Director: Adam Marcus (1993)
Starring: John D. LeMay, Kari Keegan, Kane Hodder, Steven Williams
Find it: IMDB
Widely regarded to be the worst Friday the 13th movie and suffering from a crippling lack of Jason, Jason Goes to Hell is the strangest of them all. Even more so than that one where he went to space. The plot is like that Denzel Washington bodyswapping movie, except with Jason and not very good. When his body is blown to pieces by the FBI, it looks like Jason Voorhees is finally gone for good.
Except of course not. When a mortuary worker eats Jason's heart (which he does in a manner that makes me feel ill every time) the serial killer takes control of his body and sets about effecting his own rebirth. It's a very misleading title. He spends even less time in Hell than he does Manhattan. The only part of Jason Goes to Hell that anyone remembers is the final shot, in which Freddy Kreuger's disembodied hand appears and grabs Jason's mask. It would take a further ten years for Freddy vs Jason to emerge. Enough time for Jason to go to space and back. In this movie he goes black.
Briefly. Body swap shenanigans abounds as Jason seeks out a family member to possess. Only through a Voorhees can a Voorhees be born or killed. As that synopsis might suggest, Jason Goes to Hell is the stupidest Friday so far. It wastes a great opportunity for a cool not-Jason character with Steven Williams's Creighton Duke. Duke introduces himself as a bounty hunter determined to hunt down and kill Jason. Duke is set up to be like this movie's version of Dennis Hopper in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2. I spent the whole film waiting for Creighton Duke to do something awesome.
Spoiler: he doesn't.
Cretin Duke is a waste of time and money. Until the day comes that someone takes out a bounty on your fingers, Cretin Duke is a shitty bounty hunter. All he does is look weird during a word association game and break some dude's fingers.
Jason Goes to Hell is bad - almost Freddy's Dead bad - but I like it, all the same. The first and last ten minutes provide some reasonably good Jason action, whilst cameos from Kane Hodder, Freddy Kreuger's hand and a certain Necronomicon provide amusement. It's a bizarre entry, but not an entirely uninteresting one. If you want to see naked teenagers die at a campsite, there are eight other films to choose from. Let this one have its moment of semi-interesting madness.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels ill when seeing the guy eat the heart. I remember seeing it when it came out, and it really weirded me out.
ReplyDeleteCreighton Duke was hysterical. The movie tried to make him seem all bad ass. In reality he just seemed like an escaped mental patient.
ReplyDelete@Kev - Aha, yes. It's pretty icky to be sure. Still gets me every time.
ReplyDelete@LadyJ3000 - He really is. It's a good job he's so (ironically) funny, 'cause as a bounty hunter he's atrocious.
Cheers!