I enjoyed The Expendables. It was a movie where past-their-prime action stars punched the faces off of some bad guys. Sure, it wasted almost a third of the movie with inept attempts at character development, but it was gloriously dumb fun. The success of that film made a sequel inevitable, and the debut trailer made it look like they were going to pack in more stars, which virtually guaranteed less plot, less development, and more boomsplosions, which is what The Expendables 2 should be about.
Aside from the returning cast (everybody but Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mickey Rourke), we get Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and...Liam Hemsworth? Not even the Hemsworth that was in Thor? The one they choose for the biggest, dumbest action movie ever is the guy who doesn't do anything in The Hunger Games?!? He's obviously the least famous actor billed in this movie, but that was still an odd casting choice. It makes you wonder what other odd decisions went into The Expendables 2...
...like a dance scene, perhaps?
Barney's (Sylvester Stallone) crew of good-guy mercenaries is back to work. This time,they find themselves in a tight spot. Instead of picking their own missions, as is the norm, they are forced into doing the dirty work for Mr. Church (Bruce Willis), or else risk being thrown into double-secret probation CIA jail for the rest of their natural lives. That means trying to recover a mysterious something from a plane wreckage site in Albania. Correction: scenic Albania. The team (Jason Statham, Terry Crews, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture and the new guy, Liam Hemsworth) accomplishes their mission, thanks to their chaperone, Maggie (Nan Yu), and is ready to extract, when they are ambushed by a bunch of villains. The villains, led by the appropriately named Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme), murder poor, innocent, three-days-away-from-retirement Liam Hemsworth, and get away with their "Get Out of Jail Free" card. That shit's personal. Enter extreme violence and minimal plot.
Look, it's the one expendable member of The Expendables!
The Expendables 2 was directed by Simon West, which should be an improvement over Sylvester Stallone's direction in the first Expendables film. The key words there are "should be." West isn't bad, exactly, but his work here is uninspired. West is no stranger to dumb action movies, but he doesn't quite make a successful transition from dumb to enjoyably stupid action films with this entry. What's the difference? An enjoyably stupid action movie keeps up a rapid pace and varies up the gratuitous violence enough to keep the audience entertained. The Expendables 2 has some solid action in it, but there is also a hefty amount of downtime, where we are forced to watch Stallone emote; at this point in his career, the only emotion Stallone's face can convincingly portray is "lumpy."
"L" is for "Lumpy"
Overall, though, West makes sure there is action, and he makes sure the biggest names in the cast receive a few moments in the spotlight (for better or worse); in other words, his direction is less than I had hoped, but certainly within expectations.
So, how's the acting?
"Heh-heh. The blogger made a funny."
Honestly, that just depends on your standards. I went in with pretty low expectations, acting-wise, but I was still a little underwhelmed. Stallone does his best to add some depth to his character --- and I think he does a decent job --- but the attempt is misguided in this movie and this role. If he was just a little more gleefully destructive instead of angsty, The Expendables 2 would have been a hell of a lot more fun. Liam Hemsworth probably did the best job acting, although his role was clearly designed to justify the extreme violence in the rest of the movie.
...which is, admittedly, a tall order
It felt like Jason Statham had a lot less screen time in this sequel, but I guess his character just didn't have much to contribute; Statham is present in every major action scene, but I thought his role was far less important this time around. As for his acting, he did a pretty good Jason Statham impression. Jet Li was barely in the movie, so we didn't have to suffer through the unintelligible banter between him and Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren was particularly mush-mouthed, and I found it hard to believe he was ever an action star. But then I re-discovered this little gem on the interwebs and my faith in Dolph was restored:
As for the other Expendables, Randy Couture and Terry Crews weren't given a whole lot to do, which I think was a poor choice, since they both seem to have a decent sense of action movie humor. I wouldn't mind seeing Crews in a buddy action movie in the near future. The big news in The Expendables 2 was not the main cast, though --- it was the featured cameos. Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris all had scenes focused exclusively on them. Norris' scenes were the funniest, if only because they lived up to his internet reputation; he actually came across fairly awkward, like he didn't get why his part was supposed to be funny.
