A Nightmare from Friday to Halloween: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

The three most prominent American horror franchises (Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street) have influenced American cinema even beyond the horror genre. As of 2021, there are exactly 31 movies across all three franchises, and I am going to attempt to watch all of them, for this Halloween, one per day.

I appreciate that they tried to change up the formula with this version. The idea of Jason becoming incorporeal and being able to jump from host to host wasn’t exactly new, but it’s a pretty bold choice to make, considering how iconic the Jason Voorhees look with the hockey mask had become to a generation of horror fans. Also, the suspense that comes with this power is fairly well-played up, though it gets repetitive, as all the Friday the 13th films do when it’s kill after kill after kill. I found myself waiting for the final showdown, which, while not exactly disappointing, seemed like a lot of buildup for not that much, though I though the scene where Jason gets ripped apart by the souls he has ingested was pretty cool. I also found it funny that the very end scene is supposed to set up a crossover that wouldn’t happen until a decade later. Overall, not the worst of the Jason movies I have seen, but no entry from this franchise was never really going to satisfy me like any Nightmare on Elm Street film does.