YMMV / Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

• Ass Pull:
  • It's revealed that Jason can only be killed by another Voorhees in order to stay truly dead. Not only does this come completely out of left field with no real proper explanation, but it contradicts the events of The Final Chapter in which Tommy Jarvis managed to kill Jason once and for all, and he remained dead all throughout the next installment. Though given that Tommy still managed to revive him, it could be a case of putting him down for good.
  • Speaking of another Voorhees, Diana being Jason's sister also comes completely out of nowhere, especially given that Pamela's dialogue in the very first movie implied that she only had one child. The fact that the movie never explains In-Universe if she's Jason's biological sister or half-sister doesn't help either although if Jason's father had another child by a different woman it does explains things.
  • Creighton Duke explains that Jason has the ability to hop through multiple bodies. An ability he has never been shown performing in the past, yet the dialogue builds it up as something he's been doing forever.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Jason shaves Josh's moustache before possessing him. No explanation is given. According to the two-disc DVD set His Name Was Jason, which covers the making of the series over thirty years, it was an attempt to insert a homoerotic element in a series that had a great double standard in its sexual exploitation. An in-universe explanation is that Jason wants to make sure his next host would resemble him when he was a child at the time of his drowning before surviving it in Part 2 or when he was human in Part III, given Josh following his possession resembles Jason with his Bald of Evil from Part III and The Final Chapter.
  • The appearance of The Necronomicon from Evil Dead, though this one can be explained as a sequel hook for the Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash crossover that was in the works for years and only came out as a comicbook.
  • Jason talking while in Randy's body.
• Broken Base: Widely hated by many fans for breaking the traditional slasher formula. Liked by others for the same reason, that it does something fresh and the presence of the Necronomicon explains many of the mysteries and inconsistencies of the series.
• Critical Backlash: For as much scorn as the film gets, it has surprisingly formed the beginnings of a cult following who feel the hatred for the changes to the series were overblown and like the attempt at a new take on the overdone series.
• Cult Classic: Is frequently considered a candidate for the worst entry in the Friday the 13th series, but has slowly built a following due to its unique take, gory kills and the Critical Backlash, even if it hasn't been entirely Vindicated by History like some of the other installments. This is to the extent the film got a sizable representation for the Scream Factory box set for the Friday the 13th series box set and a fan documentary called Hearts of Darkness is in the works.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Joey B. for, despite being a angry and foulmouthed woman who causes trouble for Steven and Jessica, showing a surprising amount of depth making her more three-dimensional than your typical Friday the 13th Jerkass besides Sheriff Garris or any slasher movie Jerkass. The reason she opposes Steven and Jessica in the first place is out of fear they'll harm baby Stephanie, both due to her maternal instincts and a misguided but sympathetic loyalty to Stephanie's grandmother. There's also her line "Nobody's gonna touch that fucking ray of sunshine," as cheesy as it is brilliant.
  • Vickie for possibly being the most badass waitress in fiction, first unflinchingly taking on Jason with a shotgun and then sacrificing herself to give Jessica and Steven time to flee. Her last words, even as Jason pulls her through the same pole she's impaling him with, are "Go to Hell!"
  • Agent Elizabeth Marcus from the opening due to having good looks and evading Jason long enough for the reinforcements to blow him to the kingdom come.
• Fanon: Given the film never explains Diana's relation to the Voorhees family, fans interprets her as Elias Voorhees' daughter, not Pamela’s as the original film has her saying that Jason was her only child.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Between how different the film plays out compared to previous installments, mixed with how horribly mangled the continuity is (even by this series standards), many fans tend to ignore this one altogether. However the introduction of the Book of the Dead does provide a retroactive explanation for many of the more baffling aspects of the series, they can now all be simply put down to the influence of dark magic.
• Fight Scene Failure: During the final showdown between fully returned Jason and the protagonists, you can clearly see Kane Hodder preparing for the impact when Jason is about to be hit with a shovel by Steven.
• Fridge Brilliance: Why did the FBI only go after Jason now? Probably because the last movie had him crossing state-lines to kill people.
• Harsher in Hindsight: On a meta level, this was the film that sent Jason to Hell by killing the franchise for nine years.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • It won't be the last time Jason has set foot in Hell. Just ask Liu Kang.
  • Steven Williams plays a character who has all the answers, but holds on to them until an opportune moment reveals itself, not unlike his character Mr. X in The X-Files.
  • The Necronomicon and Kandarian dagger were simply meant to serve as an explanation for why Jason is so unstoppable (according to Word of God), but it certainly made for good plot setup for Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash
  • This wouldn't be the last time Jason possessed his victims and went around killing in their bodies, since in the Tales from Crystal Lake novels later on he did it through the hockey mask rather than demonic powers.
