10 Horror Movie Opening Fakeouts We All Fell For

6. Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
New Line Cinema

Like certain other fakeouts, the swerve of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is one that plays on its audience's long-standing expectations from horror and, in this case, from the Friday the 13th franchise.

By the point of this ninth F13 feature, fans had seen Jason spend six movies slicing 'n' dicing his way through a slew of pretty young things, with the majority of those kills taking place in and around Crystal Lake, and a significant percentage taking place in one of the locale's many cabins. Of course, many a female had fallen victim to Voorhees throughout these rampages.

So, when Jason Goes to Hell opens with an attractive lady preparing to take a shower in a Crystal Lake cabin, this all feels extremely familiar as we see Jason watching on and about to make his move. This eventually leads to a chase through the woods, which again is something we've seen time and time again, but The Final Friday completely caught franchise fans off guard at this point.

It's revealed that this woman is actually an FBI agent who's been used as bait to lure Jason out into a sting by the FBI and a SWAT team; a sting which sees the physical form of Voorhees blown to pieces, with the film then bizarrely seeing the spirit of Jason passed from person-to-person via a turd-like parasite.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.