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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - August 13th

"JASON GOES TO HELL" released in 1993

[after witnessing Jason being blown up and the FBI thinking he's finally dead]
Creighton Duke: I don't think so.

Crystal Lake's undead mass murderer Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) returns for what was at the time going to be the final outing Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday! Is this installment, Jason has finally had his body destroyed by the FBI, but his dark spirit still has the ability to possess the bodies of those near him. Only being reborn through a Voorhees can Jason hope to attain his body again and continue his violent killing spree!

Watch the Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday trailer below!

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At Camp Crystal Lake, an undercover government agent Elizabeth Marcus (Julie Michaels) lures Jason (Hodder) into a trap set by the FBI, and several armed men blow him to bits, destroying his body. The agents celebrate and send what little remains to the morgue - including Jason's still beating putrid heart! Possessed by Jason's demonic spirit after consuming the heart, the Coroner (Richard Gant) leaves the hospital leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake. Meanwhile, bounty hunter Creighton Duke (Steven Williams) discovers only members of Jason's bloodline can return Jason to his normal and near-invincible state if he manages to possess one of them, and tracks down the only living relatives of Jason; his half-sister Diana Kimble (Erin Gray), her daughter Jessica (Kari Keegan), and Stephanie, the infant daughter of Jessica and Steven Freeman (John D. LeMay). Jason (now in the body of a police officer he earlier killer) makes his way to Diana's house and kills her, but is stopped from completing his rebirth by Steven. Jason escapes and Steven is falsely accused and arrested for Diana's murder. While in prison, Steven meets Duke (in jail for harassing Diana earlier) who explains Jason's plan at the cost of allowing Duke to break Steven's fingers. Jessica arrives at the police station with her sleazy tabloid TV reporter boyfriend Robert (Steven Kulp) just ahead of Jason, who almost possesses Jessica before she is saved by Steven, and the two escape the police station. Realizing Steven is innocent of killing her mother, Jessica takes him to collect their daughter while Jason manages to possess the dead body of Rick. Jessica and Steven discover to their horror that Duke has gotten their ahead of them and taken their baby to use for his own agenda against Jason, forcing them into a final showdown with Jessica, Steven, Duke, and Jason!

TRIVIA:   Jason's heart was actually made of gelatin and filled with fruit cocktail from the crafts services table mixed with black dye. Actor Richard Gant was still disgusted and reportedly nearly threw up during the take. 

Top:   The Coroner (Richard Gant) becomes the first to be possessed by

Jason's demonic spirit;   Above:   Jessica (Kari Keegan) and

Steven Freeman (John D. LeMay) discover their child has been taken

With series starting to show it's age with poor box office performance of Jason Takes Manhattan, new studio New Line Cinema decided to end the series, similarly to Freddy Krueger's end in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare two years before, with one big final explosive film. One early concept for this movie was "Jason Goes To L.A" in which two rival gangs would be fighting; when Jason would show up and start murdering them. This would force the rival gangs to band together to defeat Jason. There was also a comic book that bridged the gap between Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, with it following Jason after he was dipped in toxic waste in a New York City sewer, and his killing spree all the way back to Camp Crystal Lake. It also explains why the FBI has a task force specifically for Jason. Neither of these were seriously considered as a basis for Jason Goes to Hell, and producer Sean S Cunningham called director Adam Marcus out to Los Angeles to work on the film with screenwriter Jay Huguely.

Conceptually, the notion of Jason's essence being transferable came from director Adam Marcus' original story treatment. Ignoring Jason Takes Manhattan, he picked up where Part VII: The New Blood left off (Jason neutralized and trapped at the bottom of Crystal Lake). The film would open with a mystery man dredging Jason's body back up so that an autopsy could be performed in a nearby cabin converted into a science lab. We were supposed to expect Jason to wake up and go on the rampage. However, as a surprise Jason would awake only to watch his own black heart torn out by the the mystery man. This would instantly render him powerless, and the mystery man would consume the heart thereby absorbing Jason's "powers." The big reveal would be the identity of the man: Elias Voorhees, Jason's heretofore unseen/unmentioned brother. Most of the original treatment was dropped, except the idea of someone eating Jason's heart thereby taking his powers. Cunningham found Huguely's final draft impossible to understand, and with a deadline approaching from New Line Cinema to deliver a script in a few days or the project would be cancelled, Cunningham recruited writer Dean Lorey, sat with him in a room for 4 days, and wouldn't let him leave until they had a script they could film!