• Magnificent Bastard: Creighton Duke is a mysterious Bounty Hunter specializing in serial killers, who has a personal vendetta against Jason Voorhees. Duke is the only one to possess knowledge on Jason including; Jason's ability to Body Surf via his soul-demon, how he can resurrect himself through someone of the Voorhees bloodline, and how one of the Voorhees bloodline could permanently kill him. Tracking down Jason's half-sister, Diana, Duke attempts to recruit her, but his attempts are unsuccessful and lands him in jail, where Duke would meet Steven Freeman, the ex-husband of Diana's daughter, Jessica. Seeing Steven wishes to take Jason down, Duke provides information, at the price of breaking all of Steven's fingers. Aware that Diana was killed by Jason, Duke escapes from his jail cell and kidnaps, Jessica's baby daughter from Joey B.'s Diner, leaving a note for Jessica to come to the Voorhees house, where Duke returns the baby and gives Jessica a dagger that can kill Jason. When Jason attacks, while Duke himself is defeated by Jason, his efforts finally allow Steven and Jessica to kill Jason for good.
• Narm Charm:
  • The entirety of the FBI shootout scene. Incredibly cheesy and out-of-place in a Friday the 13th movie? Yes. Entertaining as all Hell? Oh dear lord, Yes!
  • The hockey mask being fused to Jason's face this time. It's goofy, yes, but it help showcase how much of a monster he is compared to past films.
  • Joey B.'s immortal quote in the movie. Need we say more?
    Joey B.: "Nobody's gonna touch that fucking ray of sunshine!"
• Nausea Fuel: The scene with the coroner eating Jason's heart. It's downright sickening.
• Retroactive Recognition: Shelby was played by Leslie Jordan, who would be later known for his work on American Horror Story.
• Sequelitis: The film tried to bring something new to the Friday the 13th formula, which backfired, badly.
• Signature Scene:
  • The Sequel Hook, which has Freddy Krueger pulling Jason's mask under the ground after he is sent to Hell.
  • The opening scene, both for the sheer over the top factor of the FBI shooting Jason down and blowing him up, as well as managing to capture the feel of the old school Friday films before the shootout.
  • The death of the three campers in the woods, for being one of the goriest sequences in the series.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • After Jason gets stabbed with the dagger, agents of Hell sprout from the ground to drag him down under. The look of the hands...no. Reminds one of the giant foam fingers they sell at the sports games...
  • If you look closely when Jason's head falls next to his heart after the FBI shootout, you can clearly tell that it's somebody dropping it from a low distance as a piece of straw can be seen floating for a quick second that's stuck to the fake blood on the head.
  • The sequence where Josh's body melts as awesome as it is grotesque...that said, the jaw is obviously nailed to the ground as it's seen swiveling back and forth instead of just slowly falling off his melting body.
• Squick: Jason tries to possess the body of his baby grand-niece. When that fails, he possesses his dead half-sister instead. Through her vagina.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The biggest complaint about the film was the body-hopping aspect, which limited Jason's usual hockey masked appearance to the beginning and the ending.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Diana is the half-sister of Jason, who is hinted to know about his origins. But her role is just to die early in the film before revealing anything interesting, and then have her corpse be conveniently present for the climax.
  • Some felt cheated that the bounty hunter character in question wasn't Tommy Jarvis given his history with Jason in the series qualified him to be the better candidate than some random stranger that just pops up and spouts out Jason’s “mythology” as if he's known him forever. Recently, Adam Marcus revealed that Steven Freeman was written to be Tommy Jarvis, but Paramount would not allow them to use the character.
  • The FBI agents that take down Jason in the opening are never seen again for the rest of the movie. Elizabeth Marcus feels especially wasted, as she started off looking like a potential victim before being revealed as a skilled agent; she at the very least could have been involved in tracking the revived Jason, assuming she somehow found out he was still alive.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Since Jason is able to possess living people that can actually talk, you'd think that he will get an opportunity to actually say anything interesting in adulthood, but the sole instance of him talking is squandered on a half-hearted attempt to trick the protagonists.
  • Some fans have wished that the opening scene where the FBI tracks down and kill Jason was expanded as the whole film instead of just being the setup of the film itself. Alternatively, they could have found out about Jason’s supernatural survival and tried to track him down again.
• Too Cool to Live: Joey B. and Vickie. Both memorable characters who go down in Dying Moment of Awesome in fighting Jason.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • While the look of it is up for debate as to whether it looks cool, the amount of makeup on Jason's regular body is quite extensive and convincing looking, arguably rivaling the widely-praised suit used in the seventh film. Kane Hodder even went on record to say it was the most uncomfortable Jason suit he ever wore on account of how detailed it was.
  • The amount of fake blood and prosthetics used for the kills and Jason's possessed victims is very exquisite, with even this film's detractors praising it for being one of the goriest films in the series and making up for the heavy trims the preceding four films faced in violence.
  • The possessed Josh melting away is beautifully revolting in one of the few instances of Body Horror in the franchise.

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