Contrary to the film's title, this is, of course, not the final chapter in the Jason Voorhees franchise, which has up to now reached ten movies, as well as a re-make and a spin-off. But the huge success of the series meant that production company Paramount Pictures could not turn down such an easy money-spinner, given the movies cost around a mere $1.5 million to make and usually grossed $20-30 million. Although the movies generally range from bad to awful, it is easy to see why they were a huge success - simple plots, lots of tits, plenty of gore, and a truly memorable killer in Jason. The Final Chapter is widely considered the best of the series by fans, deviating slightly from the repetitive plots of the preceding movies, and giving the film a recurring hero in Tommy Jarvis (here played by Corey Feldman).
Picking up straight after the third instalment, Jason (Ted White) is believed dead and is taken to a nearby morgue, where a doctor and a nurse are having a sneaky fumble. Naturally, Jason miraculously awakens and butchers them. Meanwhile, a group of horny college kids (where would this franchise be without them?) are making their way to a rented lodge on Crystal Lake, which is located next to the home of the Jarvis family. After daughter Trish Jarvis (Kimberly Beck) breaks down, she is helped by mysterious hitch-hiker Rob (Erich Anderson), who has rather secretive reasons to be in the area. As the college kids start to party and try to rub up against each other, Jason begins his slaughter.
Having up to this point only seen up to this movie, I can categorically state that this is the best so far, and although it's still pretty basic by normal standards, it certainly elevates the sheer mundanity of the previous instalments. Tom Savini, back for his second and last job on the series, creates some memorable moments of gore, including a cork-screw to the hand and special mention must also go to the craziest actor since Klaus Kinski, Crispin Glover, for his spectacular dance scene - it is one of the most bizarre moments I've ever seen on film. Yet the film only really seems so good when compared to the rest of the series, and, ultimately, is still a formulaic slasher film with no real moments of tension or originality, blandly directed by Chuck Norries-frequenter Joseph Zito.
The 1980's, it would seem, is back with a bang. Modern music is filled with synthesised melodies and dodgy outfits, fashion brought back leg-warmers (albeit briefly), big sunglasses, and tight jeans, and films have recently been taking a sentimental look back at a time when teen comedies, gory horrors and oiled-up muscle men action films ruled the roost. Yet it is a decade looked back at with as much disdain as it is warmth, pointed out by John Cusack's character Adam in Hot Tub Time Machine, as although he recognises it as the best time of his life, he states that "we had Reagan and AIDS," and exclaims "I fuckin' hated this decade!".
It seems almost pointless to draw out the plot given the film's to-the-point title, but it tells the story of three friends, Adam, who has just seen his girlfriend leave him, Lou (Rob Corddry), an alcoholic who is in hospital after an accidental suicide attempt, and Nick (Craig Robinson), who is harbouring the knowledge that his wife has cheated, and is busy pulling car keys out of dog's arses for his job. Returning to their favourite place as teenagers, the Kodiac Valley Ski Resort, with Adam's nerd nephew Jacob (Clark Duke), they find the place desolate and far from the place they remember. After a wild night of drinking in the hot tub, they wake up to find themselves transported back to the 1980's and realise they have the chance to remedy the pains from the past, as well as party like they did years ago.
In a world that releases gross-out comedies by the barrel, Hot Tub Time Machine manages to include both the sweetness of the Judd Apatow comedies of late, as well as the misogynist, bad taste teen comedies of the 1980's that saw a revival in the early 2000's thanks to American Pie (1999). Although the film wasn't quite as funny as I was hoping it to be, it does make up for this by having several appallingly distasteful, yet very funny, set-pieces, including one that sees one the group having to face performing fellatio on his friend. We would like to think that we have moved on from the homophobic, racist and sexist humour of the 80's and that we have developed a more politically correct outlook on life, but we haven't really - it's still very funny (when done right).
