Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

*"Friday April 13th is Jason's Unlucky Day"*
—Tagline
***Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter*** is a 1984 slasher horror film directed by Joseph Zito, and the fourth installment in the *Friday the 13th* film series. Following the events of *Friday the 13th Part III*, Jason Voorhees returns to Crystal Lake and continues his killing spree on a family and a group of neighboring teenagers after being revived from his mortal wound. The film stars Corey Feldman, Ted White, Kimberly Beck, and Crispin Glover.

Like its predecessors, the film was a commercial success, despite the film's received negative reviews. Much like *Part III*, the film was initially supposed to end the series and was billed as "The Final Chapter", however the film's success produced a sequel, *Friday the 13th: A New Beginning* (1985). Over the years, the film has obtained a cult following, with many fans of the series praising the film for Ted White's portrayal of Jason, the brutal gore effects from Tom Savini, and the film's dark atmosphere.

## Plot

The night after the events of Higgin's Haven, paramedics clean up the remains left by mass murderer Jason Voorhees and deliver him to the morgue. After reviving from his head wound and escaping from the cold storage, Jason kills a doctor by slicing his throat with a hacksaw and then stabbing a nurse with a scalpel.

The next day a group of teenagers are driving to Crystal Lake for the weekend. The group consists of Paul, his girlfriend Sam, Sarah, her boyfriend Doug, socially awkward Jimmy, and prankster Ted. On the way, the group comes across Mrs. Voorhees' tombstone, and a female hitchhiker. The hitchhiker is killed shortly after by Jason, who has returned to the area. The teens arrive and meet neighbors Trish Jarvis, her brother Tommy, and their dog Gordon. While going for a walk the next day, they meet two local girls, twin sisters Tina and Terri, and they decide to go skinny dipping with them. Trish and Tommy happen upon the scene and before they leave, Trish is invited to a party to take place that night. Afterwards, their car breaks down and Trish and Tommy meet a young man named Rob. They take him to their house where Tommy shows Rob several monster masks he made himself before Rob leaves to go camping.

Later that night, the teens throw a party. Tina makes a move on Paul, which makes Sam jealous. Sam leaves for a swim but is stabbed through a rubber raft by Jason. Feeling guilty, Paul goes after Sam and discovers her body just before he is impaled with a harpoon gun. Terri rejects Teddy's advances and wants to leave, but Tina moves onto Jimmy and the two go upstairs to have sex. Frustrated, Terri leaves the party, but she is brutally killed outside by Jason.

At the Jarvis house, Mrs. Jarvis returns home to find the power out, and when she goes out to investigate, she is startled before being killed. While Sarah and Doug are making love in the shower, Teddy finds an old stag film and brings it up on the projector. After sleeping with Tina, Jimmy comes downstairs and settles a "dead fuck" status with Ted who had earlier said he can't satisfy a girl in bed and goes to get a glass of wine to celebrate. Jason appears, pins Jimmy's hand with a corkscrew and slams a cleaver into his face. Upstairs, Tina notices Terri's bike is still there before she is grabbed through the window by Jason and thrown on top of the teens' car, killing her. A stoned Ted is then stabbed with a kitchen knife through the projector screen. Jason moves upstairs, crushing Doug's skull in the shower. When Sarah returns and finds him dead she tries to flee the house, but she is killed with a double-bit axe.

Meanwhile, Trish and Tommy return from town and discover the power outage. Trish decides to go look for their mother, and orders Tommy to fix the lights. Trish comes across the campsite of Rob, who is convinced that Jason is still alive, which worries Trish and they return to the house. Running next door, they discover the bodies of the teens and Rob is caught and killed by Jason as Trish runs home. They barricade the house, but Jason breaks in and chases them into Tommy's room. Trish lures Jason out of the house while Tommy escapes. She runs through the teens' house, then out the upstairs window when he corners her. Returning to her own home she is devastated to learn that Tommy is still there. She senses Jason behind her and tries to kill him with a machete but she misses and he attacks her. Tommy, having disguised himself to look like Jason as a child, distracts him long enough for him to slam the machete into the side of Jason's skull and he collapses to the floor. Tommy notices Jason's fingers move and he takes the machete and begins to hack at his body, screaming "Die! Die!" while Trish screams his name.

At the hospital, Trish insists on seeing her brother, who was traumatized by the events. He rushes in and hugs her, but gives a disturbed look while staring into the camera, and the screen fades to white.

