Yes, yes, yes!! Quite possibly the standard by which all modern day slasher movies should be judged against.
A much deeper script, a group of solid actors including more than a few 'name' ones, a fucking gaggle of hotties who aren't afraid to put their tits and asses on display, a fully realized Jason and a slew of kills that knock it out of the park.
The film starts off with a recap of the legend of Jason, using clips from the previous movies. It's thorough and concise. The opening credits have an updated graphic but the music is back to the haunting stuff the first two utilized so well.
We pick up the on the night part 3 left off. The cops and ME's are collecting bodies from the scene, including Jasons. Once he's delivered to the morgue we see what Jason has become. He's now more than human, clearly. Right off the bat the comedy and general tone of the film are such an improvement over the previous one. It's all working. The goofy ME, the nurse he wants to bang, the fate that will befall them both, it all just works so well. The kills also raise the bar as Jason delivers some brute force fuckups.
The main plot centers around a large cast. 6 Teenage friends have rented the cabin right next door to a mom, her hot daughter and her young son, played by Corey Feldman in an awesome job. Amongst the friends is angst ridden Crispin Glover who's afraid his girlfriend dumped him because he's a dead fuck.
The teenagers, not long after arriving, bump into 2 gorgeous twin sisters who immediately join them for a skinny dip. Boobs and butts on display and they are all so lovely. Another thing the movie nails is that all the chicks are so angelic looking. These are the kind of girls you wanna take home to mom, fuck their brains out, and watch get killed.
Meanwhile, the brother and sister, Tommy and Trish, meet up with a backpacker named Paul who says he's out here hunting bear but we know full well what he's doing. This is a character who could of very easily come off as cheesy but the guy playing him look like a legit bad ass, like he could of headlined an ABC cop show in the mid 80's.
It's also established very early on that Tommy is a smart and creative kid. He makes his own horror masks, gets high scores on video games and can fix a broken down car. It's these nice little character establishers that help the film build.
Once it's clear that the Crystal Lake killers body is missing from the morgue, along with the nurse and ME, it's time to sit back and enjoy the action.
As I said earlier, this one really raised the bar on the kills. They are forceful, good looking, and nasty as all fuck. A chick gets speared through a boat. This is after we watch her climb into it naked, legs all akimbo, ass and snatch out there for all the world to see. It's a great scene. We get a chubby hippie hitchhiker chick get slashed while eating a banana, a hand through a face, a spear to the nuts and up through the guts, and lots of bitches being thrown out of windows. Fuck, even a poor doggy goes through a window. This new and improved Jason don't fuck around.
Once things kick into high gear it's a constant barrage of fucking and killing. A girl loses her cherry and then loses her life. That's the way it goes. Their isn't much suspense in the killing of the teenagers but they're just there to be fodder for gore and kills which i can't stress enough how good they are.
The final 20 minutes are a strong call back to part 2, the sister, brother, and hunter Paul have figured out that this killer is on the loose and try their best to survive. In an awesome scene, Paul doesn't fare too well as he meets up with Jason in the basement and proclaims "OH GOD HE'S KILLING ME, HE'S KILLING ME!!!" It comes off as funny but not goofy, something a lesser actor may not have been able to convey.
Going through Pauls scrapbook filled with clippings from newspapers about Jason, Tommy sees an old artist rendition of what Jason looked like. Tommy goes to work shaving his head and making himself look as much like a young Jason as he can, just like Ginny did in part 2.
When Tommy has Jason sufficiently befuddled he delivers one of the sweetest kills in movie history. A knife to the face which once delivered, causes Jason to fall face first on the ground, driving the knife up through his skull as his whole head and face contort and ooze and it is fucking magnificent. Tommy and his sister are relieved, but upon seeing Jasons hand flinch he goes ape shit as any smart dude would and just starts fuckin hacking and slashing at the body.
At the hospital, Trish is worried about her brothers outburst but the doctor tells her it was a perfectly normal reaction. In the final scene the two hug, and a last shot of Tommys eyes bugged out closes out a magnificent cinematic experience.
This one was billed as The Final Chapter and most people at the time assumed it was indeed the final chapter. There was a lot of talk about the idea that Jason was dead and Tommy would go psycho and continue the series in some way. But amongst my friends and I, it was a given that Jason was dead.
The series would obviously continue, but if they had decided to end it here it would have been so fitting. Everything works. The atmosphere is back, the tension in the scenes where it's needed is awesome. The kills are first rate, the chicks are gorgeous and naked, and the story is strong and played well.
That makes 3 out of 4 really strong efforts for the series. Take out the gimmicky 3rd installment and you would of had an awesome trilogy.
Quite possibly the greatest slasher movie ever.
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