Friday the 13th Part 4 : The Final Chapter (Not).

Friday the 13th Part 4 : The Final Chapter title

AKA: Friday the 13th Part 4 : The Final Chapter

Tag Line : This is the one you've been screaming for.

Don't be deceived by the title, this may be the fourth in the Friday the 13th saga but it is far from the final chapter.

Picking up directly after the events of part 3, all the bodies are collected up and taken to the local morgue. However, Jason isn't really dead (of course) and at the appropriate moment, arms himself with a surgical hacksaw and a scalpel and promptly does away with the 2 mortuary staff in one of the bloodiest killings in the whole film, if not the entire series.

He then heads back over to Crystal Lake to carry on where he left off and comes across a couple of holiday homes which are located a bit further round the Lake. Staying there are the Jarvis Family in particular, 12 year old Tommy (played by Corey Feldman). Across from them are (guess what) another group of imbecilic drunken teens, staying at the house opposite.

Jason subsequently gets stuck in to what he does best and the teens go about getting hacked, slashed and dismembered in loving detail!!! But when he turns his attentions to the Jarvis household, 12 year old Tommy, being a horror enthusiast, manages to play him at his own game and with some help from his sister, finally brings Jason's reign of terror to a grisly halt (or not as the case may be).

This is probably the best of the early sequels and definitely better than any of the subsequent sequels that followed. Whilst part 2 was arguably better because it had a tendency to make you jump more often, I enjoyed Part 4 because it was faster paced and the actual murders appeared more shocking. I also found that Jason, played this time by Ted White, was better in this film as he appeared more articulate, as opposed to the lumbering about he did in part 3.

My favourite scene has to be when Jason grabs the surgical hacksaw and saws off the head of the chief mortician. BLOOD EVERYWHERE!!!!!

Overall marks 7/10.

Other Information.

As you will undoubtedly already know, this was not to be the last Friday film and the series did indeed carry on, for another 6 films (with many more in the pipeline).
The Director was Joseph Zito, who previously directed the 1981 slasher "The Prowler" (aka Rosemary's Killer) on which Tom Savini also worked.
Production was handled once again by Frank Mancuso JR, with the chilling music scored by Harry Manfredini, returning as composer for the 4th time.
Tom Savini returned to do the special effects for the movie, but sadly this was to be the last Friday the 13th he would work on (shame).
The "machete slide" scene at the films climax, was originally cut from the UK release at the insistences of the BBFC, although this scene was left intact when it was shown on Sky movies in the early 90's and on the UK Sci-Fi channel in 98. This scene has since been re-instated for the UK DVD release.
In the original script Tommy Jarvis was to have split Jason's head open with the machete, but SFX artist Tom Savini wasn't particularly keen on this method. He came up with the idea of the "machete slide" death after seeing one of his effects crew (John Vulich) playing with the prop machete he used in Dawn Of The Dead
The original Australian video release of this film was the same as the edited UK version, but CIC later issued the uncut version on sell-through.
There were several scenes of dialogue cut from the film, these included an extra scene of conversation between Sara and her boyfriend, a scene during the party in which Doug and Sarah are on the porch talking, Mrs Jarvis telling Trish to get a car part from town and that she's going jogging before it rains, and Sarah and Doug in the room together before the party starts.
Several other scenes trimmed or excised, showed Rob setting up a motion sensor in the woods after finding his shotgun broken to pieces, Tommy scaring Trish with one of his masks when their car breaks down and the two ambulance attendants complaining about having to give up their night off during the intro.
Two gore scenes excised from the final print showed Trish finding her mother drowned in a bathtub and Nurse Rhonda being held up and gutted, which was trimmed so that it only showed her being stabbed.
Rob Dier, the camper, tells Trish that his sister was killed by Jason. Sandra Dier was one of Jason's victims in part 2.
When the film was originally submitted to the German censors in the mid 80's, the distributors edited the violence in the film hoping they would not ban it as they had done with part 3. Unfortunately they refused to pass the film and it got banned anyway (Boooo!). It was later passed uncut in 2001.