## Cast

* Ted White as Jason Voorhees (uncredited)
* Kimberly Beck as Trish Jarvis
* Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis
* Erich Anderson as Rob Dier
* Joan Freeman as Mrs. Jarvis
* Barbara Howard as Sarah
* Peter Barton as Doug
* Judie Aronson as Samantha
* Alan Hayes as Paul
* Crispin Glover as Jimmy
* Camilla More as Tina
* Carey More as Terri
* Lawrence Monoson as Ted
* Bruce Mahler as Axel
* Lisa Freeman as Nurse Robbie Morgan
* Bonnie Hellman as Hitchhiker

## Production

When *Friday the 13th Part III* was first released, it was initially supposed to end the series as a trilogy, however there was no moniker to indicate it as such. In 1983, there was a rumour that Paramount billed the fourth installment as "The Final Chapter" as they felt embarrassed by their association with the franchise, thus the possible reason for the moniker. Despite how Siskel & Ebert claimed this in their review of the film, Paramount was aware that the slasher genre had been losing interest and thought it was a good choice to conclude the series. However, the idea came from Frank Mancuso, Jr. (the son of Paramount CEO Frank Mancuso, Sr.), as he had began to resent the franchise due to how he felt everyone sees him as only doing the work for *Part 2* and *Part III* and that no one respected him for it, regardless of how much his money is received. Because of him wanting to work on different projects, he wanted to conclude the series and East Coast-backer Phil Scuderi, backed his play as did Paramount, mostly because they thought it was a good marketing strategy.

### Writing

Joseph Zito, director of *The Prowler*, was initially set to both direct and write the screenplay for the film. Zito initially claimed that he was not a writer, in which the contract consisted of receiving doubled money for the two jobs, resulting him accepting the contract. Zito secretly used the extra salary to hire Barney Cohen to write the script. Their process involved Zito taking one-hour night phone calls with Phil Scuderi to discuss the story and script for the film. Zito then met Cohen in an New York apartment to use the concepts Scuderi had offered, which they would then turn into script pages and to be sent to Scuderi for the conversation discussed again over the phone. Cohen remained the writing credit for the film, but Zito and Cohen eventually got into trouble with the Writer's Guild of America as a result.

In the *Friday the 13th* series, the films had always had attractive young women being the sole final girl against Jason. Unlike the predecessors, this marks the first installment in the series having two survivors and one them being a male survivor, but it is currently the only installment where the survivor is rather a child. The filmmakers believed they never seen something like this before in slasher films, and they wanted to create characters audiences wouldn't want to see harmed or killed. By including the Jarvis family (divorced mother, teenage daughter, pre-teen son) opposite the more typical cabin of horny teenagers they could create more drama and resonant tragedy, such as the mother of Tommy and Trish implied to be killed by Jason outside, thus it remains debatable how intentional the parallels between Jason and Tommy were. Tommy’s interest for being an make-up artist with masks and props serve as homages to Tom Savini.

### Casting

Actress Camilla More auditioned for the role of Samantha, but when the filmmakers discovered she had a twin sister named Carey, they were instead both offered the roles of Tina and Terri. Carey More had appeared alongside her sister in the Doublemint gum commercials. Because of how they were swayed by the twins idea, Carey’s audition was to read only one line in the film.

Amy Steel, who starred as heroine Ginny Field in *Part 2* of the series talked actor Peter Barton into being in the film. Both him and Steel co-starred in the sitcom *The Powers of Matthew Star*. When the sitcom was cancelled and was no longer airing, the offer for the film was received to him. Barton initially didn't want to include in the film as he wanted no part in horror films, especially on how he disliked working on *Hell Night*. Steel, because of her role in the second installment, talked Barton into doing the film, and resulted him successfully being on board for the film.

Make-up artist Tom Savini, who worked on the first installment, agreed to return to work on the film as he wanted to kill the character of Jason, which he created.

### Filming

Principal photography was shot in 6 weeks from October 1983 and finished in January 1984 in Topanga Canyon and Newhall, California. For its release date, it was originally set for a release in October 1984. When Paramount CEO Frank Mancuso, Sr. screened the footage to much enthusiasm and then pushed the date up to April 1984, leaving them 6 weeks to complete post-production for the film. The only time Paramount assisted with the installment's production, they rented a Malibu household for the filmmakers to stay in and conduct editing sessions, with food brought to them from Paramount. They barely made the release date, but the final result had many of the footage trimmed and later ended up in television airings.

For the film's dance scene from Jimbo performing at the party, actor Crispin Glover either improvised or based on how he used at dance clubs at the time, depending on what is said. On set, he was actually dancing to "Back in Black" by AC/DC, but the song "Love is a Lie" by Lion was later dubbed over. At the time, the band made its debut from the song used in the film.