If they had CGI-ed a fist under his beard, I would have given it a pass
Bruce Willis was okay at first, but as soon as he stumbled into catchphrase territory, he was pretty damn hammy. Arnold was the worst, though; he looked awful and made his Conan-era acting look like Daniel Day-Lewis by comparison. Perhaps the biggest surprise in this film was how fun it was to watch Jean-Claude Van Damme as a villain. Van Damme has never been a very good actor (understatement!), but his accent and lack of charm plays surprisingly well as a bad guy. This is easily his best work since he lost his mullet.
Without having to smile and be likable, Van Damme actually looks cool here
His number two man, Scott Adkins, wasn't as entertaining, but his physical stunts helped make up for the fact that the rest of this cast is too old for stunts. Nan Yu wasn't bad as the resident damsel in varying degrees of distress, but she wasn't terribly important and basically gave Stallone opportunities to brood. Charisma Carpenter returned as Statham's girlfriend, but she didn't really do much except look age-appropriately attractive for a few minutes --- bonus points to the movie for giving Statham a love interest that is roughly his own age, a rarity in action movies.
Seriously, though, does anyone care about the acting in The Expendables 2? Of course not. This movie exists only for the action scenes, of which there are several.
Not this one. This is an exposition scene.
If you're fan of explosions and lots and lots of CGI blood, this is the movie for you. Especially if you like the middle third of the film being filled with plot and poor attempts at drama. That's really the problem I have with this movie --- it has action bookends, but the movie slows to a crawl when they try to make the audience actually care about the characters. Of course, the attempt was hilariously inept, but the mere fact that it was attempted shows how misguided the filmmakers were. There are eight action movie headliners in this movie, with a healthy supply of supporting action movie veterans, and yet the pace would have to speed up to earn being called "plodding." There is no excuse for that. Who the fuck wants a movie with all these action stars that spends any time whatsoever on Stallone's feelings? Can I see a show of hands?
Exactly.
Here's the thing with The Expendables 2: it was meant to be a ridiculously stupid action movie, but the filmmakers misunderstood how to make that happen. Instead of stuffing this movie with action heroes doing action stunts that couldn't be believed, like some sort of action movie turducken, they gave into Stallone's ego and let him try to emote. And then they made the ill-advised decision to let Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis trade catch phrases, which made for possibly the most painful ten minutes I spent watching movies this year. Even with those problems, it's still got enough action to satisfy most viewers. Too bad it's kind of boring.
As a fan of the slasher sub-genre, I tend to like creative movie deaths. If the villain can kill with style and humor, I am 100% on board. You would think, then, that I would appreciate the Final Destination series, since all they are is a collection of death scenes. I don't know why, but I've always been bored with this franchise. Maybe it's the inevitability of death, or maybe it's the hackneyed writing and formulaic plots, but it has been almost a decade since I last saw a movie in this series. I just never felt like wasting my time, which is especially harsh, considering some of the crap I watch. I decided to give Final Destination 5 a try for one reason and one reason only:
That's the first major scene in the movie, and it has a lot going for it. There is a group of friends in a terrible, life-or-death-but-mainly-death situation, and they all manage to find different and creative ways to die. The CGI looked pretty good and Daivd Koechner has his skin boiled off by hot tar. What's not to like? More importantly, what else does FD5 have in store?
Final Destination 5 begins with a group of office workers getting on a bus so they can go to a company retreat. While on the bridge, Sam (Nicholas D'Agosto) has a daydream of the bridge collapsing and everybody but his ex-girlfriend, Molly (Emma Bell), dying in hilarious terrifying fashion.
Off-camera CGI guy: "Rawr! I'm an evil bridge! And, um, I'm membering and dismembering your friends!"
When Sam snaps out of it, he sees signs that his daydream is about to become reality. Naturally, he tries to save everyone's life by demanding that they leave the bus and start running against traffic on the bridge. Oddly enough, his tactics work; in a bizarre coincidence, all eight characters that have had speaking parts up to this moment miraculously choose to get off the bus right before the bridge starts collapsing, which sends their bus (and non-speaking role co-workers) to the briny depths. At the memorial service, the survivors decide to be ungrateful little punks and spend their time not enjoying their new lease on life or celebrating; they just want to know how Sam knew to get off the bus, and they want to be sure that their questions all sound accusatory.
"So let me get this straight...none of you wants to buy me a shot for saving your life?"
