In the early-to-mid eighties, Jason Voorhees dominated the horror box office. The masked slasher went from jump scare at the end of a movie to a pop culture icon in impressive fashion; enraging conservative parents while delighting teenagers who loved seeing him stalk and kill other teenagers on the big screen. Of the first four films, three of them made over $30 million at the U.S. box office, an impressive feat for the time. However, starting around 1985, with the much-criticized Friday the 13th: A New Beginning the series’ grosses started dwindling. Yes, they were still making money for studio Paramount thanks to their low budgets, but the air was seemingly coming out of the franchise the longer it went along. The low point, in several ways, was the release of Jason Takes Manhattan, a movie where the fans finally had to admit Jason’s machete blade had become quite dull. With a U.S. gross of just $14 million, Jason Takes Manhattan signaled the death knell for the unkillable maniac. Ah but you can’t keep a good supernatural murderer down, not forever. Some four years later, Jason would be resurrected yet again, although this time in a very different manner. Hope you don’t mind adding a little body-snatching to your slasher movie formula, because we’re going to find out What Happened to Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.

After the dismal performance of Jason Takes Manhattan at the box office, Paramount Pictures was ready to wash its hands of the Jason character. Eager to reunite with him was Sean Cunningham, the producer-director of the very first Friday the 13th. Cunningham had been in a rut at this point, career-wise, and saw a reunion with Jason to be a perfect way to jumpstart things. New Line Cinema, the House that Freddy Built, acquired the rights to the Jason Voorhees character with an eye toward tossing him into the ring with their own prized horror icon, Freddy Krueger. But rights complications, not to mention the lack of a usable screenplay, prevented that match-up from happening, at least temporarily. Before the two mutilated monsters could go head-to-head, Cunningham and New Line thought it was the right time to bring Jason back from the dead in one last standalone story, returning him to where it all began: Crystal Lake.

Around this same time, a young NYU student named Adam Marcus was headed out to L.A. to pitch a screenplay he and his classmate Dean Lorey had developed called Johnny Zombie, a horror-comedy-musical hybrid that Marcus intended to direct. Marcus showed the script to Cunningham, whom he’d actually known since he was a child – Sean’s son Noel was Adam’s childhood friend, so Marcus knew the Friday the 13th franchise very well. Cunningham agreed to help get “Johnny Zombie” produced, and the script was eventually purchased by none other than Disney, which went about toning down the horror, getting rid of the musical numbers, and almost jettisoning the zombies from the project altogether. The studio was certainly not going to entrust this movie to a 21-year-old newbie like Marcus, and he quickly found himself looking for a new job. He agreed to work as an assistant at Cunningham’s company Horror Inc., and ultimately proved to be so reliable that Cunningham agreed to let him come up with the concept for a new Friday the 13th flick. Meanwhile, Johnny Zombie – a shell of its former self – was eventually made and called My Boyfriend’s Back.

According to Marcus, Cunningham’s only caveats on the new Friday movie were that he had to get rid of the infamous hockey mask, and the movie should completely ignore the existence of Jason Takes Manhattan. The first one is something Cunningham has refuted, saying that Marcus had the initial idea to bring the franchise in completely new direction and ditch the Jason everyone had known for eight movies… Whatever the case, Marcus would come up with a radically different kind of Friday the 13th movie and eventually get the green-light.

Marcus’ concept involved the revelation that Jason was driven by a demonic heart; he referred to the character as “Hell’s assassin.” In fact, Jason was initially brought back to life by the Necronomicon from the Evil Dead movies – the book even makes an appearance in the finished film. In the original pitch, Jason is dragged out of Crystal Lake by his deformed brother Elias, who longs for Jason’s immortality and powers. Elias eventually eats Jason’s black heart and more or less becomes him, but because his body is so frail he’s forced to possess the bodies of innocent bystanders, thus prolonging his existence. A wild concept to be sure, but apparently Cunningham and New Line both went for it.

