas, it was not to be. He WAS resurrected twice more in "official" sequels to the Paramount series, although pidgeonholing these movies into the "Friday the 13th" chronology (which is so confounding that it really requires its own separate set of essays) is some kind of unenviable task.
This movie was overseen, once again, by Sean S. Cunningham, the man responsible for bringing F13 to the world in the first place. In a Vince Russo-esque twist, he came back to the series with the same high-minded and elitist viewpoint that many directors seem to have when one of their movies turns into the long-winded horror franchise. Namely, he looked down on it. The flick was written and directed by a newcomer named Adam Marcus, freshly graduated from film school, and Cunningham's only instruction to Marcus was to "get Jason the hell out of that hockey mask." Regardless of everything else that happens in this movie, yes, Marcus did indeed deliver on that part of the job description.
Egads, this is some weird movie. At the time, it WAS intended as the final, end-all denounment of the series; the movies had already seen a "Final Chapter" and a four-year gap between sequels, so props to the creators for the title on this one. Indeed, it was powerful enough that his next resurrection wouldn't come for nine years this time. In this one, however, we don't get Jason Voorhees as we know and love him. Rather, we get Jason Voorhees in the form of a coroner, a police officer, and a whole host of other nonsensical characters. Basically, "Jason Goes to Hell" is "Friday the 13th" meets "The Hidden." Or at least that's what they tell me. I've never seen "The Hidden," but I hate this movie, so I'm allowed to quote anonymous movie-based forum posters in their derision of this flick, right? In addition to that, it's got a whole bunch of nonsensical and downright hilarious stuff happening within its bite-sized 100-or-so-minute running time, so allow me to recap.
The movie at least gets points for its opening. Typical "Friday the 13th" hot counselor-type hangs out at a decidedly Crystal Lake-y campsite for a while before being attacked by Jason, the man. She runs in typical horror heroine fashion, but in reality, that panic is all there for a purpose, baby. She lures Jason out into a clearing in the forest, at which point approximately 50,000 armed soldiers open fire on the poor guy and blow him to smithereens. We just met an FBI agent posing as your typical F13 siren, so get used to some of the baffling switcheroos that this movie pulls on you.
The remains of Jason (I can't believe I just typed those four words) get taken to a nearby morgue, where KANE HODDER IN NON-JASON FORM is one of the FBI guards. And what happens here? Why - the most logical thing, of course, as the AFOREMENTIONED coroner gets possessed by the evil spirit of Jason and goes on a kill-crazy rampage, eventually heading back toward Crystal Lake itself in search of his long-lost cousin, whom he must kill in order to preserve his reign of terror forever. Lots of s**ts and giggles all around, I tells ya.
To say that this was a jarring switch for diehard F13 fans is the understatement of the century. I have no problem with film-makers taking an established entertainment venue in a new direction, but come on, guys, this is Jason Freakin' Voorhees we're talking about. Not only did they take the hockey mask out of the beloved series, they even took Kane Hodder out of the series with the exception of the introductory and closing scenes. When you've got the absolute BEST guy who's ever played your iconic role in your movie, a guy who not only brings a fresh portrayal to the silent role but is a huge fan of the character's lore and history as well, you use him. With much due respect to the guy who created my favorite horror series, Mr. Cunningham, WHAT were you thinking?
What other vital, important pieces of movie history are there to tell you about? Oh, right - the horror aspect of this horror movie. To be sure, there's plenty of murder fodder found within "JGTH." But the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of what goegs on in this flick is just downright BORING. The "Friday the 13th" films were many things before this movie came out, but boring was never among them. This movie is an experiment in controlled tedium, in which a whole slew of secondary characters that aren't even interesting enough to get an official secondary character rolodex get trotted out before us. Well, except for the police officer who gets shaved by Coroner-Jason in perhaps the most homoerotic scene in motion picture history. That's a very...interesting scene.
Our hero characters in this go-round are something else, as well. There's Creighton Duke, played by Steven "Mr. X" Williams, a bounty hunter on the trail of Mr. J who gives us the classic line "you could have had the Duker!" Williams has always been a favorite of mine, in everything from "Twilight Zone: The Movie" to "Blues Brothers" to "X-Files," and here he's just as charismatic. Virtually the only guy in the entire movie who doesn't just phone it on, he steals every scene that he's in.
Unfortunately, none of the other characters are even worth mentioning - including our main protagonist and antagonist. Surprisingly, I found myself incredibly apathetic to the story presented in this movie. I understand that many people don't watch these flicks for the story, and at a base level I don't either; however, I do expect at least some sort of investment in a slasher flick, and sadly the only investment I had with "JGTH" was when Steven Williams would turn up on screen again to take me away from the Land of Tedium (just a door over from the Land of the Lost - bah dum bah). That can really sum up the whole movie - it's got moments of brief loudness that interrupt us from the boring, one-note stuff happening onscreen that do little more than lull us out of our stupors. It really does little more than just reinforce my opinion that "Jason Takes Manhattan" should have been the final movie in the series. "Friday the 13th" lived in the '80s, and in the mind of the Horror Nerd, died there as well.
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