Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

A young woman drives out to a cabin at Crystal Lake, and the lights go out while she is getting ready for a bath. Jason Voorhees comes after her and chases her into the woods. It is a trap. She is FBI agent Elizabeth Marcus, and a tactical team is waiting in the trees. They riddle Jason with bullets and blow him apart. As the agents celebrate, a stranger watches from the dark, not buying it.

Jason's remains are taken to a morgue in Ohio. His heart is still beating. The coroner, Phil, is drawn to it and eats it, and Jason's spirit takes over his body. Phil kills his wisecracking assistant with an autopsy probe, then kills the two FBI agents guarding the door and walks out.

On the tabloid TV show American Casefile, host Robert Campbell interviews bounty hunter Creighton Duke, who says Jason is not dead and that only he knows how to finish him. Campbell is dating Jessica Kimble, whose mother Diana works at Joey B.'s diner in Crystal Lake. Duke shows up at the diner to warn Diana and is arrested by Sheriff Ed Landis for harassing her.

Phil, now carrying Jason, returns to Crystal Lake. Three campers, Alexis, Deborah and Luke, are celebrating Jason's death. He slashes Alexis to death with a scalpel, drives a metal pole through Deborah while she is having sex with Luke and tears her in half, then kills Luke. He kills Edna and takes her boyfriend, Deputy Josh, to the old Voorhees house. There he ties Josh up, shaves him, and passes Jason's soul into him through his mouth in the form of a black, slug-like creature.

Josh-Jason attacks Diana at home. Steven Freeman, the father of Jessica's baby Stephanie, has come to see Diana and stabs Josh in the back with a fire poker, but Jason throws a knife into Diana's back and escapes. Before she dies, Diana tells Steven to protect Jessica and the baby. The police find Steven with the body and arrest him. In jail he meets Duke, who breaks his fingers in exchange for the truth. Diana was Jason's half-sister. Jason can only be reborn in his old body through someone of his blood, and only someone of his blood can kill him for good. The last of the line are Jessica and Stephanie.

Steven escapes. At the diner he sees his daughter for the first time, and Diana's co-worker Ward lends him a car. He goes to the Voorhees house to find proof and falls through the floorboards. He learns that Campbell stole Diana's body from the morgue to stage a discovery for his ratings. Josh-Jason arrives and passes Jason into Campbell, and Josh's body dissolves into a bloody puddle. Steven follows Campbell, stops him from grabbing Jessica, and runs him down with Ward's car, but Jessica does not believe him and leaves him on the roadside. Steven lets his friend Officer Randy Parker take him in when he hears Jessica is at the station.

Campbell-Jason walks into the police station and kills the officers there, smashing Officer Ryan's head against a locker and bashing Officers Mark and Brian together. He nearly takes Jessica before the handcuffed Steven knocks out Randy, grabs his gun and shoots him. In the chaos Duke breaks out of his cell. Jessica now believes Steven, and they go to the diner for Stephanie. The owner, Joey B., still thinks Steven killed Diana and pulls a gun, which goes off, hits the fuse box and knocks out the power. Jason arrives. He snaps Ward's wrist and throws him into the door, shoves Shelby's face into the deep fryer, and punches Joey's face in. Waitress Vicki shoots him and runs him through with a barbecue skewer, but he pulls her onto it and crushes her head. When Sheriff Landis and Officer Randy search the wrecked diner, Jason jumps into Randy.

Duke has taken Stephanie to the Voorhees house and left a note for Jessica to come alone. There he gives her the dagger that can kill Jason. Duke falls through the rotten floor and hurts his leg. Landis and Randy arrive, and Randy claims the sheriff is possessed. Landis accidentally kills himself on the dagger, and Jessica loses it under a dresser. Randy-Jason tries to pass into the baby, but Steven cuts off his head with a machete. The heart, now a small demon, crawls out of Randy's neck, drops into the basement and climbs inside Diana's corpse while Steven and Jessica help Duke out. Jason is reborn in his own body, hockey mask and all.