Marcus was paired with a veteran T.V. writer named Jay Huguely, once a consulting producer on Magnum P.I. According to Marcus, the script took a year to develop, but all that work still didn’t produce a coherent or usable screenplay. With the clock ticking on the film’s pre-production, Marcus brought in his Johnny Zombie writer Dean Lorey to take a crack at the draft. Lorey allegedly only had four days to completely re-work the Huguely script, which he did at Cunningham’s office while the producer hovered over him every minute of the day. Lorey ditched the Elias character and brought Jason back into the fold, although the body-hopping concept stuck. Lorey wasn’t crazy about that idea and actually pitched Jason Goes to L.A., which would involve Jason taking on two warring gangs on the streets of Los Angeles. But because the body-hopping train had already left the station, Lorey had no choice but to finesse that idea as best he could. The writer added a Quint-like character named Creighton Duke, who supposedly had been hunting Jason this whole time – where he was during the first eight movies is anyone’s guess, but no matter. He also added a baby into the mix; this little one would be Jason’s niece’s child and the apple of Jason’s eye, an opportunity to be reborn because his evil soul has to invade the body of a Voorhees in order to fully resurrect himself. Yes, there are more members of the Voorhees clan than we’d known about, and a lot of mythology was dredged up from scratch in an attempt to explain this new look for Jason.

After only four days, Lorey delivered his draft to New Line executive Michael De Luca; according to Lorey, De Luca thought the script was pretty bad, but he gave it the green-light anyway, perhaps figuring the project was low-risk, high-reward. The budget was set at $2.5 million, so the movie will not be a huge gamble for the studio. Marcus, still very much unproven, had to shoot what’s called a “Director’s Test” for New Line to prove he can handle the workload; he shot the sequence where our lead Steven fights with Deputy Randy, resulting in a John Woo-like stand-off, and it impressed New Line’s head honcho Bob Shaye enough to let the 22-year-old helm the picture.

The film is comprised mostly of working-class adults, another interesting change from the usual Friday formula. Initially, the lead was supposed to be Tommy Jarvis from Parts 4, 5 and 6, but Marcus eventually found out that Paramount still owned the rights to that character and thus he couldn’t use him. The character was re-written as Steven Freeman, the unwitting father of the baby Jason is attempting to possess. Adam wanted his brother Kipp to play the lead but that request was denied, so Kipp ended up playing the part of Deputy Randy instead. For Steven, the production added something of a Friday the 13th alumnus: John D. LeMay, known then for his role as Ryan Dallion in the Friday the 13th TV Series. Though the TV show had nothing to do with Jason, it was made by the same producers, and an assistant director on the series recommended LeMay to Marcus, who ultimately cast him. LeMay had never seen a Friday the 13th movie in his life up until that point, though he eventually rented the original just to see what he was getting himself into. Obviously, the two movies wound up being pretty darn different.

To play the bounty hunter Creighton Duke, Marcus went with Steven Williams, best known for his role on 21 Jump Street. Tony Todd had auditioned for the role, as did Richard Gant – who went on to play the possessed coroner in the first act of the film – but Williams’ sense of fun won him the part. Williams wanted to outfit the character himself, giving Duke cowboy attire. The actor later admitted he didn’t know what the hell Duke was talking about half the time since most of his dialogue is convoluted exposition, but he still did the best he could to make the character as charismatic as possible.

To play Jason’s surprise sister, another TV veteran was hired: Erin Grey, best known for her role in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century series. Grey enjoyed the experience of making Jason Goes to Hell, but was rather dismayed when she saw the sequence toward the end where the “spirit” of Jason crawls inside her dead body in a most distasteful way. Grey only saw this sequence for the first time during the premiere of the film and later said she felt violated by the ugly scene.

Playing Jason’s niece was Kari Keegan, who only auditioned for the part because another actress at her agency couldn’t make it. Her agents didn’t think she was Friday the 13th material, but Sean Cunningham liked her immensely and made sure director Adam Marcus cast her in the role as opposed to Marcus’ preferred choice, his friend Laurie Holden – who would later go on to star in The Walking Dead. Keegan might’ve later regretted getting the part, however; one story from the set is that Marcus wanted her to bare it all during the character’s emotional shower scene, although Keegan had already made it clear she was not going to do any nudity. The director and actress apparently had a falling out over the matter, leading Cunningham to intervene. Some reports contend Cunningham had to direct the shower scene after Keegan refused to do it with Marcus at the helm…

The only holdover from past Friday the 13th films was Kane Hodder, of course the man who played Jason in parts 7 and 8. Though he would not be in the movie as Jason a whole lot, Hodder was game to strap on Jason’s new, grotesque make-up, designed by those great monster-makers at KNB. The only issue with the new costume was that Kane couldn’t remove the head in between takes, so it was often quite difficult for the actor to catch his breath after an arduous sequence. Hodder got to have some extra fun as a SWAT team member who calls Jason a nasty word moments before he’s killed by the resurrected killer early in the film.

