3 out of 5

Directed by: Joseph Zito

Really, the final ten minutes of this one should bump it up to the top tier of Ft13th flicks, but the rather slow, occasionally clumsy middle section has to be considered.  Still, Part IV almost immediately rights the wrongs of III’s sillier tone by keeping the comedy focused on the bumbling teens and allowing Jason to fill the creepy stalker archetype he was responsible for shaping.

The ‘previously on’ review has been established as part of the series by now, but there’s something very grim (in a good way) about IV’s handling of it, especially leading, as it does, to the resultant crime scene from III’s conclusion.  From here, director Zito works Barney Cohen’s script effectively to shake up our setting while still putting into place our teen slaughter fodder: Jason’s reawakening at the hospital, then onto his killings while wandering back to Crystal Lake, spliced inbetween scenes of the car fulla’ fools driving to their vacation home that’s in a familiar part of the forest.  Later, when we get introduced to a character with ties to part II, the thankful plotting linearity is solidified, and the tone feels appropriately balanced between crazy killer (Jason) and goofball (the teens), rounded out by the ‘smart’ characters – Corey Feldman (one of his best roles / performances) and family, living next to that vacation home.  Once party night is underway and the bodycount can start to rack up, the film actually beings to crawl.  Zito seems conflicted as to whether he wants to make an 80s T&A comedy (a rather leering one at that) or a horror film, and while there’s obviously room for overlap with those genres, they’re not married well here: drawn out scenes to, perhaps, flesh out our characters, are shot with a lazy camera eye that seems to just be biding its time (as are we) for the slashing, the focus often holding on pieces of the background or off-center for no apparent reason.  When the kills do begin, they’re more creative than in III but the camera cuts away and never returns – trying to meet censorship requirements? – robbing the moments of real impact.  Though it’s amusing how relatively long we were hearing about various characters’ love lives to then have them each offed so ceremoniously.  But then those last ten minutes.  Which have been pretty spectacular in each film, but each element is perfect here: our survivors are intelligent, and fight back; Jason is insane and frightening; and the script doesn’t pander to us to over-explain the plan that saves the day.  And although it was sorta retconned, the ending hook was a great one.

As the centerpiece of the flick stumbles around rather amateurishly, ‘Final Chapter’ isn’t as solid through and through as Part II.  However, what the flick got right was important – smart survivors, a frightening Jason – and the pulse-pounding final sequence would have been enough to make you walk out of the theater telling people it was something they had to go see.