Of course, Sam could have had a better answer than "suck it." All he had to do was admit it was a vision, or say something along the lines of "I saw x, y, and z, and overreacted...or so I thought." Unfortunately for the survivors, it appears that Death has the mentality of a spoiled child and will stop at nothing to kill these survivors in the order they were originally supposed to die. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, because you would assume Death would be a pretty patient supernatural being, what with all living things having to die. But without a cranky Death, there is no Final Destination franchise, so...yeah, the villain is Death, and Death loves gory retribution.
And THAT'S for Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector!
Can this group of plucky youngsters figure out Death's design (TM) and work out a way to survive? Or will Death kill the hell out of them? And which ending are you supposed to root for?
Happily Ever After = Death by Fireball
The acting in Final Destination 5 is all pretty terrible. In defense of the actors, though, it is pretty obvious that this movie is about the kill scenes and not character development.
What was your first clue?
Taking that into consideration, I would say that David Koechner and aggressive/racist nerd P.J. Byrne were the two most annoying characters. Nicholas D'Agosto, Emma Bell, Ellen Wroe, and Arien Escarpeta were vanilla yogurt-bland, with absolutely no unique personality traits. Miles Fisher wasn't very good, but at least he transitioned believably into a Patrick Bateman-type.
Fisher, fighting the urge to run naked with a chainsaw
So who does that leave us with? Courtney B. Vance had the unenviable task of being the disbelieving cop. Tony Todd reprised his role as the Death Whisperer, AKA the guy who explains this goofy-ass plot to the potential victims. Jacqueline MacInnes Wood probably stood out the most to me, although it had little to do with her fairly sub-standard "selfish bitch" performance. No, she stood out from the rest of the cast by playing the character with the least amount of common sense.
Although the best workplace attire
Final Destination 5 is the first full-length feature film to be directed by Steven Quale. While Quale certainly didn't "wow" in his debut --- little things like character development, subtlety, film style and cinematography were obviously not priorities for him --- there is something to be said about delivering what the audience wants to see. Even though this is the fifth entry in the series, I would argue that the Quale filmed the quintessential Final Destination scene:
It's all right there. There is misdirection, false alarms, startle-scares, ridiculous coincidences, and (of course) gory death. I'll even give Quale some bonus points for making me squirm with the whole screw thing, which probably says something about how desensitized I am to movie violence. After all, this makes me uncomfortable...
Gosh, that sure would hurt!
...but this is totally rad.
At least she stuck her landing
Anyway, Quale did a fine job constructing the death sequences and didn't seem to care about anything else. For fans of the series, I think that is an acceptable trade-off.
I am not a fan of this series, though. There is something inherently anticlimactic when normal humans are trying to beat Death. It's not like Death ever loses; the time of the game may differ between players, but the outcome is always the same.
With slight variations, of course
These movies are, essentially, fictional snuff films. That notion disturbs me in films like Saw, but the Final Destination series has always been more about dramatic irony than torture porn. Instead of getting suspense through traditional storytelling means (How will they get out of this?), FD suspense comes from seeing the deadly pieces come together in an over-complicated mousetrap.
...that sometimes has lasers. Die, mice, die!
That's the basic idea, at least. In practice, Final Destination 5 is less about the suspense and more about the gruesome and abrupt payoff. Would this be a good movie if it had a clever script and/or likable characters occupying the spaces between death scenes? Probably not, but at least then I might feel bad for someone in the movie other than Tony Todd.
Dude's gonna have his work cut out for him
For what it is, though --- the fifth film in a franchise with a hare-brained premise --- Final Destination 5 isn't too bad. There is enough dark humor to make the ridiculous death scenes fun to watch, and the death scenes were pretty creative. The plot is obviously formulaic, but that's what happens when your franchise reaches #5 with a villain that isn't actually a character. I would recommend this to gore fans, but I've included videos of the only scenes you really need to see.
Here's a little tidbit I laughed at while doing background research on this movie. Check out this screen capture from the Final Destination series Wikipedia page (as of 10/10/12):
At first glance, the revenue made from Final Destination 5 is jaw-dropping. $345 million worldwide? That's insane! But then I remembered that this was Wikipedia. Do the math for FD5. Not only are the percentages of domestic vs. foreign box office obviously wrong, so is the worldwide gross and the all-time box office ranking, as well as the total tallies. Is it important? No. Will I try to get this fixed? Definitely not. Anyone who uses Wikipedia as their primary source deserves to get burned once in a while. Anyway, I thought that was pretty amusing. If you want to see the actual FD5 numbers, you can go here.