Chocked full of references and homages to everything 80's, this will obviously appeal more to people growing up in the era. Although my pubescent days were spent in the 90's, I still grew up around the movies, which were then still relatively modern, so I did feel a slight tinge of nostalgia (genre legends Chevy Chase - looking old as fuck - and the ever-entertaining Crispin Glover make appearances here). The movie is slightly held back by some predictable plotting, a plot twist you can see a mile away, and some gags that fail to hit the mark, but the film is well aware of its ridiculousness, embracing it's silly plot and thankfully not dwelling on the details. This is simply an excuse to have some 80's fun, and fun it certainly is.
There were two films released in 1986 whose youthful protagonists confronted death in the form of a dead body. The first, Rob Reiner's coming-of-age drama, Stand By Me, was set in 1959 and followed three friends on a journey simply to witness a dead body, what they find (as the narrator advises) is themselves and each other. But what this film also highlights in the closing moments, is that these three kids, are the generation that will almost certainly be confronted with death in a more profound way, in Vietnam. Following shortly after Stand By Me, River's Edge was released, which tackled, not the nostalgic journey of three kids, who spend an encapsulated moment of perfection before innocence is lost, but portrayed a very contemporary place where the teenagers (the kids of the men who went to Vietnam) seem completely detached from death: desensitised perhaps. Vietnam was, after all the first televised war in world history.
This is a generation completely alienated from, and of course (as teenagers do) suspicious of the adult world, like no other generation before. These kids are from broken homes. 'John', a tall, bulking, detached guy nonchalantly tells his group of friends that he has killed a peer, Jamie (Danyi Deats), and left her naked by a river. Of course the friends do not believe him at first, but as they are all gradually taken to the site where the body lies, the event is proven. However, with such a fundamentally deep and seemingly unbreakable barrier between the adult world and the young, the murder is kept within the circle. Crispin Glover's Lanye (with his usual jittery, yet brimming style), takes the lead in covering up the conspiracy, but the group inevitably fractures and that adult wall is opened. Once this opens the adult world is confronted with a teenaged generation that is numb; that is, these 'young adults' have shown no emotion to the death of one of their fellow students.
It's a damning indictment of the MTV (or Gen X) generation, whose diet of consumption in all of its capacities, had seemingly completely detached from society. It had seen it's parents generation fail in revolution, only to be eaten up be 'the system', becoming the executives of the money hungry 1980's. The only adult character that the group has any genuine contact with is a recluse, who's girlfriend is of the blow-up variety, selling weed to them, perhaps still living that '60's dream? Dennis Hopper's Feck provides this anchor between the generations - but his clearly boarder line mentality simply highlights that the dream has gone.
With some decent performances from the likes of Keanu Reeves, Joshua Miller (whose precocious performance probably lead to him being cast as a 50 year old vampire in Katheryn Bigalow's Near Dark (1987), and particularly the killer, 'John', played with distance, and genuinely hauntingly detached looks, by Daniel Roebuck. Along with some beautifully stark cinematography by Frederick Elmes (who had collaborated with David Lynch on Eraserhead (1977) and Blue Velvet (1986)), the project also seems aesthetically and thematically linked to the later Twin Peaks televisions series (for which Tim Hunter directed some episodes). The film leaves you with a sour taste, perhaps the start of societal detachment that might later lead to events such as the Columbine shootings: Writer Neal Jimenez did loosely base River's Edge on a real life incident involving 16 year old Anthony Jacques Broussard in Milpitas, California on November 3 1981.
Picking up straight after the third instalment, Jason (Ted White) is believed dead and is taken to a nearby morgue, where a doctor and a nurse are having a sneaky fumble. Naturally, Jason miraculously awakens and butchers them. Meanwhile, a group of horny college kids (where would this franchise be without them?) are making their way to a rented lodge on Crystal Lake, which is located next to the home of the Jarvis family. After daughter Trish Jarvis (Kimberly Beck) breaks down, she is helped by mysterious hitch-hiker Rob (Erich Anderson), who has rather secretive reasons to be in the area. As the college kids start to party and try to rub up against each other, Jason begins his slaughter.
