Don't flip the bird at Crystal Lake teens!

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Back in the 1980's, on my Magnavox VCR, I saw the first three "Friday the 13th" slasher flicks. The 3-D version was released on video on 2-D (no technology for that format yet). They were expendable and disposable flicks and I am not sure if I could differentiate one from the other except only in terms of the killer. Jason Voorhees' mother was the killer in the first film, followed by Jason in the next two sequels and future installments. Watching for the first time "The Final Chapter," I was reminded that these flicks were always meant to be disposable, escapist, harmless 90-minute flicks and nothing more. You did not care about the human characters and you forgot them long before the movie was over. All you could remember from this one was Jason in a hockey mask skewering and impaling all those teenagers at sleepaway camp, and young Corey Feldman.

There can't be much more to say except that Judie Aronson ("Weird Science") plays one hormonal teenager who is killed by Jason in an inflatable raft; Crispin Glover plays another hormonal teenager who dances to music in that hyperkinetic fashion that can only come from Glover, and there is Lawrence Monoson ("The Last American Virgin") as another hypersexed teen who repeatedly calls Glover's character a "dead fuck." That leaves the rather unnecessary inclusion of a heavyset hitchhiker girl who is killed by Jason, which begs the question: why does this happen? We know nothing about her except that she flips the bird at the other teens in a car who refuse to give her a lift. So I guess if you are a teenager and have sex and/or flip the bird at passing motorists, you are dead meat to Jason? Let's not forget that a virginal girl-next-door blonde survives Jason's attacks because, surprise, she is virginal. Oh, and I cannot forget to mention how Corey Feldman, in one of the hastiest resolutions I've seen in almost any slasher flick, sees a pic of young Jason from a newspaper clipping, takes some scissors during Jason's attack on his sister and cuts his hair to look like young Jason! This will presumably stop the attack. Uh-huh.

I have nothing else to take away from "The Final Chapter" except that I got bored with the slow-motion-teens-thrown-thru-windows-shots (one even includes a dog who jumps to his death?) Other than that, it is not as flat as Part 3 and somewhat entertaining to a degree. You might get your kicks from seeing a bald Corey Feldman.