Duke handcuffs Jason to buy time, and Jason crushes him in a bear hug that breaks his back. Steven tackles Jason out a window and they fight in the yard. As Jason is about to kill Steven, Jessica stabs him in the back with the dagger and kicks it deeper. Glowing souls burst out of the wound and demonic hands pull Jason down into the ground to hell. Jessica, Steven and Stephanie walk off at sunrise. A dog digs at Jason's mask in the dirt, and Freddy Krueger's bladed glove comes up out of the ground, grabs the mask and drags it under.

Story notes

• After Jason's body is destroyed in an FBI ambush, his evil moves from host to host while bounty hunter Creighton Duke reveals a supernatural bloodline rule that may allow Jason to be reborn or permanently killed.

Release facts

• Runtime: 87 to 88 min theatrical (Box Office Mojo lists 87, Arrow Video 88); unrated cut 91 min
• Rated: R (after the first cut was rated NC-17); unrated version released on home video
• Domestic: $15,935,068 (opening weekend $7,552,190 on 1,355 screens)
• Worldwide: $15,935,068 (no international gross reported by Box Office Mojo)

New Line opened the film on Friday, August 13, 1993 without any press screenings. Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps pushed it on their radio show, gave away posters and did a show for the premiere.

It made $7.6 million its first weekend on 1,355 screens and finished with $15.9 million, better than Jason Takes Manhattan but the second lowest gross in the series at the time. It placed number 86 for the year, with about 3.85 million tickets sold. We Minored in Film reports it was the top-grossing horror film of 1993 and that New Line was pleased with unrated video sales.

Reviews were bad. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 12% from 67 reviews and Metacritic at 17 out of 100. Stephen Holden of The New York Times called it largely incoherent. Richard Harrington of The Washington Post compared the plot to Days of Our Lives on fast-forward. Greg Evans of Variety blamed Marcus for a complete lack of tension. Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times praised Richard Gant and the score. Betsy Sherman of The Boston Globe liked the final shot, and Robert Cauthorn of the Arizona Daily Star said it made no sense but beat the earlier sequels.

Fans mostly disliked how little of Jason is in his own body and the new supernatural rules. Tommy Jarvis and Tina Shepard had already put him down in earlier films without being related to him.

Press and marketing

• Theatrical key-art / poster campaign reference: IMP Awards — Jason Goes to Hell poster archive.

Cast

Crew

Production

Sean S. Cunningham wanted to make Freddy vs. Jason. Paramount made a deal with New Line Cinema that gave New Line the rights to Jason Voorhees but not the Friday the 13th title, which is why this film and Jason X do not use it. New Line put the crossover on hold, so Cunningham needed a Jason film to come first. Cunningham also wanted the events of Jason Takes Manhattan left out.

Adam Marcus got the job at 23, fresh out of NYU film school. He had grown up friends with Cunningham's son Noel, and the AFI Catalog says he worked on the 1980 original as an 11-year-old gofer. He had been set to direct My Boyfriend's Back for Touchstone, but Disney did not want a first-time director. Marcus says Cunningham told him to find a way to get rid of the mask. Cunningham has denied saying that.

Marcus's first pitch had Jason's father, Elias Voorhees, dig up his son's body, eat the heart, take on his powers and go on a killing spree. The final idea, with Jason's evil jumping from body to body, is close to The Hidden (1987). Marcus has said he had not seen that film yet. He planned the opening as the most cliched slasher scene he could think of so the SWAT ambush would surprise people. He also says Steven Freeman was written as Tommy Jarvis, but New Line did not own that character.

Jay Huguely turned Marcus's ideas into a script that John D. LeMay later called a hodgepodge. Cunningham brought in Dean Lorey to write a new script in four days. Lorey dropped Elias so Jason would stay the center of the story. His own first pitch, with Jason caught in a Los Angeles gang war, was shot down because production was about to start. New Line's Michael De Luca did not like Lorey's rewrite but greenlit the film anyway. Leslie Bohem polished it over a weekend, and Lewis Abernathy of House IV rewrote the opening.

Barry Moss, who had cast the 1980 film, came back partly because his mother was sick with cancer in Los Angeles and the job let him be near her. Tony Todd auditioned for Creighton Duke. Marcus and Lorey wanted Laurie Holden as Jessica, but Cunningham cast Kari Keegan. Los Angeles radio hosts Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps begged for parts on their KLOS morning show. Marcus called them and promised them gory deaths, and they ended up as two cops who get their heads smashed together. Steven Williams would only play Duke as a modern cowboy with the hat, boots and outback coat.