As mentioned, KNB would be handling the Jason and gore effects, of which there would be many. Adam Marcus and his effects team were allowed to go crazy with the blood and guts stuff, because New Line told him they’d be releasing an unrated director’s cut on home video, one of the very first times a studio had planned ahead for such a release. This led to the film having perhaps the most graphic killings of any Friday the 13th movie – up until that point, anyway.

While the movie has several memorable moments of gore, a few other intriguing sequences stand out – and yes, we’re talking about the homoerotic moments between Duke and Steven, and even between Jason and a deputy he feels compelled to shave before, um, impregnating… The reasons for these scenes are twofold, according to Marcus: He knew the homoerotic undertones would make the audience squirm, particularly the men. He reasoned that the violent scenes wouldn’t make them uncomfortable, but these odd interactions that felt completely out of place in a Jason movie almost certainly would. Secondly, Marcus joked that the reason he put the shaving scene in the movie is because people would still be talking about it thirty years later – and on that score, we can’t disagree.

One moment no one would disapprove of would be the film’s final shot, which depicts Freddy’s glove dragging Jason’s mask down to hell with him. Marcus claims it was his idea to put this in the film, and since New Line was envisioning making a Freddy vs. Jason film down the line, the scene made sense. It’s actually Kane Hodder’s hand that dons the glove, although the stuntman would never actually get to match his Jason against Robert Englund’s Freddy. Originally, Marcus wanted an entire sequence of Jason writhing in hell to be included, but that idea was quickly squashed by Sean Cunningham, who knew it would be way too costly.

Post-production was apparently an uneasy process. There are plenty of indications that Sean Cunningham was displeased with the footage he was receiving, prompting him to take the reigns and re-shoot several sequences, eventually taking control of the editing altogether. The producer complained about many of the director’s stylistic flourishes, demeaning them by labeling them too “film school.” The movie’s two hour runtime was whittled down to about 89 minutes, with much character development cut out. While it’s unclear exactly what happened between the two, the relationship between Cunningham and Marcus had soured, though to his credit Marcus is still grateful that the producer took a chance on a 20-something with no feature directing experience.

Test screenings were mixed, with audiences not quite sure what to make of this surreal new take on the Jason Voorhees character. One thing many of them agreed on was that there needed to be a scene where Jason actually killed some campers – you know, the thing he’s most famous for doing – so the production did some reshoots and added the sequence where Steven drops off three horny youngsters at the camp, where they’re subsequently slaughtered. It’s worth noting this scene has one of the most memorable deaths in the entire franchise, when one of the young ladies finds herself split right up the middle, an effect that required two separate body casts of the actress. Other reshoots involved Creighton Duke explaining the Jason curse to Steven in jail; if you look closely, you can see the length of Steven Williams’ facial hair change in between shots.

The MPAA unsurprisingly was not kind to the film when they received it; they’d long made it a point to single out the Friday the 13th franchise for its wanton violence, and Jason Goes to Hell would be no exception. In fact, according to Marcus, the MPAA didn’t even finish the movie the first time they sat down with it, so appalled were they by what they were seeing. They didn’t want to give it an X rating; they didn’t want to give it anything at all. The filmmakers had to figure out what to cut out before even getting notes from the organization, an unenviable task that nonetheless eventually led to an R rating. Thankfully, the unrated version was the cut of the film most countries outside of the U.S. got to experience in the theater.

Jason Goes to Hell was released on August 13th 1993; fittingly, 13 years after the release of the original film. Ironically, Cunningham’s other movie developed with Adam Marcus and Dean Lorey, – My Boyfriend’s Back – came out a week earlier, meaning they were competing with themselves in a way. The Final Friday debuted with a respectable $7.5 million, coming in second place behind the second weekend of The Fugitive. But the good news would stop there, as it ultimately went on to make only $15 million, a blip better than the gross of Jason Takes Manhattan four years earlier. Critics were harsh, naturally, but horror fans were both confused and angered by the bizarre direction Marcus took their beloved Jason on. The unrated cut released on VHS helped appease some of the gorehounds, and once some time had passed, the film became something of a cult classic.

Jason Goes to Hell is still debated about to this day; some fans who were put off by its tenuous connection to the other Fridays have since forgiven it and recognize that it’s a unique, gory and self-aware popcorn flick that works on its own merits – call it the Halloween III effect. Still others will never get over how Jason Goes to Hell trampled all over the legacy of its predecessors and struck out on its own. To those people, Marcus often reassures them that there are still several Friday movies where you can see Jason do his thing the traditional way if that’s what you want. For what it’s worth, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is a bit like Jason himself: ungainly, immune to common sense, and very much in a class of its own.

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