Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) is the fourth film in the series, and the one Paramount sold as the last. Joseph Zito directed. Barney Cohen wrote the screenplay from a story by Bruce Hidemi Sakow. The film opened in the United States on April 13, 1984. Corey Feldman plays Tommy Jarvis, the boy who ends Jason Voorhees, and Ted White plays Jason. Tom Savini returned to handle the effects and, by his own account, to kill the character he had helped start. It was not the last film.

At a glance

Release date	April 13, 1984 (United States)
Director	Joseph Zito
Writers	Barney Cohen; story by Bruce Hidemi Sakow
Starring	Kimberly Beck, Corey Feldman, Peter Barton, Crispin Glover, Ted White
Runtime	91 minutes
Rating	R
Genre	Slasher
Budget	About $2.2 million
Box office	About $33 million domestic

Plot summary

The night of Part 3 ends in a barn. Jason’s body is taken to the morgue at Wessex County Hospital. He does not stay on the slab. By the next day he is back in the woods around Crystal Lake, where the Jarvis family has a house and a group of teenagers has rented the place next door. Trish Jarvis is home with her mother and her younger brother Tommy, a kid who makes monster masks and watches the renters through a window.

The rental house supplies the usual party, including a nervous Jimmy who cannot get out of his own way. A twin brother and sister from the city, and a local boy who has already met Jason and lived, wander between the houses. The film is faster than Part 2 and meaner about the kids it kills. Tommy’s hobby is the detail that matters. He looks at faces for a living, in the way a child does, and the ending uses that.

Spoiler section: the ending

Trish gets Jason into the Jarvis house. Tommy shaves his head, puts on makeup, and stands in front of Jason as a child version of the killer, the same trick Ginny used with the mother, pointed at the boy instead. Jason hesitates. Tommy hits him with a machete. The film shows the body on the floor, and then Tommy’s face, looking at the blade, not looking like a kid who is finished.

Production and behind the scenes

Paramount wanted a last chapter because the series was still printing money and starting to look endless. Zito, who had directed The Prowler, was hired to make the death feel final. Savini, who had done the effects on the original and sat out the next two, came back on the condition that he could destroy Jason on camera. The machete slide and the unmasked face were built for that. Ted White, a stunt veteran, played Jason and fought with Zito over how the teenage deaths were staged. He has said he nearly walked off. He is uncredited on some original prints because of that fight.

Feldman was about twelve during the shoot. The production kept him out of the more explicit kills and used the mask-making as his side of the story. Crispin Glover’s dance in the rental house was not really choreographed, and it became the scene people imitated. The houses were sets in California, with the woods doubled nearby. Harry Manfredini scored it again. The budget was about $2.2 million. The MPAA cut several kills, as it had on every entry since the first.

Release and reception

The film opened on Friday, April 13, 1984, which was the point of the date. It made about $11.2 million in its first weekend and about $33 million in the United States and Canada, the best gross in the series at the time. The title was a lie within a year. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) brought Tommy back and kept the mask in circulation. Fans still treat The Final Chapter as the last of the original run that feels complete.

Cast

Kimberly Beck as Trish Jarvis
Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis
Peter Barton as Doug
Crispin Glover as Jimmy
Joan Freeman as Mrs. Jarvis
Ted White as Jason Voorhees
Erich Anderson as Rob Dier

Trivia

Savini has said he took the job to give Jason the death he thought the character owed the audience.
White refused credit on some releases after arguing with Zito about a stunt that injured a performer.
Glover’s dance was played straight. The film does not treat it as a joke in the moment.
Tommy’s shaved head in the climax is a bald cap, not a haircut.
The title promise lasted until 1985. The series has still not actually ended.
Rob Dier’s reason for hunting Jason, a dead sister, is the film’s one adult motive besides the Jarvis kids.