Filming started in Los Angeles on July 20, 1992 and wrapped September 4, 1992. Cunningham had the film shot at 22 frames per second instead of 24 to speed up the actors. A harmonizer fixed the sound, but it also cut what should have been a 90-minute film down to about 80 minutes.

Cunningham was unhappy with the first cut, and roughly half the finished film came from reshoots and reworked footage. We Minored in Film puts it at about 43 minutes. Editor David Handman had been the only one watching footage during the 28-day first shoot. Marcus had shot the diner massacre as eight straight minutes of slow motion, and it had to be cut down. Erin Gray has said she did not find out until the premiere that the demon enters Diana's corpse through her body, a shot that was never in the script. Marcus later called it a corporate decision and admitted it was distasteful.

Cunningham was unhappy with the first cut, and roughly half the finished film came from reshoots and reworked footage. We Minored in Film puts it at about 43 minutes. Editor David Handman had been the only one watching dailies during the first shoot, and some of the material could not be used, including an eight-minute slow-motion diner scene. Erin Gray has said she did not find out until the premiere that the demon enters Diana's corpse through her body in a way she never agreed to shoot. Marcus later called it a corporate decision and admitted it was distasteful.

Filming locations

• Los Angeles, California: Principal photography, July 20 to September 4, 1992
• The film used Los Angeles-area locations including West Hills for the Voorhees house, Agoura Hills for Diana’s house, Thousand Oaks for the cabin and Joey B.’s diner, and other Southern California sites.

Effects and makeup

KNB EFX Group did the makeup and creature effects, with Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger supervising. Kurtzman was the key supervisor on set. He applied the prosthetics and directed several days of second unit. The work included melting bodies, a mechanical parasite, exploding bodies, puppet heads and Jason himself.

Wayne Toth sculpted a new Jason whose flesh has grown around the hockey mask. The Horror Costume Index says Kurtzman made the half-face appliances Hodder wore. The damaged eye ended up on the wrong side. It should be the left eye, from the machete to the head in The Final Chapter, and the Friday the 13th: The Game team flipped the model to fix it.

For the opening ambush Kane Hodder took about a hundred squib hits. Kurtzman called the exploding body one of the best ever put on film.

Deborah being torn in half was done with full-body urethane replicas cast from the actress. One was rigged with a blood pump for the pole bursting through her, and another for the split. KNB had about two to three weeks to build the bodies after principal photography ended.

Al Magliochetti did the visual effects after friends at KNB told him about the film. Marcus chose the colors for the effects. Scott Oshita is credited as mechanical designer. The script called for the demon to become human-sized, and a glimpse of that version shows up in the trailer.

KNB EFX Group supplied extensive practical makeup and effects work. Robert Kurtzman and Howard Berger are credited as special-effects supervisors, with Berger also credited as a special makeup-effects artist and a larger KNB effects crew supporting the production.

Props and costumes

Eight masks were made from a leftover pull of the Part VII mold, with the propeller damage extended. They were pulled in thick black ABS plastic, given a grey and white base and weathered with browns, reds, oranges and blacks.

The Horror Costume Index traces them: the chase mask and the opening hero mask went to Planet Hollywood, the finale mask is in Mario Kirner's collection, the explosion head mask belongs to Kirk Hammett, the owner of the chest-stab dummy mask is unknown, and the three unused masks went to Adam Marcus, effects artist Bill Hunt and promotional use.

A screen-matched mask from the SWAT ambush, designed by Howard Berger and made by KNB, came up at Propstore in June 2022 with a $20,000 to $30,000 estimate. It came from the collection of effects artist Tom Bellissimo, and Kane Hodder had signed it to him.

Jason wears a heavily weathered light grey Dickies button-down shirt, navy dress pants, a black belt with a square silver buckle and weathered black steel-toe Matterhorn logger boots.

His machetes are an 18-inch Coleman and a 24-inch Collins.

The Necronomicon Ex Mortis and the Kandarian dagger from Evil Dead II show up in the Voorhees house. The Necronomicon prop was made by Tom Sullivan for Sam Raimi's films and was used here without Sullivan's permission.