What better way to kick off an entire month of horror reviews than with part of a classic franchise? Well, I suppose starting at the beginning of that franchise, but I already did that. Howzabout the reboot? I've actually really wanted to see Rob Zombie's take on Halloween for a while now, but never did because...well, most reboots suck. Hard. Still, of all the horror directors of the last decade, Zombie was probably the best choice to fix Halloween as a property. Because, let's admit it, that shit got broke. Zombie had experience making movies about soulless killers, he clearly respected older horror movies, and his movies aren't torture porn. They're just...stabby. So, yeah, I was excited when I rented Halloween (2007). That excitement was tempered a bit, though, by the biggest Michael Myers fans I know, my cousins-in-laws; I remember asking them how the movie was, and I just got sighs and snorts of disgust. But really, how bad can this reboot be when you compare it to Halloween: Resurrection?
It could be adorable!
Halloween (2007) can be broken into two parts. The first part is the origin of Michael Myers, and the second part takes place about fifteen years later, and is about Laurie Strode. In part one, we meet Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch), a soft-looking chubby kid with hair down to his shoulders. Honestly, he looks like an unattractive girl.
Lil' Michael, with an even less attractive woman
Mike has a history of wearing masks when he's out of school. Not cool masks, like Corey Feldman made in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter --- we're talking little-kid-costume masks, like the ones made of cheap plastic with a rubber band around the back of your head. We get a look at his life and his tendencies; when he eventually decides to put on a mask and murder several people (including his older sister), it's not that big of a shock, because he's obviously messed up.
Rob Zombie obviously wants to remake Killer Klowns From Outer Space next
Most of the hallmarks of serial killers are present in Lil' Mike's life. He tortures and kills small animals. He gets bullied at school. He doesn't have a good family life; his older sister treats him like the plague and his mom's boyfriend is just a generally nasty sumbitch. His mother, Deborah (Sheri Moon Zombie), cares about him, but is forced to be a largely absentee parent because she has to support her entire family by stripping.
It's only fair, since Rob Zombie supports Sheri Moon Zombie's acting career by casting her
When the fateful day arrives (SPOILER ALERT: it's in the title) and Michael goes on a prepubescent killing spree, he is apprehended by the police and sent to a mental institution. There, we see Michael under the care of Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell); we see and hear snippets of treatment and medical opinions, as Michael spirals further and further away from being a normal child and closer to a full-time psychopath.
Who let Michael listen to Slipknot? And take steroids?
Michael eventually breaks out of the mental ward and returns to his childhood home, where he hid the mask he wore when he went on his adorable murder spree. While there, he catches a glimpse of Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) on her way to school. From that moment forward, Michael seems obsessed with Laurie and is more than willing to share his love of sharp objects with anyone who gets in his way.
Especially dainty brunettes
The acting in Halloween (2007) isn't bad, especially for a horror movie and especially for a horror remake. Daeg Faerch was shockingly good as a young Michael Myers. He looked like a wuss, but things got creepy fast whenever he showed off his "dead-eye" gaze. Sheri Moon Zombie gave her best performance to date as Michael's mother; she was good, but that is also comparing it to her annoying previous roles. I also liked Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis. He isn't as demanding and abrasive as Donald Pleasence was in the original Halloween (1978). Instead, he showed a lot of compassion and emotional investment in Michael's progression, which actually made him feel like a credible doctor. I also liked the raw physicality of Tyler Mane as the adult Michael. The character would have been effective if played by a normal-sized man, but Mane's huge build and body language made the mere sight of him frightening.
Which one would you be scared of?
Scout Taylor-Compton was decent as Laurie, but playing the Girl Who Lived is rarely a role that makes an actor look good. Her friends, played by Danielle Harris and Kristina Klebe, were fairly inoffensive; Harris did a good job being a victim and Klebe balanced an obnoxious character with full-frontal nudity. The rest of the cast is (not surprisingly, given the popularity of the original film) jam-packed with recognizable actors. William Forsythe was good as a complete bastard of a father figure, Lew Temple was repulsive as a rapist security guard, and there was a small bit of the ol' Sid Haig-special (which is just another way of saying Haig is always gross). As for actors that were not in The Devil's Rejects, Clint Howard and Mickey Dolenz had to be the most bewildering casting choices in the movie. Udo Kier also has a cameo, but at least he seemed a little creepy. Rounding out the cast, Danny Trejo was a kindly guard who may have given Michael the wrong advice, former Spy KidDaryl Sabara was solid as a jerk bully, and Brad Dourif was adequate as the town sheriff. When the film was finished, I was surprised at how competent the acting was. I wasn't impressed by anyone but Daeg Faerch, but I didn't laugh at or hate any of the actors for their work, which is quite a feat in a slasher pic.