The film had a troubled production on set. Due to director Joseph Zito's poor treatment and the film's budget, many of the actors themselves had to perform uncomfortable or dangerous stunts during the film. Judie Aronson was required to remain submerged in a near-freezing temperatured lake (in which she later developed hypothermia from it) and Peter Barton was actually slammed into the shower wall when Jason attacks him. Ted White, who portrays Jason, defended for several of the actors by requesting Barton allowing to use a crash pad and threatening to quit when Zito refused to allow Aronson to get out of the lake between takes. White and Zito contained a hostile relationship on set, which resulted White demanding his name to be removed from the credits. According to White, Corey Feldman maintained a bratty attitude on set due to Zito. When filming the scene of Tommy hacking Jason's body with a machete (which was actually two sandbags he was striking at), Feldman pretended that the struck sandbags were Zito. According in the *Crystal Lake Memories* book, actress Kimberly Beck stated that she does not like the horror genre. In addition to this, she felt that the film was more of a C-movie rather than a B-movie. During filming, Kimberly Beck experienced strange encounters, including a man watching her while she ran in the park and receiving odd phone calls at all hours. This stopped when production was finished.

When it came to filming the scene where Jason attacks Tommy through a broken window, Corey Feldman was genuinely terrified during the shot. Because of how White had a bitter relationship with Feldman, White got to act out his frustration. They had worked out the timing of when White would grab Feldman beforehand, but during filming White waited patiently where Feldman assumed the stunt had gone wrong. Unexpectedly, White grabbed him behind as shown exactly in the film, with Feldman’s screams being real.

In the film, Rob's death with him agony-yelling "He's killing me!" while getting killed by Jason in the basement is based on an newspaper article that Joseph Zito read, about a New York stabbing incident occurred with the victim begging his attacker to stop stabbing him by saying "Please stop hurting me, please stop killing me!" and having no one in the area contacting the police or assisting the victim. This idea was used Rob's screaming to prove how highly merciless Jason was by killing a noble victim who not only sought justified vengeance, but was also the love interest for Trish. This resulted Trish hearing what is happening and either having to rush to Rob's aid or to flee, but instead initially flees and later returns due to guilt. Upon the scene being screened, it rather made Rob seemed pathetic and impotent rather than making Jason merciless and gut-wrenching, resulting audiences bursting out laughing during the scene.

Originally, the film had an alternate ending set as a dream sequence in the style of its predecessors. In the morning aftermath of Jason's death, Trish and Tommy wake up to discover arrived police sirens nearby, having the two calling for the officers to arrive at their location. When waiting, Trish sees drips of water coming from the upstairs bathroom, only to discover her mother's body inside the bathtub with her eyes opened wide. With a survived and unmasked Jason behind her, Trish turns around and screams as Jason slams his machete down at her, suddenly waking up in the hospital. With the ending filmed, it was scrapped because aside from the fact it revealed the depiction of what became of Trish and Tommy as well as revealing the mother's death, it interfered the film's conclusion of the series. On the 2009 Deluxe Edition DVD, it was restored with no audio by Daniel Farrands and director Joseph Zito, with commentary from Zito and Kimberly Beck.

In the original script, Tommy was supposed to finally kill Jason by decapitating him with the machete instead of slamming it into the side of his head, but the filmmakers scrapped it in case they would bring back Jason again.

During filming, several of the actress were very or partially naked, with Corey Feldman still young at the time that actresses Kimberly Beck and Erich Anderson took him trick-or-treating on October 31, 1983 on the first day of filming. The two shielded Feldman from seeing anything bad, using tricky editing when necessary. Unbeknownst to everyone except Feldman, he was able to see Jodi Aronson's low-cut top when her character bends over to greet Tommy's dog.

Actor Lawrence Monoson decided to genuinely smoke marijuana when his character, Ted, is supposed to get high prior to his demise. Instead of helping him get into character, the drug's effects mainly rendered Monoson incapable of concentrating on his scene as he became paranoid and freaked out on set.

Actress Bonnie Hellman's agents told her about taking the role of the hitchhiker in the film. They told her she would not want to do it as they were no lines said for the character, but she accepted the role anyways.

Robb was originally supposed to have high-technology devices to track the location of Jason, but the idea was scrapped after the props looked too fake.

### Music

The film's music was composed by Harry Manfredini, who composed the scores to all of the series' previous installments. On January 13, 2012, La-La Land Records released a limited edition 6-CD boxset containing Manfredini's scores from the first six entries of the film series. The release was sold out in less than 24 hours of availability.

## Reception

### Box Office

*Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter* opened on Friday, April 13, 1984 on 1,594 screens to a then record-breaking weekend box office gross of $11,183,148. The film would ultimately take in a total of $32,980,880 at the U.S. box office. It placed at number 26 on the list of the top grossing films of 1984.

### Critical response

The film received generally negative reviews from critics upon its initial release. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 28% of 21 film critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 4.3 out of 10.

***Friday the 13th***