Slashers & Serial Killers in Review: JASON GOES TO HELL (1993)

WELCOME friends to a new year of “In Review.” As you no doubt have guessed, this year we’re running the gauntlet with Slashers & Serial Killers. To say we’ve got our work cut out for us would be an understatement. Thus far the review count looks to be well over 150 different movie reviews all spread throughout 2018 with our usual break in observance of the holiest of horror holidays, Freight Fest. Why such a high review count? There’s the love of course…the utter romanticism of this particular horror sub-genre–knowing the killer in us all by living vicariously through onscreen murderers and villains. Beginning as early as Psycho in 1960 and continuing on all the way into 2018, slasher and serial killer movies are alive then as they are today with hundreds of different movies to choice from. To kick things off, my movie of choice may seem a bit odd…allow me to explain. 

When I think slasher, my mind goes to the 1980s. Its the obvious pick of the litter, so to speak. The 1980s was certainly the Golden Era of the slasher film. But the 1990s had some damn good slasher movies too! What sets the ’90s apart from every other decade has to do with its brand or style of horror. The classic silent pictures of the early 1910s had its own with German expressionism and tales of old legends come true.

The 1930s and 40s had Universal Monsters, such as: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Mad Ghoul, The Leopard Man, Cat People, etc. etc styled in this new world reconstructing itself from the maiming machines of the Great War. And then we had the “invaders” of the ’50s with its outlandish sci-fi horror-esk Cold War flicks, like The Day The Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Invaders from Mars, Them!, The Blob, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Plan 9 From Outer Space, etc. etc.

And then in the ’60s movies drew downward into psychological freights, with Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary’s Baby, Black Sunday, Carnival of Souls, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, and so on and so on. And of course, who could forget the ’70s? The decade of Savage Cinema with terrifying flicks, such as The Exorcist, Dawn of the Dead, Alien, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Jaws, Carrie, The Omen, Shivers, The Brood, Deathdream, and so much more. And of course moving into the big hair and excess-excess-excess of the 1980s, with films like: The Evil Dead, Re-Animator, Nightmare of Elm Street, The Thing, The Fly, Return of the Living Dead, The Stuff, Hellraiser, Poltergeist, American Werewolf in London, Videodrome, Creepshow, and so many more, not to mention the birth of the Friday the 13th series and the modern slasher.

But in the 90s the monsters, in retrospect, seem to be more internalized, almost spiritual or more supernatural in nature than in decades past. Before moving on to our movie in review, lets examine for a moment the occultioris sensus of some of these spiritual-supernatural horror flicks, which would include: In The Mouth of Madness, Candyman, Jacob’s Ladder,  Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Nightbreed, The Sixth Sense, Ravenous, Sleepy Hollow, Silence of the Lambs, Baby Blood, Lawnmower Man, Cronos, The People Under the Stairs, Misery, Cube, Ringu, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Event Horizon, etc. etc. And I know I’ve probably missed some, but still… Take a look! For the most part, pooling from a majority of movies, we can tell that horror withdrew from the overindulgence of gore and mayhem and, much like in the ’60s with the addition of supernaturalism, drew inward becoming a more spiritual-supernatural psychological thriller.

This brings us to JASON GOES TO HELL…

Strange as it may sound, JASON GOES TO HELL is my favorite Friday the 13th movie. While made in the 1990s, the film still retains a lot of the classic signatures of the slasher film and yet still retaining its originality. Taking a peek at the Rot-o-Meter, it feels as if I’m fandom is a silent minority. In fact, there’s a good many who outright loath this movie. Why? Because its not the same as the other Friday the 13th movies. JASON GOES TO HELL is different, not in the same way Halloween III is different Jason is in the movie. Instead of his usual form, the story follows Jason in his more demonic state. Blown to shit by the FBI or Special Task Force or whoever they are, Jason is reduced to his core essence, a freaking looking demon worm.

Not that anyone is the wiser. The worm hides in Jason’s oversized black heart and transfers to coroner #1’s (played by Richard Gant) body in one of the most awesome gruesome scenes in the movie. Jason has no body, so he must reside in a host. It’s an interesting take on a classic slasher character…now turned parasite. JASON GOES TO HELL is still a slasher movie, but its almost more than that, its heavily supernatural, internalized, damn near spiritual and equally monstrous. To continue living, he must jump from body to body until he can find a blood relative in order to regain his former glorious form as a hockey masked machete wielding maniac. 