The Friday the 13th Wiki points out a green crate from Creepshow inside the Voorhees house and the jungle gym from The Birds in the yard.

The Jason Goes to Hell mask lineage began with a leftover Part VII-form pull that was modified and heavily weathered; collector research documents eight production masks serving bullet-damaged, explosion, finale, dummy and promotional needs.

Jason's wardrobe uses a heavily weathered light-grey Dickies-style button-down shirt, navy dress trousers, black belt and Matterhorn steel-toe logger boots. The film also cycles recognizable practical machetes, including Coleman and Collins-pattern blades, through the opening and finale material.

Design

Production artifacts

Scripts and documents

The killers

Deaths

Harry Manfredini, who scored the first seven films, came back after sitting out Jason Takes Manhattan. Jack Tillar was music editor and Bobby Muzingo did additional orchestration. The Los Angeles Times review singled out the score as a strong point.

1993: soundtrack CD on Edel America (EDS 5405-2) in the United States, 17 tracks running 52:37, opening with "The Legend of Agent Marcus" and closing with "End Titles." Cinerama put it out in Germany (CIN2209-2).

July 2025: Terror Vision released the soundtrack on cassette.

2025: Manfredini talks about the score in the interview Mixing It Up on the Arrow Video 4K release.

Home Media

• January 19, 1994: VHS from New Line Home Video in the United States and Alliance Video in Canada.
• October 8, 2002: New Line DVD, list price $19.98, with both the R-rated and unrated cuts. 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 remixes supervised by Adam Marcus, plus a stereo surround track. Extras: commentary by Marcus and Dean Lorey, nine alternate scenes from the TV version (about 12.5 minutes, full frame), a Jump to a Death menu with eight kills, and the theatrical trailer. Some regions, including Australia, only got the R-rated cut on DVD.
• September 13, 2013: Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection Blu-ray box set from Paramount and Warner Bros. This was the film's first Blu-ray.
• The film was also released on Blu-ray as a double feature with Jason X.
• October 13, 2020: Scream Factory Friday the 13th Collection Deluxe Edition. Disc 10 has the R-rated cut from a new 2K scan of the interpositive, a new introduction by Marcus, trailer, TV spots, galleries and a look at the Friday the 13th Prop Museum book. Disc 11 has the uncut version from the same scan with HD inserts, the introduction, The Gates of Hell and Jason vs. Terminator interviews, the Uber-Jason interview with Kane Hodder, audio commentaries and additional TV footage with optional commentary.
• May 20, 2025: Arrow Video limited edition 4K Ultra HD, two discs, Dolby Vision and HDR10, 1.85:1, lossless stereo and DTS-HD 5.1 on both cuts. Disc one (theatrical, 88 min) has the Marcus introduction, new interviews Faces of Death with Robert Kurtzman, Undercover Angel with Julie Michaels and Mixing It Up with Harry Manfredini, the archival interviews, the TV footage, trailer, TV spots and galleries. Disc two (unrated, 91 min) has a new commentary by Michael Felsher and Steve Barton plus both archival commentaries. The package has a reversible sleeve and double-sided poster with art by Gary Pullin and a booklet with writing by JA Kerswell and the original production notes.

Home video history

• Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday comic adaptation, three issues, written by Andy Mangels, Topps Comics. It was based on the original shooting script and includes scenes that are not in the film.
• Jason Goes to Hell trading cards, Topps.
• Jason Goes to Hell latex Jason mask, Illusive Concepts, 1993.
• Jason Goes to Hell '93 Jason Mask, Trick or Treat Studios. An officially licensed reissue made from the original 1993 Illusive Concepts master with new paint.
• Soundtrack CD, Edel America and Cinerama, 1993; cassette, Terror Vision, 2025.
• Friday the 13th: The Game (Gun Media, 2017) includes the Jason Goes to Hell version of Jason, with his face shown under the mask for the first time.
• Jason action figures based on this film, including one in the Movie Maniacs line. The Friday the 13th Wiki counts three Jason toys from this film.
• Trick or Treat Studios Jason Goes to Hell '93 Jason latex mask, a reissue developed from the original Illusive Concepts master.

Replica props and masks

The catalog

Trailers & clips

Gallery

Posters & Key Art

Film Stills

Behind the Scenes

Effects

Props

Merchandise