5/10
A really awesome final girl
13 April 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Originally intended as a crossover with Freddy Krueger, the logline for this film was, "What if Carrie fought Jason?" What ended up happening was one of Becca's favorite films in the series.

Directed by John Carl Buechler (Troll, The Dungeonmaster), who also contributed to the special effects, this film establishes the definitive Jason. This is also because it's the first appearance of Kane Hodder in the role.

Jason is still at the bottom of Crystal Lake, but as Tina Shepard watches her alcoholic father abuse her mother, her mental powers emerge and she drowns her father.

Fast forward and she's a teenager (Lar Park Lincoln, House II) whose mother (voiceover artist Susan Blu) and Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser, Bernie from Weekend at Bernie's!) have taken her back to that house to study (exploit) her powers.

Dr. Crews bedside manner is, in a word, the shits. He screams at Tina until her powers start working. She gets upset and runs outside, wishing that she could bring her father back from the dead. The only problem? She brings Jason back instead.

There is also - can you even be surprised at this point - a house of teens throwing a party for Michael (William Butler, 1990's Night of the Living Dead). They include Russell, Sandra (Heidi Kozak, Slumber Party Massacre 2), Kate, Ben, Eddie (Jeff Bennett, the voice of Johnny Bravo), David, Maddy, Robin (Elizabeth Kaitan, who was in the Vice Academy movies), Nick and Melissa.

Tina can foresee that they will all die and Jason lives up to her visions. She's the Final Girl and has to lose everything, even her mother. As she fights back with her powers, she pulls the mask off his face, revealing it to be decayed and near demonic. Finally, her father rises from the dead and drags Jason back underwater. Yet even after all of that, we can still hear the theme song as someone finds the killer's mask.

The working title for this film was Birthday Bash, but the original script was even titled Jason's Destroyer. There were 9 different cuts sent to the MPAA to avoid an X rating, which is still amazing to me. Even more upsetting is that Paramount threw away all of the cut footage, so there's little to no chance that an uncut version will ever be seen. I still think that the rumored 1989 Dutch release on VHS, which includes all the gore, is an urban legend.
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