These “rules” are accepted story plots from glimpses of prized horror movie relics such as the Necronomicon, a little easter egg head nod to The Evil Dead. There’s at least one fella who knows the score. Duke (played fantastically by Steven Williams) is an ole western styled bounty hunter who seems to know a lot about Jason and the Voorhees lot. According to Duke, Jason had a sister, who in turn had a daughter, and the daughter had a daughter. But uncle Jason has no love lost, I mean technically he’s not even human anymore, that part of him died a long time ago. All that remains in the worm and the worm needs a blood relative host in order to regain its preferred corporeal form.

Along the way Steven Freeman (played by John D. LeMay) and Jessica Kimble (played by Kari Keegan) do everything they can to stop Jason for good…basically by trying to stay away from him. But Jason, hockey mask or no, is an unstoppable killing machine. There are a lot of really good gore scenes, but my favorite has to be the Diner Massacre. The supposed name ought to give you a clue as to how wonderful that particular scene is…in a nutshell, four deaths, deep fyer drowning, jaw crushed in, arm torn off, impalement, enough gun shots and blood splatter to wet the staunchest of horror nerds dreams, oh…and one skull crushed. And that’s just one scene!

But why was JASON GOES TO HELL so hated? The movie sounds totally badass, right? 

When our beloved classics cross over into a new era, they likewise transform into the cerebral appetites of said decade. Consider Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, which was not heralded as a good Nightmare on Elm Street… Why? Because its not a Nightmare on Elm Street movie. The ’80s are…as they say, game over man! Done! Gone. Hasta la vista baby! When long running series’ transition into a new decade, the judgement and critique of the film becomes…well, a tad bit unfair. When we hear Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th we expect what we had back in the 1980s, but its not the 1980s anymore. If we were to be reasonably rational, we must critique said movie for the era in which it was made… Of course, a really-really-really good critique will look at both, if the movie is from a running series. Does the movie honor the decade past while ushering in a new take in a new era? While JASON GOES TO HELL has received some rather harsh criticism, my opinion on the matter is, yes, JASON GOES TO HELL does honor the past while taking a step in a new direction.

JASON GOES TO HELL had some drawbacks, sure. Fans were hoping for what they’ve come to love, teen-slasher-gore. But that’s simply not what this movie was about. If we can push away from the table of Great Expectations, we’d see the amazingness this Final Friday brings to the table. Much like New Nightmare was for Freddy. I know plenty who hate that movie, simply because it wasn’t like the others.  Yes, they weren’t the slashers we remembered from the ’80s. But hey, the ’80s are over! In JASON GOES TO HELL, the action was well paced. The acting was a hell of a lot better than in some of the past Friday the 13th’s. The cast was solid. There was humor, specifically in all the mentioned Easter Eggs in the Voorhees House. The Uncut edition was chock full of gore and practical effects. It was brutal when it needed to be and it was supernatural when it needed to be. And the soundtrack was also very memorable. Overall, I thought JASON GOES TO HELL was a fantastic addition to the franchise, taking the ’90s spiritual-supernaturalism back into the gore-fest mayhem of the ’80s, or vise-versa…? Oh, whatever, you know what I’m getting at!

My Rating: 4.5/5

Who doesn’t love a good story? From great works such as, All Quiet on the Western Front and Salem’s Lot, Thomas S. Flowers aspires to create his own fantastic worlds with memorable characters and haunted places. His stories range from Shakespearean gore to classic monsters, historic paranormal thrillers, and haunted soldiers. Residing in the swamps of Houston, Texas, with his wife and daughter, Thomas’s debut novel, Reinheit, was eventually published with Shadow Work Publishing, along with The Incredible Zilch Von Whitstein, Lanmò, The Hobbsburg Horror, and FEAST. His veteran focused paranormal thriller series, The Subdue Series (4 books and counting), filled with werewolves, Frankenstein-inspired monsters, cults, alter-dimensional insects, witches, the undead, and the worst monster of all, PTSD, are published with Limitless Publishing. Don’t forget to visit his site at www.ThomasSFlowers.com for more.

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