Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

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Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

Movie poster
Directed by Joseph Zito
Produced by Frank Mancuso Jr.
Tony Bishop (co-producer)
Written by Barney Cohen (screenplay)
Bruce Hidemi Sakow (story)
Victor Miller, Martin Kitrosser, Ron Kurz, Carol Watson (characters)
Starring Corey Feldman
Kimberly Beck
Erich Anderson
Crispin Glover
Music by Harry Manfredini
Cinematography João Fernandes
Editing by Joel Goodman
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) Flag of the United States April 13, 1984
Running time 90 minutes
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Budget $2,600,000
Gross revenue $33,000,000
Preceded by Friday the 13th Part III
Followed by Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is a slasher film. It is the fourth film in the Friday the 13th film series. Though it was billed as "The Final Chapter," there have been seven further films (including Freddy vs. Jason) in the franchise to date. The popularity and financial success of the film (earning over 32 million dollars) kept Paramount Pictures from retiring the franchise. Because of the finality of this film's plot and title, the next film, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, attempted to give the franchise a new face.

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[edit] Box office

The film opened in 1,594 theaters taking in $11.1 million its opening weekend. Domestically, the film has made $33 million.

[edit] Plot summary

Police and paramedics are busy cleaning up the mess Jason Voorhees left at Higgins Haven during Friday the 13th Part 3, including the defeated hockey-masked killer himself. Once delivered to the Wessex County morgue, Jason rises again, kills an attendant Axel (Bruce Mauhler) and nurse, then makes his way back to Crystal Lake. A group of friends (Paul, Samantha, Sara, Doug, Ted and Jimmy) have rented a house on Crystal Lake. On the way there, the group passes Mrs. Voorhees' gravestone and a portly female hitchhiker who becomes Jason's next victim stabbed in throat while eating a banana. Next to the rental house is the cabin of Mrs. Jarvis, her teenaged daughter Trish, her twelve-year-old son Tommy, and their dog, Gordon. The group meet Trish, Tommy and Gordon when they arrive. The next day the group befriends twins Tina and Terri, who live in the area, and they all go skinny-dipping at Crystal Point. Trish and Tommy, driving by, stop to see who's at Crystal Point and the group invites Trish to a party that night. Trish's car breaks down a bit further along the road, and they are helped by Rob, a hiker with mysterious reasons for visiting Crystal Lake, who soon becomes good friends with Trish and Tommy, and camps out in their yard. Trish and Tommy return to find their mother missing, so Trish goes to Rob for help. Meanwhile Jason kills Samantha (who is stabbed while skinny dipping), Paul (shot in crotch with speargun), Terri (impaled with spear), Jimmy (whacked in the face with meat cleaver with hand nailed down by corkscrew), Tina (thrown from window), Ted (stabbed in the head with kitchen knife through movie screen), Doug (head smashed against shower tile), and Sara (axed in the chest while trying to escape).

Rob explains that he's looking to get revenge for the death of his sister, Sandra (killed by Jason in Friday the 13th Part 2). Trish and Rob take Gordon next door to see what's going on. Tommy is left at home, and finds Rob's newspaper articles about Jason. Jason kills Rob, and Trish flees back to her home intending to warn Tommy. Tommy shaves his head and makes himself up to look like Jason, which is effective in distracting Jason long enough for Trish to be able to attack Jason with a machete. She just misses him, but manages to cut his mask off. While Jason heads for her, she drops the machete to the floor. Tommy picks it up and swings it at Jason's head. Jason then falls to the floor, causing the machete to cut further into his head and brains. As he embraces his sister, Tommy sees Jason begin to move, loses control and hacks Jason repeatedly with the machete, while Trish screams his name.

The final scene of the movie has Tommy visiting Trish in the hospital, and they embrace as they believe their nightmare is over. However, Tommy's eyes open at the end of the film, indicating that he may be a killer in future installments.

[edit] Cast

Actor/Actress Role
Corey Feldman Tommy Jarvis
Erich Anderson Rob Dier
Judie Aronson Samantha
Peter Barton Doug
Kimberly Beck Trish Jarvis
Joan Freeman Mrs. Jarvis
Lisa Freeman Nurse Morgan
Crispin Glover Jimmy
Wayne Grace Officer Jamison
Alan Hayes Paul
Bonnie Hellman Hitchhiker
Frankie Hill Lainie
Barbara Howard Sara
Bruce Mahler Axel
Lawrence Monoson Ted
Arnie Moore Medic
Camilla More Tina
Carey More Terri
Robert Perault Medic
Antony Ponzini Vincent
Ted White Jason Voorhees (uncredited)


[edit] Notes

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  • Ted White refused to be credited for his role as Jason, saying he believed that many of the young actors were horribly treated on the shoot and he often felt bad about what he had to do to them. One particular instance was when young actress Judie Aronson was out on a raft in the lake, naked and freezing to the point where she was crying. Fed up, White stepped in and demanded that she come in to warm up or he would quit, and director Joseph Zito complied. White also admits that he never saw the entertainment value in watching attractive young actors being mutilated by a deranged killer, and said he only did the film for the money. Despite his disdain for the film (though he says that it came out better than he expected), he was asked to reprise the role, but turned it down saying, "I had played Jason once and once was enough."
  • Peter Barton was hesitant when it came time to do his death scene, as he was previously burned by a magnesium flare doing a stunt on a previous movie and required multiple surgeries afterwards. Sensing Peter's hesitation, Ted White requested that a pad be placed behind Peter's head when he was slammed into the shower wall.
  • The character of Rob Dier is the brother of Sandra, who was killed in Friday the 13th Part 2 during the double-impalement scene. This creates a continuity problem, given that the second, third, and fourth films in the series are set only days apart, and Rob has clearly spent a lot of time researching Jason (although he might have shared an interest with his sister about the whole Camp Blood legend and knew immediately that it was Jason who killed her).
  • It has been said that Tom Savini only returned to contribute to the franchise to kill off Jason, whom he helped create in the original Friday the 13th. The character of Tommy Jarvis has been interpreted as a homage to Tom Savini. Aside from sharing a similar first name and an affinity for designing monster masks, both in their own right kill Jason off in the film.
  • The film was released on a Friday the 13th (the second film in the franchise to do so, after Part 3).
  • In a deleted scene, Trish finds her mother drowned in the bathtub, which would have explained her disappearance in the film.
  • During filming, actress Kimberly Beck experienced strange occurrences of a man watching her while she ran in a park, accompanied by phone calls at all hours. They oddly stopped once production of the film had stopped.
  • The poster artwork was used for the opening screen on Friday the 13th NES video game.

[edit] External links

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Friday the 13th series
Films
Characters
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