In a series not exactly known for being high brow, this is the one that stands out for its sleaziness, so much so that it could have it's own version of the infamous DVDVR thread (just read the section on this movie in CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES) if you don't believe me.
It starts off innocently enough, with Corey Feldman returning for a cameo (he was too busy making The Goonies to reprise his role for the whole movie) in a dream sequence, which sees him watch two yahoos pick the stormiest night of the year to dig up Jason Voorhees' grave (which is helpfully marked by the cheapest tombstone ever produced), only to be dispatched because for some reason he was buried with both his hockey mask and sharp objects, including a machete. Dream Tommy then just stands there as Jason gets ready to take his head off. Fortunately he wakes up as John Shepherd, on his way to a half-way house for trouble teens run by the most lenient staff to ever be put in charge of one of those.
I once described this movie on DVDVR as a "Scooby Doo episode with boobs and a body count", because that's pretty much what it is. You have a half-baked mystery, people wanting a specific place shut down, and a villain taking the guise of a local legend to further their own agenda.
When Vic kills Joey, which kicks off all the craziness, it should be a powerful moment, but it's undermined by the editing. There are a couple reaction shots like you see in trailers, with quick zooms into medium close-ups, and it looks goofy enough to ruin the whole moment.
As interesting and relatively-well-acted the characters in Final Chapter were, it's the opposite for the most part here. The worst may be the two greasers who act like they just wandered off the set of a high school production of Grease, and are introduced only to be killed off and pad the movie's running time. The only real interesting character and coincidentally the only actor who shows anything is Shepherd. There's an interesting story to be told with the Tommy Jarvis character, and Shepherd does a decent job of portraying a guy struggling to contain his inner rage at the world for taking a cosmic crap all over him and being stuck in a house with all of these fucking people. He also performs a very nice fireman's carry slam through a table. Everyone else, especially the cops, perform like characters who are aware that they're in a movie.
The only thing in this movie potentially worse than the acting is the writing, whenever the Tommy Jarvis character is not involved. All of the other characters are terrible (and most are terrible people). Steinmann's directing is terrible too. His attention is clearly on the Tommy storyline, and everything else is shot either in the laziest way possible, or he goes the other way and tries really hard to be stylish. He can't pull it off. The major sex scene is shot in such a voyeuristic fashion that I honestly felt the need to take a shower after seeing it (reading the back story of the casting of Debbiesue Voorhees and the actual shooting of the scene adds to this). It even has the "grifter" character looking on (before he is killed) acting as an audience surrogate. To make it even worse, the guy finishes in seconds and runs off, so we're left to watch Voorhees lay around nude until taking a pair of garden sheers to the eyes. Later, poor Melanie Kinnaman is stuck running around in the rain in a shirt that shows off her...assets. That Steinmann had a background in porn prior to making this movie should surprise no one. That most of the other people involved in making this movie had a less-than-favorable opinion of him should also not come as a great shock.
R.I.P. you sleazy bastard.
The only sympathetic side character (well, until he threatens to go Ray Rice on his girlfriend) is Demon, played by Miguel Nunez Jr., future star of Juwanna Man. His reunion with little brother Reggie "the Reckless" is actually pretty heartwarming and made that little shit tolerable for a moment. Him having random fast food in the back of his van is hilarious. Too bad he gets the taco shits and dies on the crapper, even if his song writing skills aren't that great.
Surprisingly, there really isn't much in the way of gore here. Most of the kills are quick with a splash of blood, as if they're there only because the Friday formula demands it. Part of this is probably because of the MPAA (it's at least a part of the changing of Violet's death, which may have been the sleaziest moment of the movie had the original idea made it to screen), and the fact all of the characters that are killed are side characters, with minimal screen time and thus not worth the effort to give them memorable deaths. If a side character is given any kind of storyline, it's literally so it can end in their death moments later. The only thing these throwaway victims and their deaths provide of note is another CRAZY DANCE in the form of Violet's robot, and the awesome song she dances to.
Good luck getting that chorus out of your head!
The final stretch sees "those meddling kids" in the form of Pam, Reggie, and the fashionably-late Tommy taking down "Jason" to reveal...well, I'll just say at least he's shown a couple times before then, even if the stunt guy and the actor he's supposedly doubling look nothing alike. The awful directing pops up again, as Pam attacks "Jason" with an obviously not-running chainsaw. The reveal of Tommy is not being the killer and his showdown with what he believes to be the ghost from his past is tremendous, and I really liked him using Rob (from Final Chapter)'s knife to save himself by stabbing the fake Jason apparently right in the nuts, which fake Jason actually does an appropriate sell of.
Finally fake Jason is thwarted and a dummy is dropped on a piece of conveniently-located farming equipment. As this is a promised New Beginning, the movie couldn't end without a tease for another sequel, which, fortunately for yours truly, is Jason Lives.
*1/2 If this had been all about Tommy instead of about 1/3rd about Tommy, it could have been a really strong movie. Unfortunately, the creepy director and the demands of the Friday name held this one back. I originally had this one rated at *1/4, but I noticed at the end when Tommy starts to consider becoming the next killer, the sound effect actually changes to KI KI KI TOM TOM TOM, which is a surprising attention to detail and series continuity, so I bumped it a little bit.
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