Review

Everyone's favourite herd culler, Jason Voorhees, finally meets his match when an FBI swat team blows his arse to kingdom come in a carefully planned trap. Naturally, since said arse blowing occupies roughly ten minutes into our movie running time, Jason isn't finished with Camp Crystal Lake and possesses the body of a coroner via the dude in question going snack time on the black depths of the Voorhees heart.

Jason, in his new guise, has to tramp from the Federal morgue in Youngstown Ohio to his favourite hunting grounds somewhere close to New York. He does take time out of his walk about to continue the Voorhees notch collection apparently. Seems back home they are doing Jason Burgers with side orders of Jason fingers, and the man in question has a few family members left.

Bounty hunter Creighton Duke is up with the play and sets our scene: only through a Voorhees family member can Jason be reborn, and only via a Voorhees family member wielding a magic knife can he be killed and sent back to hell. We quickly learn young single mom Jessica and her mother Diana are the last surviving members of the Voorhees clan. Can Jessica, Diana, and Jessica's ex boyfriend/husband/who the hell knows, thwart Jason's plan for rebirth or will it really be "The Final Friday"?

With the remake/re-imagining/whatever of Friday the 13th (2009) I thought I better get a move on and finish up with the F13th franchise since we have a whole bunch of movies left un-critiqued. I decided to leap ahead somewhat and hit the first of the New Line F13th movies before going back to visit the final three or so Paramount instalments. New Line, in keeping with their "studio out of control at the best of times" �persona, have turned in thus far the three weirdest F13th flicks. The New Line folk simply had no idea what to do with their brand new franchise, so ripped elements from other movies in order to keep things rolling toward the ultimate New Line confrontation, Krueger versus Voorhees. Apparently we were waiting our whole lives for that one or something.

Bennett takes the revenant tale of of the house and onto a tropical Island

Jason Goes to Hell dials straight into the central concept of Jack Sholder's The Hidden (1987) and pimps that out for all it's worth. We learn Mr Voorhees is a slug like creature that has to pass to a new body quite frequently as his current disguise wears out real quick, hence why he needs to be reborn as this body-hopping is cramping his slaughtering style. Actually, that would explain why Jason keeps coming back from the dead in the previous eight movies, his body is only a meat ride hence it can take some tremendous damage and still keep on going like a sort of demonic Energizer Bunny. F13th making sense, who would have thought it! Naturally, since this is a New Line flick, the whole possibility of Jason body travelling is visited and then left screaming in the gutter. At no stage do we not know who the Jason slug is currently residing in, hence a golden opportunity to develop some tension goes begging. Before anyone emails in and says "hey, what about those two cops then!"� you really didn't figure out the surprise turn of events there in like a nanosecond? A talking Jason who can drive a car? Was this meant to be a comedy perhaps?

The most intriguing thing about Jason Goes to Hell is the stuff that's left hanging with no explanation. Jason has family members, even though Pamela Voorhees mentioned he was an only child in the original Friday the 13th. Since Jason's dad finally rates a mention, sorry missed the name, and yes, I know I suck, we can surmise that Diana is Jason's stepsister on his father's side. That would make Jessica his niece and a nice sort of Tasmanian "keeping it all in the family" �thing goes down. Of course, only viewers with twisted imaginations need apply here; I'm selling tickets to the club so get in touch.

Besides the whole family dynamic, related to the Sawyers perhaps? - we get to touch bases with the Voorhees crib of ultimate evil and learn Pammy had definite thoughts about the decor. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge you won't be able to source any of this stuff from Coco Republic so put the credit card away now citizen. Out front of the manse we have the jungle gym from Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), in the parlour we have the Necronomicon circa Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987), and in the basement we have the crate from the Antarctic expedition made famous by Creepshow (1982). Pam Voorhees sure was the collector of movie props.

I kind of thought all this horror gear did in fact add up to an explanation as what the heck Jason was doing running around after apparently drowning due to camp counsellors being more interested in playing hide the sausage. For mine, overcome with grief Pam turned to the dark side in order to resurrect her boy. Hell answered in one of those "be careful what you wish for"� fashions, hence adult Jason. Pam, facing the true horror of hell-spawned slugs, let the roos loose in the top paddock and went slightly Norman Bates on us. So you see all those Friday movies make perfect sense in light of what we learn and can surmise from Jason Goes to Hell. Of course they should have left well enough alone and not even gone near the next two movies but that's another story.

Oops, seems I'm right off the reservation and we haven't really discussed the current film but have read more into it than the scriptwriters could conceive of. Okay, so the movie pretty much follows every other F13th outing with having a convincing body count, some naked flesh, and surprise surprise an actual plot. From there it's pretty much downhill on a cold morning in July to be honest. Apart from our two leads the characters are only loosely developed, the actual direction is pretty much a by-the-numbers result (with the one exception being a pan up shot of the Voorhees house), and the plot is pretty much derivative of a number of other horror flicks; The Hidden and Evil Dead are both channelled. Even with this amount of criticism, Jason Goes to Hell is surprisingly one of the better thought out entries in the franchise.

Kane Hodder (Jason/Security Guard #2/Freddy Krueger's Arm) gets top billing for not much screen time. The guy can't act, the whole security guard thing was cringeworthy, and pretty much is there for the fan boys to whack off over. John D. LeMay (Steven) has one of those weird roles where you can't quite work out if he's any good or not. He plays a sort of tough guy geek who gets his arse handed to him frequently. Kari Keegan (Jessica) is actually pretty good on the evidence displayed here, but surprisingly didn't go on to do much else. And finally Steven Williams (Creighton Duke) nails it in one of the more bizarre roles likely to come his way, what was with the finger breaking?

It's dudes night out at the cabana with Jason Goes to Hell, mucho boobage and other T&A requirements to be had. Wonder if the actresses got paid by inch of flesh displayed or something?

Harry Manfredini is back on score duty and delivers a ki ki ki ma ma ma update full of action movements that pretty much nails the visual requirements. I was happy with the whole score situation and would give Manfredini two thumbs up on it.

While recognising that Jason Goes to Hell isn't likely to fit into a retro favourites list any time within the next century, I still managed to came out of the movie as the end credits rolled without too much damage being done. It's a big cheese ball of a flick that maybe goes some way to explaining how events in the previous eight movies, teleporting aside, could have logically gone down, though it does dispense with a whole bunch of Crystal Lake lore which is never a good thing. At least the F13th franchise has been dusted off and given a bit of a polish, even though it's unlikely to go into my trophy cabinet. So yeah, enjoyed the film in a kind of bored fashion while wondering if my time could have been better spent on something else.

Results for movies pre-2000 are something of an iffy proposition, the only figure I could discover was $16 million North American on the back of an approx 2.1 multiplier in that market. This would indicate that word of mouth wasn't strong, box office mojo readers take note, and considering it would be quite some time before New Line got around to a second Voorhees outing probably not all that profitable. Opinion amongst the F13th fan club would tend to indicate not enough Jason as an issue with the movie. I leave you to decide whether or not you think that's a good or bad thing.

Guess you could do worse than checking out Jason Goes to Hell if you really put your mind to it. It was in the $5 bin so what can I say, I'm a cheap date for sucky horror schlock at the best of times. Those reading who enjoy quality cinema should give this one a wide berth and heck, even if you only enjoy quality horror viewing then give it a miss. One for the masses wanting nothing better than a pop corn flick that puts your brain into neutral.