This might actually be better than Jason Goes to Hell.
Back in 1993, New Line Cinema killed off Jason Voorhees in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, which ended up being the horror icon’s final film for nearly a decade. The masked mutant of course returned in 2002’s outer space-set Jason X, but the nine years between the two films was up to that point the longest stretch of time Friday fans went without Jason in their lives.
One fan by the name of David B. Stewart III had no intentions on waiting very long.
In the wake of Jason Goes to Hell, Stewart and his friends went out into the woods to make their own film, which they called Friday the 13th Part X: To Hell and Back. Directed by Stewart and co-written with Sean Hutcheon, the ambitious, no-budget fan film used the Book of the Dead to bring Jason back to life, and it was shot in the winter of ’95.
Stewart explains…
Upon hearing that the “Friday the 13th” franchise was over with the release of “Jason Goes To Hell” in 1993, myself and a group of High School students from Central Bucks High School East in Bucks County, PA set out to make a sequel of our own. Armed with VHS cameras and primitive film making equipment, we began production in the winter of 1995. By October of 1995 we had a complete, linear edited picture.
At the time it was made, Stewart and friends had to hand out VHS copies of the film in order to get people to see it, so not all that many people had the pleasure. But that’s changed thanks to the internet, as Stewart recently uploaded Friday the 13th Part X for all Friday fans to enjoy. And it’s just so damn charming that we had to share it with you.
In the fan film…
With the help of a few mischievous teenagers and a book from the Voorhees estate, Jason is brought back from his fifteen year sabbatical in Hell. Well rested and eager to get back to work, he begins hacking up the Crystal Lake, New Jersey teens. Will he ever be stopped? CAN he be stopped?
Check out Friday the 13th Part X below, which is a damn fine effort!
