Friday the 13th: Part IV - The Final Chapter / Blu-ray + Digital

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter Blu-ray Review

A Child Shall Lead Them

Reviewed by Michael Reuben, September 11, 2013

Director Joseph Zito has frankly admitted that he didn't have too many new ideas for the fourth installment in the Friday the 13th series, which he fully expected to be the last outing for Jason Voorhees. But one of those ideas was truly ingenious: adding a precocious kid to the usual mix of teens in jeopardy. The result was the casting of Corey Feldman, who, whatever the vagaries of his adult career, turned in a memorable performance and became the signature presence in The Final Chapter (next to Jason himself). Feldman's incarnation of the terrorized Tommy Jarvis not only established a continuing character, but it also helped introduce the franchise to a new generation of horror fans who were thrilled to find someone their own age. If they couldn't sneak into an R-rated theatrical showing, they saw the film at home on the newfangled format of VHS tape. For proof of The Final Chapter's influence on the young, look no further than the "fan" commentary track by genre fanatics, horror directors and, currently, Holliston stars Adam Green and Joe Lynch. Makeup artist Tom Savini returned for the first time since the original film, because he believed he would be killing off the franchise and character he had created. In a sense he did, even if the producers deemed his notion of a microwave ray gun too expensive and also inconsistent with the series' usual motif of cutting and bludgeoning. But Savini adapted one of his Day of the Dead designs to provide an operatic end for Jason, and as he himself points out, it gained in impact, because Jason's is the only death in the film on which the camera lingers. Zito and editor Joel Goodman cut away quickly from all the others, which has the interesting effect of making them seem more graphic in memory than they actually are.The Final Chapter opens with a terrific montage recapping the first three films, which was assembled under the supervision of producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. The character of Paul (John Furey) from Part 2 provides narration as a campfire tale. Then, following in the footsteps of Halloween II , the story picks up exactly where the previous film ended. A long tracking shot follows a helicopter landing among the police, paramedics and emergency vehicles gathered at the site of Jason's 3D slaughter, and the camera wanders among the carnage until it reaches Jason's body. As director Zito says in the disc's extras, every director wants to be Orson Welles in Touch of Evil . And why not? Again echoing Halloween II, Jason is packed off to the hospital morgue, but he only remains there long enough to dispatch a nubile nurse and a horny doctor (Lisa Freeman and Bruce Mahler). An aggressive hitchhiker (Bonnie Hellman, who has no lines but makes a strong impression) serves as another reminder of Jason's predilections while he makes his way back to Crystal Lake. Headlines proclaim that the body is missing, but everyone just assumes it was stolen. (Who would want it?) Eschewing the series' classic camp site venue, The Final Chapter is set primarily in two neighboring houses. One is the longtime residence of the Jarvis family: Tommy (Feldman), his sister, Trish (Kimberly Beck), and their mother (Joan Freeman). Somehow the Jarvises have lived in Crystal Lake for all these years without ever stumbling across Jason. (On the crew commentary track, Zito & Co. joke about this, but agree that one just has to "go with it".) The neighboring house has been rented for the summer by the requisite group of six hormonal youths, of which by far the most intriguing is Jimmy, because he's played by a young Crispin Glover. Having been recently dumped by his girlfriend, Jimmy is desperate to hit it off with somebody, anybody, to restore faith in his wounded manhood. The group is joined by a pair of twins (another of Zito's inspirations), Tina and Terri (Camilla and Carey More), who happen to be cycling through this remote part of the woods and immediately accept an invitation to join the party at the rented house. The Jarvises are joined by Rob Dyer (Erich Anderson), who assists Tommy and Trish when their car breaks down. As soon as they get home, Tommy drags Rob upstairs to show him the collection of monster masks, creature models and working props he's constructed all by himself. It's clear that Tommy is a precocious, pint-size Savini, but Rob's mind is elsewhere. He's come looking for Jason, who killed his sister in Part 2 . Needless to say, he doesn't succeed. Stuntman Ted White makes a particularly effective Jason. He moves faster and more gracefully than some of the previous versions, and his still poses are often expressive, as if Jason were saying something you can't quite make out. White would later complain that Feldman was a "brat" on set, but maybe that helped the movie, because their final showdown has a genuine charge, as Tommy, having studied Rob Dyer's newspaper clippings about Jason, makes a last-ditch attempt to throw him off-balance psychologically. And thus Jason Voorhees dies. Again.