Friday the 13th, The Final Chapter (1984)
d. Joseph Zito, 90 minutes

Film Plot Summary

As with most the films in the series, this one began with a recap of a major explanatory scene from Friday the 13th, Part 2 (1981), in which camp leader Paul Holt (John Furey) spoke to camp counselor trainees around a campire about the Lake's past history. There were also major excerpts from Friday the 13th (1980), including truck driver Enos' (Rex Everhart) warning: "Camp Crystal Lake is jinxed" and Crazy Ralph's (Walt Gorney) cautioning: "It's got a death curse."

The death of camp manager/boss Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer) was reprised, when he saw a familiar face at the camp's entrance and was startingly stabbed in the chest. The concluding scene was also reviewed, in which the girl who survived - hospitalized Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) - asked a police officer about the boy named Jason who had attacked her in the lake and pulled her under: "Is he dead, too?" - with a replay of the boo-moment, when Jason's decomposed corpse lept out of the water at her, grabbed her by the neck, and pulled her underwater from the canoe. When told by the authorities that they didn't find any boy, she pondered: "Then he's still there."

Returning to the campfire scene, Paul then stated: "She disappeared two months later," with a quick recap of Alice's discovery of the severed head of Mrs. Voorhees in her refrigerator in the beginning of Part 2, a flashback to the actual beheading scene at the end of Part 1, and Jason's revenge in the second film (the murder of various camp counselors shown in a montage, including the double impalement of Jeff and Sandra, the stabbing of Vickie, the garroting of Crazy Ralph, and the snare-capture and slicing of the neck of Scott). The crazed Mrs. Voorhees was seen, in the conclusion of the first film, telling Alice: "Jason was my son," followed by the scene in the second film of Jason's pitchfork pursuit of sole surviving Ginny Field (Amy Steel), and her impersonation of Mrs. Voorhees to fool him.

All of this backstory in the first two films was then supplemented with a brief review of the third film, Friday the 13th, Part 3 (1982), in which the vengeful son (never named Jason) had begun wearing a plastic hockey mask, and was killing off more young people (the machete body-splitting of hand-standing Andy, the spearing of Vera at the dock, and the maiming of Ali), with an additional out-of-order murder from Part 2 (the machete into the face of wheelchaired Mark and his plummeting backwards down stairs), all capped by Paul's warning: "Jason's out there." From Part 3, Jason was seen hanging from a barn rope, and being struck by Chris Higgins (Dana Kimmel) in the forehead with an axe through his hockey-mask, followed by her astonished: "He can't be alive."

After the credits, in a nighttime scene, emergency personnel and police officers (with helicopters hovering above with spotlights) converged on the horrible murder scene at Higgins Haven near Crystal Lake from the third film, where there were ten killings (7 weekend visitors and 3 leather-clad motorcycle gang members). Bodies were being taken away on stretchers. Jason's (Ted White) corpse was in the doorway of the barn where last seen lying with an axe embedded in his forehead - an ambulance driver noted: "He's dead." One of the workers admitted that the killer had finally met his fate: "This time they got him."

Jason's body was taken to the local Wessex County morgue, where the sleazy, crass morgue attendant Axel (Bruce Mahler), sloppily eating over the dead corpse, signed in the delivery, and then immediately propositioned pretty Nurse Morgan (Lisa Freeman). She rejected his offer to meet him in the cold room: "I am not going to fake any more orgasms for you." He asked if she had "the curse," and she replied quickly: "If I do, you're it." In the morgue, where he had been watching an erotic aerobics fitness short called Aerobicise (1982) (with Deborah Corday) on TV, he frightened her, and she rebuked him: "You're the Super Bowl of self-abuse." She switched the channel to the "tragic story of mass slayings in the vicinity of Crystal Lake" and its "trail of mangled bodies." Officer Jameson (Wayne Grace) reported that "the man responsible for the murders in Wessex County this past week is at this moment in the Wessex County Medical Center morgue."

After a few moments of hungrily kissing each other (after he switched the channel back to the exercise show), she unzipped the front of her uniform and they laid prone next to the killer's stretcher. She was startled by the body's hand falling on her, and decided she had enough. As Axel settled down to watch more of the show, the killer had opened up the door of the cold storage freezer, grabbed Axel's head, used a surgical bone hack-saw to cut into the attendant's throat, and then twisted the partially-decapitated head around with his bare hands (# 1 death). Continuing his murder spree, Jason found Nurse Morgan in the storeroom, where he grabbed her face with his fist, held her off the floor against the wall, and cut down the length of her chest with a scalpel (# 2 death).

