Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan helped round out the Friday the 13th franchise that had been building for nearly ten years. It rectified some issues that were present in some of the earlier films, and provided the audience some peace of mind as the series came to an end. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday takes the franchise in an entirely new direction. Jason (Kane Hodder) is alive and well thanks to his new ability to transfer bodies at will. As he jumps from host to host, looking for the perfect being to inhabit, a bounty hunter, Creighton Duke (Steven Williams), is hot on his trail. However, with ulterior motives in play, Duke must be convinced that permanently ending Jason’s life is worth his while. This time there is more to Jason that meets the eye, and the world is in for a rude awakening as the grisly serial killer makes his way through rural New Jersey.
Shortly after the release of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan New Line Cinema (and Sean S. Cunningham) gained control of the Friday the 13th franchise and was determined, after the failure of Jason Takes Manhattan to restructure the franchise. New Line Cinema’s first step was to create a film separate from the other eight films. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday takes place outside of the previously constructed timeline and introduces an entirely new franchise (in a sense).
While the franchise is essentially rebooted with Adam Marcus’ Jason Goes to Hell, there are some aspects of the previous franchise that slip into the film and tear it apart from the inside. The supernatural aspect of Friday the 13th once again forces its way to the forefront, and audiences find themselves trapped in a story full of occult oddities and unrealistic mumbo jumbo. The endless twists and turns (an aspect I often find appealing) become tiresome and do nothing but drag the film down and inform audiences that the story of Jason is all but dried up. There is little left that Jason can do to intrigue audiences, and that becomes very clear throughout the course of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.
I can appreciate the fact that New Line Cinema and those working within the studio wanted to create a separation between Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and other Jason Voorhees related films. It makes sense that they were willing to do whatever they needed to for audiences to become reinvigorated with the story of Camp Crystal Lake. However, creating such an asinine plot, with little to no comprehensible reason as to how anything taking place is possible did just the opposite. Audiences feel a disconnect like never before, and they struggle to appreciate any of what Marcus, and writers Jay Hugely and Dean Lorey, put together. There is no need to ever watch this film, as it is completely separate from everything that comes before, actors struggle to hold their own and the crew at New Line Cinema appear completely inept. I imagine that similar to films like Sharknado and Zombeavers, when the idea for Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday was presented at a meeting, the presenter got some interesting looks. However, unlike those films, Jason Goes to Hell is kitsch, has no value and is truly difficult to watch.
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