Film / Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

Evil has finally found a home.

“Horror, has many faces... death, wears many different masks… but pure evil, wears only one… and this is your final chance, to see it.”

— Tagline

The ninth Friday the 13th film released in 1993.

During an attempt to do what he does best — kill anyone who gets in his way — Jason Voorhees falls into a trap devised by the US Government. Military agents spend a couple of minutes pouring bullets into the Crystal Lake Killer before using a well-placed explosive device to make him rest in pieces.

But not even death can stop Jason Voorhees.

During the autopsy of (what remains of) his remains, Jason's dead heart beats on its own; the medical examiner is driven to eat it, and this allows Jason to possess the poor bastard — and anyone who gets in his way. As "Jason" makes his way back to Crystal Lake, a spotlight-hungry bounty hunter (Steven Williams) warns the town about the undead killer's true goal: Jason must possess a member of the Voorhees bloodline to fully reincarnate... and a number of Voorhees family members conveniently live near the ill-fated lake.

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Jason tried to drag these tropes to Hell with him; as you can see, he failed:

• Abandoned Playground: The final battle takes on a playground of the Voorhees estate.
• Alien Blood: The coroner discovers a strange black substance in Jason's heart, presumably his blood, although he refuses to believe that's what it is. Likely justified by the fact Jason hasn't been human in quite a while.
• An Arm and a Leg: Robert, while possessed by Jason, breaks Ward's arm in half, with the unrated cut showing his bones gruesomely splitting out.
• Asshole Victim: Robert, as he stole the corpse of his girlfriend's mother and planned to use it for a trashy exposé on Jason in a television show.
• Autopsy Snack Time: The medical examiner gulps a soda while he records his findings. The second coroner who walks in on the now-Voorhees-possessed examiner is carrying a pizza, and was presumably intending to eat it right there in the autopsy room.
• Bait-and-Switch: The entire opening scene. It starts off with what seems to be a normal girl going to the camp and who seems like she's about to be Jason's next victim. It turns out shes an agent in a sting operation to lure Jason out, after which is he is blown to bits, and she is taken to safety.
• Badass Bystander: Vicki is the most awesome waitress in all fiction, valiantly whooping Jason's ass with a shotgun and then a barbeque skewer to protect the patrons of her diner. She even gets a defiant last line in before he crushes her head.
  "Go to hell!"
• Beat Still, My Heart: Jason's (impossibly large) heart continues beating for a while when he is blown apart. The trouble starts when it starts beating again in the morgue.

• Bloodier and Gorier: By far the most graphic film in the series, to the point an unrated version exists. This is especially in comparison to the previous four films, which infamously had become more tame in violence due to MPAA intervention.

• Bounty Hunter: Creighton Duke, who specializes in capturing serial killers.
• Canon Discontinuity: As put by the crew during an interview:
  [Jason Goes To Hell] has nothing to do with the ones that came before it, nothing to do with the movies that came after it.