Back at Crystal Lake at a summer house, the film introduced the family of recently-estranged or separated Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman), her pretty, wholesome 18 year-old daughter Trish (Kimberly Beck), and innocent 12 year-old video-game horror enthusiast Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman), first seen wearing an alien mask. Their golden retriever dog was named Gordon. Next door to them was a rented lakeside house, soon to be occupied with the arrival of teenage renters. A station wagon filled with the six teens was on its way to the house at Crystal Lake:

• Paul (Alan Hayes)
• his girlfriend Samantha/"Sam" (Judie Aronson)
• Sara (Barbara Howard)
• Doug (Peter Barton)
• Ted (Lawrence Monoson)
• Jimmy (Crispin Glover)

In the back of the car, sexually-frustrated nerd Jimmy and Ted talked about Jimmy's recent breakup with Betty. Ted (and his imaginary 'computer') blamed it on Jimmy's lack of sexual prowess - he accused him of being a "dead f--k" and a "lousy lay" with a "dead pecker." Lost, the car stopped at a roadside cemetery, where one of the tombstones read: "PAMELA VOORHEES 1930-1979 At Rest." The group also passed a fat female hippie hitchhiker (Bonnie Hellman), but didn't pick her up. As she sat by the side of the road eating a banana (a fellatio reference), a hand forcibly grabbed her hair, and thrust a hunting knife through the back of her neck that exited from her throat (# 3 death). As she died, she squeezed the banana out of its peel.

As the group of hormonally-charged six arrived that night, next-door neighbors Trish and Tommy Jarvis greeted them. Samantha and Sara engaged in girl-talk in the bathroom of their rented house, discussing their sexual reputations. Sexually-free Samantha admitted that she received her reputation in 6th grade, and added: "Paul thinks I'm great in bed, so that's where I keep him." In regards to the sleeping arrangements -- Paul and girlfriend Samantha would take the bedroom at the end of the hall, while the shyer Sara and Doug would be next door - in bunk beds. In the Jarvis living room, Mrs. Jarvis read the Wessex County newspaper's headlines: "MASS MURDERER'S BODY MISSING."

The next day during a hike to Crystal Point, the group of teens met two identically-dressed fraternal twins:

• Tina (Camilla More)
• Terri (Carey More)

The sisters were riding on bicycles, and both had matching off-the-shoulder, Flashdance-style ripped pink sweatshirt tops and tight shorts. At Crystal Point, group members jumped in to swim in the lake. Without a suit, Samantha stripped down, but Sara was embarrassed and walked away. The two temptress twins (in matching bikinis) happily jumped in and removed their bathing suits underwater, and pretty soon everyone was swimming naked. Prudish Trish wouldn't let wide-eyed Tommy watch the "pack of patooties" from the shore after they drove up on the cavorting teens, but they invited her to their party that night. Lounging on the dock, Sara refused to "strip and dip" when Samantha asked her to join them, so she tricked her by pretending to be drowning, and then pulled her friend into the water.

As they returned home, Trish's car broke down, and Tommy attempted to fix the problem with a screwdriver. They were assisted and befriended by a backpack-wearing camper/stranger named Rob Dyer (E. Erich Anderson), who used a large hunting knife to jump-start the vehicle's solenoid. They gave him a lift back to their home, where Tommy immediately took a liking to him and showed off his large collection of "amazing" Halloween masks and puppets. As Rob left, but paused to linger for small-talk with Trish, she suggested he stay on the trail that rounded the lake, and then invited him back if the weather turned bad or if he wanted to take a shower.

The party commenced at the next-door house, where the teens (four boys and four girls) had paired off:

• Jimmy and Terri
• Ted and Tina
• Paul and Samantha
• Doug and Sara

They were either kissing, dancing, or listening to music. Some friction developed when Tina asked Paul to dance ("You like slow dancing?"), but Samantha whisked him away ("Kiss me, you fool"). The two twins played a beer-drinking game of shotgun, and Paul's flirtation with chugging-contest winner Tina caused the jealous Samantha to announce that she would go swimming alone: "It seems to be getting a bit close in here for me." Paul's close dancing with Tina also alienated Ted, whose potential prospects with Tina were quickly fading. At lakeside, a miffed Samantha stripped naked after cursing her two-timing boyfriend Paul ("Screw you, Paulie"), and swam out to a yellow/blue rubber raft floating in the lake. There, as she was lying on her stomach in the bottom of the raft (after calling out: "Come on, Paul, I know you're out there"), the hand of an unseen killer held her left shoulder down as she was stabbed through her abdomen (from underneath the raft), with the bowie knife piercing out the center of her back through her spine (# 4 death).

