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Friday the 13th: The Series - The Final Season (1989 - 1990)
Over the years the “Friday the 13th” television has gained a lot of hardcore fans and a lot of detractors. People who dislike the show generally do so because they were fans of the films and the TV series has absolutely nothing at all to do with the movies at all. I remember enjoying some episodes during it’s original run, but the series mainly went over my head at the time (I was a kid and I wanted to see Jason killing people!). Since then however I’ve actually to come and enjoy the show especially after watching the second season all the way through on DVD. So when I heard that Paramount was releasing the final season to DVD, I was extremely excited and couldn’t wait to get my hands on the collection.
“Friday the 13th - The Final Season” is a tough egg to crack. Considering I enjoyed the second season of the show as much as I did I was expecting some good stuff here. Man, was I ever disappointed after sitting through seemingly countless hours of watching the show. Instead of a unique and well done television series (like in the earlier seasons) we get a glossed over, half hearted effort by people that clearly saw the writing on the wall (meaning the inevitable ending of the series). This season of the show feels like nothing but filler to deliver the needed episodes and get it over with. Pretty much everything comes off uninspired and lame, even down to the base crew of the show itself. The first episode of the season is a two parter (which plays on the DVD as one episode equaling almost 2 hours) and it’s just dreadful to watch. It’s overly complicated, boring and (SPOILER ALERT) it ends up in one of the main characters (Ryan) on the show being discontinued. Notice how I didn’t say killed off? Yeah, it’s pretty stupid on the show too. After that nonsense the first disc includes the episodes “Demon Hunter” and “Crippled Inside” that are probably the two best episodes in this season. “Demon Hunter” features a pretty cool monster and “Crippled Inside” is a cool story about a girl who was raped and is now in a wheelchair. She finds an old wheelchair at a yard sale and it helps regenerate her back to her old self and get revenge on the men who put her there.
Disc two is just as silly as it is bad with some of the most mind blowing episodes of the series and I don’t mean that in a good way. First up is “Stick it in Your Ear” which is actually a pretty cool episode about a guy who’s stage act is dramatically improved by a cursed ear piece. There’s some cool special effects in the episode as well which makes it stick out to me like “Demon Hunter” did on the first disc. Then we see another item from an earlier season episode show up as the cursed coin of Ziocles makes an appearance in “Bad Penny”. But one of the worst episodes in the history of the series has to be “Hate on Your Dial”. It deals with a car radio that can transport you back in time. So what happens you ask? A car mechanic uses it to return back in time to try and help out with the hate crime that his father committed. It’s an incredibly racist and ineffectual episode that has as little to do with horror than it has to even do with the series. You can tell it was an episode made to drum up controversy and didn’t work at all. Maybe because it’s so off kilter and stupid that nobody took it seriously. The disc closes out with “Night Prey” which is about a vampire hunter and is honestly a total snore.
Disc three starts off strong with “Femme Fatale” a pretty well made episode in which a man tries to bring his favorite movie star out of the film and into real life. “Mightier than the Sword” is a just plain stupid story about a writer of serial killer biographies gets Micki wrapped up in a game of murder. “Year of the Monkey” is the story of little statues that have to do with a family’s strange legacy and the fortune that stands with it. Sadly enough at this point I pretty much had enough with the season but continued to solder on for all of our loyal Bloodtype readers. It wasn’t pretty not pretty at all.
The rest of the episodes felt like a bunch of half baked ideas just thrown together for the sake of throwing them together and honestly most of them were a total bore. It’s a shame what this series ended up being considering it had great potential in it’s earlier seasons but nobody cared enough to keep it going correctly.
Unfortunately because of the lack of quality on most of the episodes I’m going to have to recommend you AVOID this one at all costs. If you’re a hardcore fan of the series, you’ll be pleased with the set. It comes with most of the special episode promos that aired on television which was a nice touch, but honestly this season was dreadful to get through and further explains the disdain a lot of horror fans had with the series when it originally aired.
Rating - **
-Ed Demko