Rob Zombie wrote the screenplay for this Halloween remake and directed it. As far as direction goes, I thought Zombie played it pretty safe with his style. If you don't like a grainy look to your slasher movie, then you would have been irritated by the less-than-gorgeous shots and occasionally too-dark-to-see sequences. I didn't really mind, but I know that bothers some folks. Zombie worked well with his cast, getting performances that matched their characters surprisingly well. I genuinely dislike his use of slow-motion and freeze frames, but they were used sparingly here. As far as the script goes, I thought Zombie did a great job turning this movie into something different than just a remake. The focus on Michael's childhood was definitely the most unique and interesting thing this movie had to offer. I liked some of the smaller nods to the original movie (like the thick-rimmed glasses on a boyfriend) and I loved the added value the story gave to Myers' iconic mask.
Yeah, that's the one
The violence in this remake was definitely grislier than in the original Halloween. Part of that has to do with the fact that five people were murdered by a child, sure, but this was not a film that flinched from violence. This isn't a splatter-gore movie, though. It's just intense. The scene with Danielle Harris laying at the bottom of the stairs was particularly gruesome, and her character actually lives! The kills were not particularly creative (this franchise has never made that a priority), but Tyler Mane's strength made the violence seem much more realistic; his portrayal made this the most intimidating Michael Myers since the original film. There were also a lot of dead bodies in this film; I counted nineteen on-screen deaths, with several more implied off-screen. When you crunch the numbers, Halloween (2007) seems like it should be a winner. It has full-frontal nudity, a lot of kills, and solid violence.
This one didn't even happen on-camera, and it still looks good!
And yet, Halloween (2007) isn't a very satisfying movie. Franchise purists probably point to the extensive origin sequence as the biggest flaw, since that is the primary story difference between this and the original. That's not the problem, though. Others may point to how closely the rest of the plot followed that of the original movie, which stripped the film of any suspense. That's not it , either. The rest might complain about the shallow pop psychology stereotypes present in the script, but that's still just a minor issue. There are two problems that handicap this technically impressive effort: 1) awful characters and 2) focus.
Rob Zombie, as a writer, has never written a likable character for the audience to identify with. As a horror fan, I imagine that he (like so many of us) prefers the monster over the victims. The problem with identifying with the killer, though, is that you rarely make frightening movies when you understand and care about the villain; you might be able to make a disturbing film, but that familiarity makes suspense and genuine scares nearly impossible. With Halloween (2007), we meet a wide array of characters and at least a quarter of the dialogue comes from awful, repulsive characters (and keep in mind that adult Michael doesn't speak). Are we supposed to be horrified by the deaths of these terrible people? In several cases, their deaths are at least understandable (William Forsythe, for example) and perhaps even justifiable (Lew Temple's idiot rapist). Granted, the scale of Michael's violence prevents (most of) the audience from truly identifying with him, but the added insights into his childhood makes it clear that he is the most sympathetic character in the story. And that's a problem.
Who am I supposed to be rooting for, again? The quiet one, or the whiny one?
The other problem with Halloween (2007) is the story's focus. It's not enough that the supposedly normal characters are abrasive and cruel ---the origin story makes Michael's evolution almost tragic. In and of itself, that's not a bad thing; the greatest villains are the ones who have understandable motives. That origin story shifts the focus of the movie, though. As I noted in my plot summary, the origin of Michael Myers focuses on young Michael. For the rest of the film, the story is ostensibly about Laurie Strode; we follow her life and see how Michael hunts her down, as well as seemingly anyone she knows. However, the film is still following Michael at this point; we are trying to figure out why it was so important for him to leave the mental home and come back to scenic Haddonfield, Illinois. This shift in focus is the main difference between Halloween (2007) and Halloween (1978). In the original, there is little attention paid to how Michael spends his time and absolutely no explanation for Michael's actions; Laurie doesn't know why she is being hunted, and neither does the audience, which is why it is so scary. In this remake, we have an incomplete understanding of Michael's motives, and that means that we are following him a lot more often and have some clues as to why he is doing what he is doing. Remember the suspense and terror from the original movie? That's been replaced by grim fascination in the remake.
