Friday the 13th: The Series: The Final Season (DVD)
Steve Barton
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Reviewed by Uncle Creepy
Created by Frank Mancuso, Jr. and Larry B. Williams
Starring Louise Robey, Chris Wiggins, John D. LeMay, R.G. Armstrong, Steve Monarque
Directed by Various
Distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment
Antique shop owner Lewis Vendredi (Armstrong) made a deal with the Devil. He was to sell hexed objects for Satan to the unknowing masses in exchange for immortality. These cursed curios would come in all shapes and sizes, but they all had one thing in common — anyone who owned them would end up on the old metal slab in the morgue. After many years of doing Big Red’s bidding, Vendredi (which in French translates into “Friday” and there’s your reason for the show’s title) welshed on his contract and ended up taking a dirt nap.
So, as in Seasons 1 and 2, now it’s up to Micki Foster (Robey and her hair), her distant cousin Ryan Dallion (LeMay), and Jack Marshak (Wiggins) to clean up the mess left behind by that evil Vendredi!
With this DVD set the series that has little to no connection with the film franchise it shares its name with finally comes to an end. “Friday the 13th: The Series” doesn’t go out as a lamb or a lion for that matter. Instead we’re just left kind of scratching our heads and wondering, “What the hell was that?”
These last nineteen episodes are as bizarre as they come. For starters series regular John D. LeMay decided to leave the show, but instead of doing something, you know, dramatic like say killing him off, the writers behind the show decide that it would be a better idea to turn him into a twelve-year-old boy at the end of Part Two of the series opener “The Prophecies.” Ironically, Jason Voorhees himself shared the same fate at the end of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. To further add to the confusion, Lemay would later show up in Part Nine of the film franchise, Jason Goes to Hell, which just like the series was pretty much void of Jason. Coincidence? We can speculate for hours.
Anyway, with LeMay out of the way, we’d be in need of a new sidekick for the remaining twosome. Enter Johnny (Steve Monarque), the single most annoying character in the show’s history whose only function seems to be displaying as much macho retardation as possible while dueling with Robey over whose hair can be teased up the biggest. Yes, things are not off to a good start nor do they ever really build up steam.
There are a couple of winning episodes here and there such as “Mightier Than the Sword” about a killer pen, a fun-filled necrophilic romp in “Epitaph for a Lonely Soul”, and finally, the goriest episode of the entire series, “Stick it in Your Ear”, which revolves around a haunted hearing aid.
Everything else is pretty flaccid albeit cheesy fun. Yep, this is one strange animal. We don’t even get a resolution to the entire plot-line set into motion from the very first episode because the show was canceled unexpectedly over its hiatus. Ah well. At least it’s here and our collection is complete, right?
As with the other sets in the series, the video quality has not been restored, and everything still has a brand new VHS copy feel. In terms of extras all we get are network promos for each episode and, of course, Robey’s giant-ass hair.
Good or bad, “Friday the 13th: The Series” still stands as one of the coolest slivers of Eighties television fare. At the very least it’s worth it for the giggles!
Special Features
3 out of 5
Special Features:
1 out of 5
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