Feeling guilty about his unfaithfulness, Paul left Tina ("I can't go through with this") to go look for Samantha, while to Ted's consternation, the slutty Tina danced for a few moments with Jimmy and then led him upstairs! By the shore of the lake, Paul saw Samantha (supposedly sleeping) in the raft and swam out to her, screaming when he found her dead body. After quickly swimming back to the dock and climbing halfway out, the killer shoved a spear-gun deep into his groin and lifted Paul into the air by his speared crotch - Paul howled when the spear was released (# 5 death). His hideous screams were heard by Rob, camping in a tent nearby, who grabbed his machete and went out to investigate. When he heard someone at his tent, he returned and found that his rifle had been cracked in half, and his belongings had been strewn around.

Upstairs in Paul's bedroom, Tina unbuttoned her blouse (she was braless) before Jimmy and laid down on top of him, but they weren't fazed when the bed partially collapsed, before making out. Meanwhile, downstairs in the living room, Ted had found an old movie reel and projector, and the group was entertained watching a vintage B/W stag movie. Terri decided to leave early, and was unnoticed by the group as she went out to her bicycle. She was prepared for the weather with a clear plastic rain slicker. As she glanced up at the upper bedroom window, she cursed her promiscuous sister ("You slut!") who wouldn't leave with her.

Suddenly, in the brightness of a flashing lightning strike, the silhouette of a shadowy figure stabbed Terri in the back with a spear, and her body was pinned to the side of the house against a window shutter (# 6 death) (off-screen and on-screen). The killing was juxtaposed with a nude female in the stag flick yelling HELP. The old porno film must have aroused Sara, evidenced when she asked Doug to sleep with her in the bottom bunk. In the bedroom, she prepared for love-making by stripping to her bra and panties, and donning a silky white robe as she primped in front of a mirror, before surrendering her virginity.

Mrs. Jarvis returned from jogging in the rain to a dark and quiet house. As she called out for everyone ("Anybody home?") and searched around the house (inside and outside), she looked up and was suddenly startled (# 7 death) (off-screen). When Trish and Tommy returned home and couldn't find their mother, Trish went searching on the jogging path and found Rob's empty tent. A shadowy figure appeared on the tent wall and a machete slashed through the side of the tent - it was only Rob though, who was poised to strike her, shouting: "What the hell are you doing here?" She almost believed he was trying to kill her, although he later explained his motives for being at Crystal Lake - he was there to seek revenge for the death of his sister Sandra Dier (who had been double-impaled with her lover Jeff) in Friday the 13th, Part 2 (1981). He knew that the killer wasn't dead -- he reported that Jason's body had disappeared from the morgue, while two people at the hospital were missing. Meanwhile, in the basement of the Jarvis house, Tommy investigated the reason for the power outage.

After Jimmy scored with Tina and learned he was "incredible" (and not a "dead f--k"), she requested: "I want to do it again." To celebrate before having more sex, Jimmy bragged to Ted about his sexual exploits and showed him a stolen pair of panties as evidence. He then went looking for a bottle of wine and a "fancy corkscrew" in the downstairs kitchen, where the killer appeared from behind him in the shadows, and answered his call: "Where the hell is the corkscrew?" The corkscrew was slammed into Jimmy's left hand, nailing it to the counter, and then as Jimmy turned, a meat cleaver was smashed diagonally into his forehead (# 8 death). When Tina returned to the bedroom, Jimmy was missing - she looked out the window and noticed the two bicycles underneath the tree (she thought her sister had already left and taken one of the bikes). She stared out the window for a few moments and wiped the steam off the glass to see more clearly. Suddenly, the unseen killer shoved his arms through the glass from the outside, and grabbed her neck with two hands. As he turned, he threw her high into the air. After a two-story fall, Tina landed on the top of the station wagon parked outside and rolled crumpled to the ground (# 9 death).

While Ted continued to smoke dope and watch the stag flick by himself in the living room, Sara and Doug were naked together in the upstairs shower. In a masturbatory way, Ted approached the screen as he spoke to one of the nude female figures in the film: "So you wanna give the ol' Teddy Bear a kiss?" When the film broke and he was caught in the bright projection light, a large kitchen knife sliced through the screen behind him and impaled him - its blade was shoved into the back of his head from the other side of the screen (# 10 death). As he slowly dropped to the floor, he left a trail of blood on the white, ripped screen behind him.

After the couple (Sara and Doug) had made love in the shower behind a steamed-up, frosted shower enclosure (mostly off-screen), Sara left to blow-dry her hair in the bedroom, and didn't hear the attack on Doug in the bathroom - a left arm shoved through the glass shower door, and then a bare hand grabbed Doug's face, caved it in, and crushed his skull against the tile wall (# 11 death). Sara found Doug's head slumped over the broken shower door enclosure and she screamed. She fled down the stairs and as she struggled to open the front door, an axe thrown through the front door struck her in the chest, and she fell backwards to the floor, quivering (# 12 death).