Although this picture is, admittedly, pretty fascinating
Individually, the shift in focus and the unsympathetic characters would not sink a slasher movie. When you combine the two, though, they create a vortex of audience indifference and boredom, and that makes for a sucky experience. It's too bad, really. There are some great moments in this movie, but the tone was all wrong for the story being told. When Rob Zombie was focusing on the new elements that he created, the movie had promise, but when he conformed to the plot of the original film, this remake became almost a grind to get through. Would it have been better for Zombie to depart from the original even further than he had? Probably, although the story is what makes the original such a classic. Zombie should have just scrapped the whole "reboot" idea and just made this into a study of an all-new psychopathic killer. Halloween (2007) isn't an awful movie, but it is definitely disappointing because it has the potential to be great.
Check out this promotional poster for the movie. It highlights the best parts of the movie, which in turn shows how for the focus has shifted from that of the original. Still, it's a pretty sweet poster.
Happy Friday the 13th! What better way to celebrate the day than by spending a little time with my favorite inhuman kinda-zombie-thing mass murderer, Jason Voorhees? If you answered "with copycat murders," please turn yourself in now. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is the ninth entry in the series and the second to include "The Final" in the subtitle. Take a moment to enjoy that bit of irony, because that's the most highbrow entertainment that you're going to get from this movie.
In a bold change of pace for the series, Jason Goes to Hell opens without a recap and doesn't even attempt to justify or explain how Jason survived the final moments of Jason Takes Vancouver. After all, is there anybody out there who really cares about the continuity of this series? If so, Jason's resurrection in Part VI should have been a deal breaker for them; at this point in the series, I like the screenwriter's "who gives a fuck" attitude toward setting up this chapter's premise. Anyway, the film opens with a busty woman trying to take a shower in what appears to be a campsite, or at least a derelict vacation home. Once she has disrobed and started the shower, she hears a noise, grabs a towel and comes face to face with Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder). Instead of dying immediately, this lady runs. I'm not talking about your typical slasher movie "victim running away" scene --- she books it. She might be wearing only a towel (a very well-wrapped towel that never unravels) and no shoes (except in a shot where you can see her wearing shoes), but she is sprinting, diving, doing flips and all sorts of other things that undoubtedly caught JV off-guard. When Jason arrives in an open field to finish shower girl off, he is met by gunfire; this whole thing, apparently including the whole get-naked-and-run-through-the-woods part, was an FBI setup to ambush Jason and blow him to Hell.
Mission accomplished, roll credits
We follow Jason's charred remains to the coroner's office, where the coroner is overcome by the burning desire to devour Jason's black heart. You may justly ask at this point what the Hell is going on? Jason has possessed the coroner and now occupies his body. Well, that's an interesting/out of left field plot twist, isn't it?
Also note: orange lights = evil possession
From this point forward, it's better to not think too much about the plot, because it's migrane-inducing. I'll just cut to the chase. Since his body has been destroyed, Jason must track down a family member to be reborn. How do we know this? Because this guy says so.
Who?
You might recognize Creighton Duke (Steven Williams) as having absolutely nothing to do with any of the other Friday the 13th movies; of course he's an expert. According to Duke, "In a Voorhees was he born, through a Voorhees may he be reborn, and only by the hands of a Voorhees will he die." Of course, people want to know his source for that obvious quote take his word for it and accept his crazy talk at face value. Jason's niece (Kari Keegan) and her baby daddy, Steven (John D. LeMay) take an apparently mystical knife --- specifically designed, of course, to kill Jason --- and set out to make this film's title happen. Oh, and did I mention that Jason Voorhees is a demonic worm?
Or, possibly, a sexually transmitted mouth-slug?
And that when he was "reborn through a Voorhees," he magically regenerated his lumpy face, used mask and tattered jumpsuit? No? That's probably for the best.
