Movies
Jason Voorhees Went to Hell On This Day In 1993
Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the release of New Line Cinema’s 1993 Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Adam Marcus’ awful, yet seminal sequel in the Friday the 13th franchise that set the stage for Freddy vs Jason.
While Jason Goes to Hell was an abomination of a sequel, it was a huge moment for horror fans as it was the first time that New Line publicly tipped their hat to the notion that Jason would eventually battle budding slasher Freddy Krueger on screen.
Jason Goes to Hell was the first Friday the 13th since the 1980 debut by Sean Cunningham that turned its focus away from Jason Voorhees (noting that the Jason in A New Beginning was a copycat murderer). The film has a jarring opening sequence in which a SWAT team blasts a hail of bullets into Jason, eventually blowing him to smithereens. It sets the stage for a Jason-less sequel that’s clearly one of the biggest mistakes in the history of horror cinema.
Yet, after putting fans through their own personal hell, the filmmakers shocked audiences with an epilogue for the ages. This is where A Nightmare On Elm Street‘s Freddy Krueger makes a brief appearance. After Jason is pulled into the pits of Hell by a handful of demons, the camera zooms in on his infamous hockey mask… that’s when Freddy’s gloved hand comes bursting through, grabbing the mask, and pulling it down to Hell as well.
You see, in 1991 New Line Cinema released Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, which ended Freddy’s reign of terror and left him in the pits of Hell. That’s when they begun strategizing pitting Freddy against Jason, which would enter years of development hell.
Thanks partially to this on-screen tease, New Line remained committed to bringing the two slasher titans on screen together, only it would take a decade to bring into fruition. I say it was worth it, you?
Movies
Christopher Landon to Helm Feature Adaptation of Grady Hendrix’s ‘The Final Girl Support Group’
A new feature adaptation of author Grady Hendrix‘s slasher book The Final Girl Support Group is now on the way from Paramount Pictures, and Deadline reports that it’s found its director in Christopher Landon (Drop, Happy Death Day).
The two previously collaborated on My Best Friend’s Exorcism.
In The Final Girl Support Group, “Lynette is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.”
“But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.”
I wrote in my novel review for BD, “Hendrix puts his characters through the absolute wringer. It’s a bloody, vicious voyage for the flawed heroine, both physically and emotionally. In terms of action and horror, Support Group delivers breakneck pacing and thrills.”
Five years ago, Andy Muschietti & Barbara Muschietti (Mama, It, It Chapter Two) were attached to produce a planned series adaptation for HBO Max alongside Charlize Theron. While Theron is no longer producing, the Muschiettis remain on board under their Double Dream label.
Paramount Pictures is also developing Hendrix’s sci-fi novella, BadAsstronauts.
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