Jump to content

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Bignole (talk | contribs) at 11:15, 9 July 2007 (Undid revision 143427939 by TheAxeGrinder (talk) not relevant). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
File:Friday the 13th part 4.jpg
Film poster
Directed byJoseph Zito
Written byBarney Cohen (screenplay)
Bruce Hidemi Sakow (story)
Victor Miller, Martin Kitrosser, Ron Kurz, Carol Watson (characters)
Produced byFrank Mancuso Jr.
Tony Bishop (co-producer)
StarringCorey Feldman
Kimberly Beck
Erich Anderson
Crispin Glover
CinematographyJoão Fernandes
Edited byJoel Goodman
Music byHarry Manfredini
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release dates
April 13, 1984
Running time
90 min
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2,600,000

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.

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 and nurse, then makes his way back to Crystal Lake.

File:Jasonunmask.jpg
Jason's horribly disfigured face

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. 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.

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 so that Tommy is able to attack Jason. He seemingly kills him, but when Jason begins to stir, Tommy seemingly loses control and hacks Jason repeatedly with the machete killing him, while his sister 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 Jason may not be dead after all.

Cast


Notes

  • 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.
  • 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.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Friday_the_13th:_The_Final_Chapter&oldid=143476100"