#106 -- Friday the 13th part 4: The Final Chapter (1984)

Director: Joesph Zito
Rating: 5/5

Part four of the Friday the 13th series was a historical event, I think. It was in this film that we met Tommy Jarvis (played by an adorable little Corey Feldman) for the first time. Here, tommy is somewhere around 10-12 years old, I believe. He's young, but he's smart--and he's got a strange talent for creating monster make-up effects. Tommy, his mother, and his sister Trish live in a cabin on Crystal Lake. How they've been able to live there and not become victims of our dear Jason, I'll never know. But they've managed to survive so far. It isn't until the dumb teenagers move in next door that things start to go horribly wrong. We've got a big group of people here, so there's a lot of opportunities for Jason to get his revenge.

He's got his usual weapons: machete, axe, and knives. But he throws in a couple of other things to keep it interesting; things like a cork-screw. Crispin Glover is the lucky winner of the cork-screw, and it's actually pretty upsetting. He's always been one of my favorite characters, because he was silly and he made me laugh. Oh well, I can never stay mad at Jason for very long. Anyways, when Tommy, Trish and their mother realize that the kids next door are dying off in gruesome ways, they know something's got to be done. They receive a little help from a man named Rob, who is in the woods searching for his sister (who disappeared on the lake a couple of years ago)--though, sadly, he doesn't offer quite enough help.



Tommy is our young hero in this one, and his affinity for horror effects comes in handy, and it plays a big role in Jason's "death." A fun fact: this was actually supposed to be the last movie in the series, hence the title "The Final Chapter." So, the original idea was that Tommy Jarvis actually did kill Jason. Thankfully for us, this didn't hold up. Jason would return, though he would be quite different. Up until this point, Jason was 100% human. A strange human, but a human nonetheless. Since Tommy killed him, when Jason returns, he is 0% human and 100% fucking awesome. He's stronger and more difficult to kill, so I guess Tommy actually did him a favor. This wouldn't be the end of their relationship, though. Tommy also returns to fight Jason in two more movies.

Like I said, this was a historical edition to the series, because it introduced Jason's nemesis. It was also the turning point for Jason; the moment when he went from human, to undead killing machine. So thank you, Tommy Jarvis, for making Jason what he is today.