• Chubby Mama, Skinny Papa: Shelby is a skinny man, and Joey is a chubby woman.
• Cigar Chomper: Duke has a cigar in his mouth pretty much always.
• Cliffhanger Copout: As stated above, the film ends with Freddy Krueger pulling Jason's mask down to Hell, implying that he has 'plans' for him. Not only would this not have any bearing on the next film (which also ignores the events of THIS movie), but the movie it WAS setting up wouldn't come out for another 10 years. A later interview with the crew showed, they just put Freddy in there at the end as a Shout-Out gag and never really intended to create a crossover movie between the two horror icons.
• Comicbook Adaptation: By Topps Comics. The company had Jason later appear in an issue of Satan's Six, one of their other properties to plug it.
• Cue the Sun: It rises just after the climax.
• Dangerous Windows: Possessed Robert attacks Jessica through a window.
• Death by Cameo:
  • Kane Hodder appears without the Jason regalia as an FBI agent guarding the morgue, who cracks wise that Jason "was just big ol' pussy". Little does he know that Jason, possessing the coroner, is right next to him.
  • The cameos of Los Angeles radio hosts Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps, who play the deputies that get their heads smashed together.
• Deep-Fried Whatever: How Shelby dies, getting his head dunked into a deep fryer by Possessed!Robert.
• Destination Defenestration: After Steven impales possessed Josh with a fire poker, he starts thrashing around and ends up crashing through a window.
• Didn't Think This Through: The three friends who went up to Crystal Lake to celebrate Jason's death do so by skinny-dipping. . . without checking the water temperature. The result is them rushing back to their campfire, naked and freezing.
• Dragged Off to Hell: Jason in the climax, as promised by the title.
• Evil Laugh: Heard when Jason's mask is pulled underground in the last shot. And it's awfully familiar...
• Facial Horror: Jason's hockey mask is fused to his face.
• Fair Cop: Elizabeth Marcus is perhaps the ultimate example.
• Fast-Roping: Some of the FBI agents in the opening were hiding in trees and when Jason walks into their trap, they descend to the ground using this.
• Fingore: When Steven asks for Duke's help, he starts breaking his fingers to test his conviction on the matter.
• Flipping the Bird: While making fun of Jason's corpse, the second coroner flips it off in the process.
• Foreshadowing: The woman in the opening scene slides across the hood of her car while running from Jason — a move popularized by countless cop shows and movies, indicating that she's actually an undercover cop.
• Gender-Blender Name: Joey and Shelby (The former is the woman and the latter is the guy.)
• Gorn: This is possibly the most gruesome entry in the series.
• Groin Attack: Steven tries it against Jason, to no avail.
• Heroic Sacrifice: After Jason manages to be reborn through Diana, Duke handcuffs himself to him to buy more time for Steven and Jessica.
  • Along with Vicki, who impaled possessed Robert with a giant skewer and ends up getting impaled herself by him, in order to also buy more time for them.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Before possessing Josh, Jason takes the time to strip him, bind him, and shave off his mustache. Director Adam Marcus admitted that the gay vibes were intentional.
• I'm Melting!: When Jason swaps bodies, the former one rots to the bone.
• It's Personal: It is not stated outright what exactly happened, but Duke clearly has a bone to pick with Jason.
  Duke: Son of a bitch, remember me?
  • Well, in an early version of the script, it was to be revealed that many years before, Jason killed a younger Duke's fiance while the two were at Crystal Lake, resulting in Duke wanting revenge.
• Jawbreaker: Joey dies when possessed Robert elbows her jaw into her skull.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Caustic and foulmouthed Joey B., who also loves her husband very much and refused to hand an infant over to her parents on the basis that one of them was a likely suspect in the death of the child's grandmother.
• Just Hit Him: Jason probably could have punched Steven's heart out during the finale, but he seemed to enjoy throwing him around and hitting him with a stick instead. Alternatively, it is possible he was weaker having been just resurrected.
• Lampshade Hanging: After Steven picks up some teenage hitchhikers.
  Luke: We're going to Camp Crystal Lake.
  Steven: Oh yeah? Planning on smoking a little dope, having a little premarital sex, and getting slaughtered?
• The Last Title: The second part of the title.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: The Necronomicon and Kandarian dagger from the Evil Dead appear as Cameo Props. Word of God says that Pamela Voorhees summoned a Kandarian demon to resurrect Jason (making Jason a deadite) and that Jason was killed with the Kandarian dagger but they couldn't say that in the movie for copyright reasons.
• Mama Bear: Joey B., exemplified in a scene where she refuses to hand Stephanie back to Jessica because she's with Steven, who at that point was suspected of murdering Jessica's mother. It's also implied that she let Vicki keep Stephanie at the diner to protect her in case Steven showed up once she heard he was on the run.
  Joey B.: (aiming a gun at Jessica) Nobody's gonna touch that fucking ray of sunshine!
• Men of Sherwood: In the opening scene, an FBI team lure undead Serial Killer Jason Voorhes (who has killed almost every authority figure to meet him up until that point) into a trap and blow him apart. His powers let him come back, but those agents avoid encountering him again and survive.
• Mirror Scare: A character prominently walks in front of a mirror... and nothing happens, averting the trope. She then turns around, facing Jason who was just outside of mirror's reflective surface.
• Modesty Towel: The lady Jason chases in the opening throws one on when Jason interrupts her bath. Amazingly, she manages to keep the towel on during the chase.
• Ms. Fanservice: FBI Agent Elizabeth Marcus (beautiful actress/stuntwoman Julie Michaels) turns up with a tomboyish image in shapeless clothing and her hair hidden under a baseball cap. But in order to lure Jason into the SWAT team ambush she then strips off to take a shower like a true slasher film victim, revealing she has the breasts and butt for a PERFECT porn star figure! The nubile girls in the camper trio also get naked before getting slaughtered.