Does his face look puffy? Maybe he has allergies
What sets Jason Goes to Hell apart from the other Fridaysis its complete disregard for the history of this series. "Only by the hands of a Voorhees will he die"?!? Since when?!? And, even if that was true, why hasn't Jason hunted down and murdered his family members before now? We know he's capable of stalking his prey (Part II) and tracking down individuals wherever they go (Part VIII), so that should have been a lazy Sunday for JV. Honestly, I like the complete disregard for the earlier entries in the series, but I wish they had come up with something a little better than this. An unstoppable killer hunting down his family? That sounds suspiciously like another mute serial killer, doesn't it? And I liked the homages to other films (was that Antarctic crate referencing The Thing or Creepshow?), but I would have liked some effort at explaining why The Evil Dead's Necronomicon was in Pam Voorhees' old house. I assume this was meant to imply that the book is partly responsible for Jason's undying nature, but if you're going to clutter up a slasher film with mystical mumbo-jumbo and cross-references to other movies, you should go all out and actually explain it.
And look...! There's a receipt from S-Mart!
But I think we can all agree that plot has never really been the strong point of the Friday the 13th series. This is a franchise that is built on solid actinginteresting direction violence. Surprisingly, Jason Goes to Hell is lacking in that department. Sure, Jason Voorhees explodes, and yes, a dude's jaw melts off.
Above: a lumpy, oozing body. Below: his jawbone
Those were really the coolest special effects moments in the film. While twenty-three kills is an impressive number for a horror movie, many of them were off-camera. Almost as bad as those were the dozen or so weak kills; Jason would walk up to somebody, hit them once, and they would be dead. The unrated version is a little better, if only because it actually shows this kill in all its glory:
Moral: there is no such thing as "safe" premarital sex
The teasing final moment was also kind of fun, especially the first time I saw the film as a pre-teen.
It took ten years to follow up on this tease, but it was worth it
Still, there is a lot of lameness in areas that should be this film's strengths. Jason Voorhees isn't the sort of movie monster that can be stopped by brute force; you beat him by tricking him or luring him into a vulnerable position, where you can stick a machete in his noggin/leave him at the bottom of a lake/melt him with toxic waste. In Jason Goes to Hell, though, JV spends almost two solid minutes near the climax fighting the nerdiest guy in the film. It's not that Jason never hits the guy or grabs him by the neck or head --- he just doesn't kill the poor sap. At one point, Jason even throws his victim into a jungle gym.
Not pictured: Jason patiently waiting his turn for the slide
You'd think the guy would have been impaled or that Jason was going to use the bars to tear his body apart at unusual angles, but no. That's okay, though, because this happens only moments before JV's niece appears to run up a step-stool (that she must have supplied herself, since it is missing in the establishing shot) to attack Jason.
Look at her boot and note that she hasn't even jumped yet
Jason Goes to Hell is a pretty awful excuse for filmmaking, especially in regards to the basics. If you've seen the movie once or twice, it's easy to notice inconsistencies in the continuity editing, like bloodstains vanishing or moving within scenes. My favorite example of this is Duke's note to Jason's niece. When she finds the note and realizes her baby is missing, the note clearly reads "I have what you want," but when her baby's daddy reads the note moments later, it has been changed to "I have your baby." Of course, the baby may have been kidnapped and replaced several times over during the film, because there are at least two clearly different infants in this movie (hint: one is bald and the other has hair). Also, why was the Voorhies place once referred to as the "Myers" place? And the name on the (abandoned for 30 years) mailbox even misspelled the name. And why is Jason's mask in the promo posters and the opening credit sequence made of metal?
Aside from "for awesomeness," I mean
None of that matters, of course. Those are just things that you can nitpick on because they are "blatantly terrible" and "unbelievably amateurish for a professionally-made and -distributed film." The quality of a Jason movie is not how "good" or "bad" it is; it isn't even measured by how "scary" it is. I measure the Friday the 13ths (especially the later sequels) by how much they entertained me. Jason Goes to Hell isn't a good movie by any means, but it is noticeably different from the other Fridays and that is even more important when you are the ninth and (maybe note really) final film in a series. I will give it credit for boldness and not boring me with clips from other movies. The sheer lunacy of the plot was enough to keep me interested in the story, even though the violence wasn't too impressive. On a standard scale of quality, this film deserves
The ridiculous plot and technical mistakes also make this movie a blast to ridicule and/or watch while intoxicated. It's not gory enough to wow you if you're too smashed; most of the humor comes from a conceptual level as you ponder aloud the implications of what you're seeing. Still, that makes for one of the more entertaining entries in the series. In Lefty Gold terms, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is a pleasurable