Steven Freeman: Duke! The part about being reborn through a Voorhees woman, does it have to be a living woman?
Creighton Duke: No...
Steven Freeman: Duke, that thing is in the basement with Jessica's dead mother!
Creighton Duke: Holy mother of God.

Top:   Bounty hunter Creighton Duke (Steven Williams) has his own agenda

with Jason Voorhees;   Above:   Jason possesses the body of Jessica's

sleazy TV reporter boyfriend Robert (Steven Culp)

Controversially, there is a substantial amount of male nudity in this film as with female nudity, probably most notably in the "homoerotic shaving scene" as many fans have come to call it. The reason for this that director Marcus viewed the previous Friday the 13th film as somewhat sexist, showing only or primarily female nudity, and thought it more acceptable to show male and female nudity in equal amounts. Of course, this would lead to explosive confrontation between Marcus and star Kari Keegan; Marcus had wanted Keegan to do a shower scene completely nude, which Keegan says she refused to do from the beginning, while Marcus kept telling everyone he'd be able to convince her to change her mind by the time came to shoot the scene. She never did, and during the scene she wore a flesh-colored bathing suit bottom. The water was so hot, though, that she was literally crying from pain. Keegan complained about the whole thing to her agent, who then argued with on everyone in the production, especially Marcus. As a result, Keegan and Marcus briefly became enemies, eventually getting so bad she walked off the set, even though they were mere days away from wrapping. So, Cunningham had to take the movie away from Marcus and come in to direct the final couple of days (that's the only way they could get Keegan back).

It was left to Kane Hodder then to provide any kind of levity on set. One particular story from the set was a time when Kane Hodder was removing his Jason make-up after a day of shooting, when the young child of a crew member (who was brought to the set to see what it was like to make a movie) became frightened at the sight of him; not the Jason make-up, but the burn scars on Kane's actual body (Kane having being burned in a stunt gone wrong some years prior) and his skin was somewhat discolored and disfigured. Hodder calmly and sweetly picked up and hugged the child and told him that his body "just looked a bit different" and there was nothing to be afraid of, and let the child touch the skin on his arm to see that it didnt hurt him, the child immediately calmed down and had a fun time talking to Hodder. It was seeing this that made Adam Marcus (and later hearing that Hodder spent much of his free time at children's Hospitals) realize that despite often playing violent or evil characters, "Hodder had a Heart of Gold".

TRIVIA:    The most expensive shot in the movie is the transformation scene where Jessica catches the sacred dagger that can kill Jason.

Top:   Jessica finally manages to send Jason to Hell!

Above:   Jason has a little surprise waiting for him once he gets there!

Wrapping in early September, filmmakers began editing the film. The original rough cut of Jason Goes To Hell was over 130 minutes long and therefore it had to be heavily re-edited to be more faster paced and under 90 minutes long. Sean Cunningham long since believed actors never took their cues fast enough, meaning it would take them just a couple of seconds too long to go out of a room through a door because they'd be too busy emoting. His passive aggressive solution was not to communicate more clearly to the actors but instead shoot at 22 frames per second instead of 24, thinking the increased speed would eliminate any sign of slight hesitation from the actor. This put the audio all out of whack, but he could fix that with a harmonizer. Cunningham puts this technique to the test on Deepstar Six, and liked the results enough to force Marcus to employ the method while filming Jason Goes to Hell. An unexpected though obvious consequence of filming everything at a slightly faster frame rate was that where they thought they had a 90 minute film they only actually had 80 minutes!

TRIVIA:   In addition to his roles as Jason and the Security Guard, Kane Hodder also played Freddy Krueger's arm in the final scene.

Top:   Miniature sets built for the unused stop motion animation sequence where Jason

is dragged to Hell by huge demonic arms;   Above:   Director Adam Marcus

As with the other Friday the 13th films, many critics panned the film, but was received significantly better than its 1989 predecessor, Jason Takes Manhattan. Flixster wrote the main criticism is the idea of Jason "possessing" the body of people to kill his victims being too outlandish, and simply being another formulaic entry in the series with poor acting and plot holes.  The ninth installment "turned a healthy profit", though it was only ever intended to open the door for a crossover with Freddy Krueger rather than to start a new series for New Line. Because New Line owned both properties, a joint project should have been easier to develop but it would take more than 15 years of off-and-on development, and approximately $6 million spent in 18 unused scripts from more than a dozen screenwriters, before New Line finally produced the crossover Freddy and Jason in 2003, sadly without the participation of Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   N/A