• Oh, Crap!: Protagonists' reaction when the Jason-slug hides in the basement, and Steven remembers that Diana's (Jason's sister) corpse is in there.
  Steven: Duke! The part about being reborn through a Voorhees woman, does it have to be a living woman?
  Duke: No....
  Steven: Duke, that thing is in the basement with Jessica's dead mother!
  Duke: Holy mother of God. (Reborn Jason jumps through the floor)
  • While it's difficult to tell by his mask, Jason's body language during the FBI sting at the beginning implies this is his reaction, particularly to the airstrike that finishes it up.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Jason has the ability to possess another body in the form of a worm-like demon that carries his soul. This ability is never brought up in the past movies. Granted that for him to perform this feat requires his current body to be destroyed.
• Orifice Invasion: This is how Jason changes bodies. And not just oral wise, in the case of Diana's corpse if you get our drift, and she's his half-sister. EW.
• Papa Wolf: Steven. The very second he finds out he is a father, and that not only is Jessica in danger of Jason, but their daughter is. He later gets crazy and holds his own against the newly resurrected Jason. The following dialogue says it best.
  Steven: GET AWAY FROM THEM MOTHERFUCKER!!!!
• Pants-Positive Safety: When Ward puts a pistol given by his mother Joey in his pants, she tells him to take it out.
  Joey: Honey, watch the willy.
  Ward: Ma!
• Police Are Useless: Inverted big time at the beginning. The FBI is taking Jason dead seriously and takes no chances, assaulting him with a small army's worth of firepower and finally an airstrike. It doesn't keep him down once and for all, but at least they actually managed to kill Jason for once.
• Possession Burnout: When Jason leaves someone he possesses, they die in a gruesome fashion.
• Powers via Possession: Those possessed by Jason inherit his trademark Super-Strength and Nigh-Invulnerability.
• Punctuated Pounding
  Steven: Go *punch* to *punch* Hell! *punch*
• Put Their Heads Together: Possessed Robert attacks two deputies with this.
• Rasputinian Death: The government finally takes notice of the indestructible Serial Killer running loose. As a result, Jason goes up against a small army of FBI agents that are actually taking him dead seriously. Instead of fighting out of it and killing them all, Jason is gunned down and blown to bits.
• Sarcasm Mode: Duke is told to tell first thing that comes to his mind from the words "Jason Voorhees" during his television interview, and he responds with this:
  Well, that made me think of a little girl in pink dress, sticking a hot dog through a donut.
• Series Fauxnale: Even more blatantly than the last time, as the makers intended to continue the series despite claims to the contrary.
  • New Line Cinema did... Sean Cunningham really wanted this to be the last time Jason was ever seen.
• Sex Equals Death:
  • An extremely gruesome example, where two teenagers are slaughtered in the midst of it with the girl being split in half with a sign post. Played with, as director Adam Marcus stated that he didn’t want to imply that sex equals death, but he was fine with implying that unprotected sex equals death. This is why he included a shot of a discarded and unopened condom.
  • Also averted, something very rare for a Friday the 13th film. The protagonist and her boyfriend are parents (out of wedlock) and the movie's only survivors.
• Shout-Out: This one has a few, more than any other installment in the series:
  • Robert finds the Necronomicon in the Voorhees house (providing a retroactive supernatural explanation to all of the inconsistencies and contradictions of the series).
  • The Horlicks University Arctic Expedition crate is briefly shown in the cellar.
  • Jessica mentions she left Steve by the Myers place .
  • And of course, Freddy Krueger's claw drags Jason's hockey mask down to Hell after he's defeated.
    • Less obviously, a dog approaches and sniffs the hockey mask left discarded where Jason was dragged into Hell, in a nod (and possible Take That!) to how Freddy arose from a comparable unmarked burial site in his 4th film. Unlike in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, this dog just walks away.
• Shovel Strike: Jason is whacked with a shovel in the climax.
• Show Within a Show: American Case File, which Robert works for.
• Shower of Angst: Jessica is having one over the stress of her mother's death, but is interrupted when possessed Robert cuts the electricity.
• Slashed Throat: Jason tries to possess Stephanie, and Steven slashes his throat with a machete.
• Spoiler Title: Predictably, the film ends with Jason going to Hell. It's not the last film in the series, however.
• Staggered Zoom: Used on Diana's eyes when she sees Jason's reflection in a mirror.
• Stopped Numbering Sequels: Since New Line Cinema didn't acquire the Friday the 13th title from Paramount, they had to resort to "Jason something" titles for this and later installments.
• Suddenly Speaking: Jason can speak while possessing people, which he does once near the climax.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The FBI definitely wasn't taking chances with Jason. The first shot fired is a headshot, followed by a small army's worth of concentrated fire from everything from pistols to shotguns to machine guns for about a minute, finished up with an airstrike. It doesn't permanently kill him, but they gave it a really good shot.
• This Was His True Form: Jason gets blown up at the beginning and spends almost the entire movie afterward as a little sludgy black eel monster, which Creighton Duke implies is his true form.
• Uncertain Doom: we never see what happens to Ward, he has his arm broken although this is obviously survivable. Equally we see that the Crystal Lake Sheriff survives being struck by someone being possessed by Jason so it's possible some of the other people he hits are only knocked out?
• Wham Shot: Jason is finally defeated and is sent to Hell, leaving only his mask behind. Suddenly, Freddy Kruger's hand bursts from the ground and pulls Jason's mask down with him. And then we hear his Evil Laugh...
• Your Head A-Splode: In the uncut version, after impaling Vicki, Jason proceeds to crush her skull between his hands until he pops her head like a zit.

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