Post by StevePulaski on Oct 31, 2014 11:13:48 GMT -5
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
Directed by: Joseph Zito
Directed by: Joseph Zito
Rating: ★★★
Sometimes when convention manages to be crafty and effective to the point of achieving the kind of satisfaction you wanted out of a particular film or its genre, you need to give it credit and reward it accordingly. That, in a nutshell, is why Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter gets a favorable review alongside its abnormally high rating. If one looks at the film with respect to its genre and time period, a time when the film market was dense with slasher films, coming from no-name studios to reputable ones, and the market was overblown with innovative works and miserably copycats. The Final Chapter doesn't subvert its genre in any way, nor does it really achieve much more than being standard fare for it either. However, the film is, above all, entertaining and effective in what it wants to do - show young, attractive people being killed and mauled by an unstoppable force.
The film is actually one of the few Friday the 13th sequels that I can immediately recall taking a more lax, slowburn approach to its material which, given its short runtime, is kind of admirable. We meet two different groups, one a mother and her teenage daughter and young son, and the other a group of sex-rattled, hormonal teenagers anxious for some campground fun over the weekend. Of course, convention and all intelligent assumptions would lead to Jason Voorhees showing up at the campground, killing everyone in his path with his machete. For ninety-one minutes, we watch this gaggle of teenagers go from horny and energetic to nothing more than carcasses in true slasher film fashion.
The gaggle of teenagers we focus on are at least mildly interesting, compared to the onslaught of caricatures we see in other horror films. For one, there's Crispin Glover, who is being teased by his other pal, played by Lawrence Monoson, for being a "dead-f***" after his girlfriend, nicknamed "BJ" Betty, breaks up with him on the fly. We get that humorous banter, in addition to a hilarious dance scene involving Glover, along with some fun scenes involving plucky tyke Corey Feldman exploring things that aren't simply the worlds in his video games.
With this, writer Barney Cohen creates an environment and a roster of characters that are marginally fun to watch because they actually seem to have life and are payed by actors evidently having fun with their roles. Everyone in the film looks like they're simply excited and happy to be in a slasher film and are trying to pull it off the best they can. When Jason finally shows up, The Final Chapter kicks formula into high gear, by going all out and completely bathing itself in blood and murderous fun, which is when the film adheres to its formula effectively.
Why do we go see horror films in the first place? To be given a good jolt, for one. To be entertained is another valid reason. Then there's the reason few like to openly admit, which is to witness numerous people simply be given the literal axe, contributing to an often heavy and bloody body-count when it's all done. All three of those things are present in The Final Chapter, and the unexpected inclusion of fun characters makes the film that much more watchable. The slowburn pacing of the film is often difficult to execute with early slasher films, given their often briskly-paced, graphic nature, but Cohen and director Joseph Zito find a common ground to function on, giving viewers a film that adheres to suspense but also operates as a film with a body count, merging two styles together effectively.
There's nothing in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter that won't be remembered on a long-term basis, given the amount of slasher sequels, remakes, and prequels, but there are a lot more specific scenes to remember than other films of its genre, making the affair just pleasantly different enough to recommend on a level that doesn't already comment on its effective use of convention.
Starring: Kimberly Beck, Peter Barton, Crispin Glover, and Corey Feldman. Directed by: Joseph Zito.