Trish and Rob found Tommy at home, with the lights on (he had fixed the problem), and they tried to phone for help, but the phones were dead (a shot of Jason's hands removing the connection box was seen). Rob, Trish, and the dog Gordon walked next door, where they found a huge hole in the front door ("He's been here"). When the lights went out, Rob descended into the basement to check, while Gordon ran upstairs, whimpered a few times, and then inexplicably jumped out the second-story window (to his death?). When she heard breaking glass, Trish (with a machete) proceeded upstairs, where she heard water running in the shower. There, she found broken glass, blood on the floor, and Doug's face-first body spiked through the upper back into the wall. She screamed for Rob: "He's here! He's killed all of them." In the basement, Rob was attacked by the killer and beaten and stabbed to death with a 3-pronged garden claw (# 13 death), as Trish watched in horror. As she fled up the stairs, she hacked at the murderer with her machete when he grabbed her ankle.

Meanwhile, back at the Jarvis house, Tommy snooped in Rob's backpack and found his newspaper clippings about the massacres at Crystal Lake, including the slaughter perpetrated by Jason's mother ("Seven Camp Counselors Killed by Local Woman In Brutal Mass Murder"). He noticed a sketch of her deformed son.

When Trish fled home, she saw Tina's corpse lying on the front porch, and at the back kitchen door, she found Jimmy spiked (through his hands) and nailed across the door frame in a crucifixion pose. She threw a chair through the kitchen window to escape, and then in her own home, used a hammer and nails to seal the front door shut. As she secured the house, Jason heaved Rob's corpse through the picture window in the living room. She defended against Tommy's brutalization by battering the killer's head with her hammer, and stabbing the claw-end into his neck.

Jason relentlessly came after them after they raced upstairs into Tommy's bedroom, where Trish defended her brother by smashing his computer monitor over Jason's head. The killer revived and chased Trish outdoors as she ran to the second-floor of the neighboring house. With nowhere to go, she dove through the window to the muddy ground below, momentarily lay motionless, and then struggled to get back to the Jarvis house. There, she again slashed at Jason with the machete, seriously wounding him by slicing a gash through his fingers into his hand. She kept threatening him: "You son-of-a-bitch! I'm gonna give you something to remember us by!" and again slashed him across the chest.

When she was downed by the invulnerable, psychopathic killer, Tommy came up behind Jason - with his head shaved and some face makeup to look like the sketch of the younger Jason in the newspaper clipping. The strange sight of Tommy, and his words: "Remember me, Jason?" (a combination of Mrs. Voorhees and Jason's own childhood self) distracted and confused Jason long enough to allow her time to sneak up from behind. She knocked the hockey-mask from his head with one blow of the machete - and when he turned toward her with his hideous face, Tommy picked up the dropped machete and struck the side of Jason's head with it. When the killer fell to his knees, the butt of the machete hit the floor, and his head slid down the blade embedded in his skull. After embracing his sister, to decidedly finish Jason off (when he saw his fingers moving), Tommy picked up the machete, and repeatedly, sadistically, and mercilessly hacked away at Jason's neck and head until he died (# 14 death), while Trish was screaming: "Tommy! Tommy!" Losing control, he animalistically cried out: "Die! Die!"

In the final scene in a hospital, Trish was recuperating (the sole-surviving Last Girl), and asked to see her brother Tommy, whom the doctor had described as showing "extraordinary behavior" during his violent attack of the killer: "At that moment, it was perfectly normal for him to act to protect himself." As they peacefully embraced, it was hoped that the 'nightmare' had ended. However, a close-up shot of Tommy's face revealed an insane, evil and psychotic look.

[In terms of continuity, one could skip watching Part 5, and proceed to Part 6, in order to follow the story. Jason remained dead in Part 5.]

Film Notables (Awards, Facts, etc.)

With a production budget of approximately $2.6 million, and box-office gross revenues of $33 million (domestic).

An improperly-named film, since this wasn't the "final chapter." The next film was called Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning (1985). The film franchise also announced a second demise and ending film for the series, with the title of its ninth installment, The Final Friday (1993), but the lucrative series kept going nonetheless.

With the tagline: "Three Times Before, You Have Felt the Tension, Known the Madness, Lived the Horror, But This is the One You've Been Screaming For..."

Body Count: 14 (13 committed by Jason, 1 committed by Tommy Jarvis), and one dog death (probably).