Friday The 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter
For a series that was always like the champagne and caviar of its particular subgenre, this 4th (though truly not final) entry in the series elevated things pretty well, partly by bringing back Tom Savini as the FX designer and partly by having one of the best and most charismatic casts in the series, topped off by ex-stuntman Ted White (who asked that his name be removed from the credits) as the iconic Jason Voorhees himself. The action starts off with Jason’s “dead” body (still in the barn from Part 3), being picked up and taken to the morgue. Director Joseph Zito shows his atmospheric style right off the bat, mostly with a pretty young paramedic who is obviously frightened by what she sees. Once at the morgue, he revives and makes short but gruesome work of two employees played by Bruce Mahler (best known as Fackler from Police Academy) and Lisa Freeman (arguably the hottest girl in the movie). From there it’s back to Crystal Lake, where he targets not only a family in the area but a group of teens renting the neighboring house for a party. Despite the criticism leveled at the series for its actors, I really think this group of kids is more likable and people I’d rather hang out with than in any modern-day teen comedy: Peter Barton (from the old 80s show The Powers Of Matthew Star) and Barbara Howard are the teen couple contemplating whether they should “go all the way”; Lawrence Monoson is hilarious as the goofy stoner with his imaginary “computer” who’s just along for a good time (and who was really stoned while filming his scenes, adding to the authenticity); Judie Aronson is hot and sexy as the “fast” girl with a memorable skinny dipping scene; Former Doublemint twins Camilla and Carey More are cute as well; and then there is Crispin Glover, the legendary George McFly himself, as the perpetually horny teen who makes cinematic history with his bizarre and contorted dance steps. The intrigue is compounded by the addition of a “hunter” character (Erich Anderson), seeking revenge on Jason for the death of his sister (an idea that was used in the recent remake). The film suffers a bit from Kimberly Beck as the lead heroine role of Trish: while she’s kinda cute, she does overdo the sweet act to the point of annoyance, and is nowhere near as charismatic as Dana Kimmell’s Chris from Part 3. In the end though, the main point of the film is to introduce us to the character that would serve as Jason’s archnemesis for the next three films, Tommy Jarvis. The fact that he is a horror movie and makeup FX fanatic (who designs and builds his own monster masks) is a sly nod from the filmmakers to the young readers of Fangoria magazine who kept this series at its pinnacle during the 80s, and Corey Feldman is actually quite engaging in the part, with his final solution of messing with Jason’s head coming off as both clever and quite disturbing. Overall, easily one of the best in the classic series, and way better than the rather average reboot…
9/10