Every Friday The 13th Film Ranked From Worst To Best

12. Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday

Arriving in 1993, four years after the previous Friday the 13th (the longest gap between entries up to that point), Jason Goes To Hell was the first Friday produced at the franchise's new home of New Line Cinema. It always seemed a bit odd that the first thing New Line did after procuring the Friday the 13th rights from Paramount was to 'end' the series; but then, that's but one of the many decisions that don't make much sense here.

Directed and co-written by Adam Marcus, Jason Goes To Hell makes the classic horror sequel mistake of trying to explain too much away, worse yet with explanations that just seem silly. The movie posits that Jason Voorhees is not one man, but a demonic parasite which possesses different bodies. Subsequently, 'real' Jason is absent for the bulk of the action here; and when he is on screen, it's the ugliest make-up job of the whole series.

Nor is Jason the only one who's never looked worse, as the film itself is shot in a flat, unappealing fashion, and the bulk of the performances are bland and unendearing. Even so, the movie is not without its pleasures, including an enjoyably OTT opening sequence, and one of the most memorable kills of the whole franchise: the infamous, censor-baiting tent sex scene.

Oh, and title aside, there's little genuinely climactic here: as the final shot reveals, the film mainly serves to set up Freddy Vs Jason, though that wouldn't arrive for another decade.