Woo boy. This one is special. Jason Goes to Hell is the first movie in the New Line series of “Jason” movies, and do note that these are Jason movies, not Friday the 13th as the rights to the title wasn’t in the same legal space as Jason’s character. This movie saw the return of Sean S Cunningham in a producer role, who allowed his son Noel’s friend Adam Marcus to write and direct this movie. Yes. Adam Marcus. The same guy who is responsible for Alexandra Daddario saying “Do your thing, cuz” in Texas Chainsaw. I’m not going to bad mouth the man, but I’m just going to go out and say I’m not the biggest fan of his work. Texas Chainsaw has its own problems that I will definitely talk about at some point or another. This film has some fairly questionable things go on in it, but I will give Marcus credit, it’s at least entertaining while being bad.
This film starts out with Jason getting blown to bits by an FBI sting. At the autopsy (it isn’t pretty damned obvious how he died in this case?), the coroner for whatever reason decides to pick up Jason’s heart and take a big ass nasty bite out of it. I’m sure this is supposed to be like a demonic calling making the coroner do that, but it’s still incredibly weird. This whole movie is incredibly weird and while it’s a completely incoherent mess, this movie is one of those messes that’s so bad it’s almost good but still misses the mark by just a hair. Either way, if you were a horror fan in the early 90’s this still wasn’t the worst thing you had access to. If you can’t appreciate anything else about this movie, at least appreciate the almost Cronenberg levels of body horror in some of the transformations as well as some of the gore and creativity in the kills. In American cinema, this wasn’t quite as common back then as it is today. Either way, we’re talking about kills now, so lets see how many we can add to Jason’s count in this one. This analysis is definitely going to be a bit on the sloppy side, but I’m still going to count every kill that was committed by a person under Jason’s possession. That’s as simple as I could possibly make it.
The Kills
- Assistant Coroner – Stabs the guy in the neck with whatever that is and pushes his head through the grating of the table. First kill and its a good example of why this bad movie is still fun for me.
- 2 Security Guards – Looks like they are just beaten to death. Richard Gant should have hit Kane Hodder with that “Who’s the pussy now?!”.
- Alexis, the blonde camper (love those IMDb credits) – I’ve watched this scene frame by frame and can’t figure out for the life of me what he’s using to slash this girl with. You get one small frame where you see the weapon and the fandom wiki and James A Janisse both say it’s a scalpel so I’m trusting them on it.
- Deborah, the dark-haired camper – Impaled with what looks like a felled road sign post and then split in half when he pulls up on it. Pretty gnarly stuff.
- Luke, the boy camper (these names, y’all) – He’s killed offscreen and his body isn’t shown later so you don’t really get a method with this one. You can assume he is killed with the same post that Deborah is, but I’m putting this as an unknown. You can ask Samuel L. Jackson what you get when you make an assumption.
- Edna, Josh’s girlfriend – Gets her head smashed with a car door. That’s gotta be rough. I’m counting this as being bludgeoned as there’s technically an object he’s killing her with, the car door. I originally was going to count this as him killing her with his bare hands, but this movie needs some diversity.
- Diana Kimble – Gets impaled with a knife hone. Those things are blunt and he throws it through her like it’s some kind of spike…you know what, moving on.
- Officer Ryan – Gets his head bashed in a locker.
- Officers Mark and Bryan – Smashes their heads together and almost turns them into cenobites here. It’s like Marcus was trying to bring Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, AND Hellraiser together in this movie.
- Ward – Gets manhandled and killed against a door. I’m assuming Jason wouldn’t just let him go so I’m taking that as a kill. I’m still surprised that he didn’t kill the Sheriff with that punch earlier. You know, since Jason has the strength to use knife hones as throwing weapons.
- Shelby – Fries the guys head in a deep fryer. I’ve had oil pop and burn my face and I’ve put my hands in deep fryers more times than I wish I could count. When I see this kill and the one in Sleepaway Camp as well as Sleepaway Camp 4 (that one is a slasher that will eventually get this type of coverage, just be patient) I feel those probably more than most. Just makes me cringe every time.
- Joey B. – I’m really not even sure if I should count this a broken mandible wouldn’t necessarily be fatal…but screw it. Surely she wouldn’t be allowed to live, right?
- Vicki – For whatever reason there’s a random piece of rebar sitting around this diner. Yes, after looking at this scene 3 times I’m fairly confident it’s a stick of rebar. For some reason they are doing concrete work in the diner. Anyway, she impales Jason with the rebar and in turn he grabs her and impales her on it right with him.
Conclusion
Jason Voorhees kills 15 people in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.
| Method: | Amount of Kills: |
|---|---|
| Impaled | 3 |
| Stabbing | 1 |
| Slashed | 1 |
| Killed with bare hands | 7 |
| Bludgeoned to death | 1 |
| Burned | 1 |
| Unknown cause of death | 1 |
| Method: | Amount of kills: |
|---|---|
| Stabbing | 22 |
| Strangled | 2 |
| Hammer claw to the head | 1 |
| Throat slit | 4 |
| Impaled | 18 |
| Slashing | 12 |
| Electrocuted | 2 |
| Killed with bare hands | 18 |
| Defenestrated | 2 |
| Decapitated | 5 |
| Drowned | 2 |
| Burned | 2 |
| Bludgeoned to death | 3 |
| Unknown cause of death | 6 |
| Movie Title: | Total kills: |
|---|---|
| Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) | 9 |
| Friday the 13th Part III (1982) | 12 |
| Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) | 13 |
| Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) | 18 |
| Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) | 15 |
| Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) | 17 |
| Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday | 15 |
| Total Altogether: | 99 |