Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

xxxviii
the Friday the 13 th franchise, resulting in Jason Goes to Hell. Instead of relying on
cameo appearances and 3-D sequences, Jason Goes to Hell again announced the
finality of the series through the title, and narratively attempted to explain the logical
gaps in the overarching story by applying an explanation that Jason’s essence is a
demonic worm that uses human bodies as hosts, and can only be killed with a special
dagger wielded by a relative, explaining why he keeps returning from the dead. This
overtly supernatural development is also influenced by the Halloween sequels as
well as the last two (at the time of Jason Goes to Hell’s release) A Nightmare on Elm
Street films, where the bloodline of the killer is his fatal weakness. As will be
discussed, the Friday the 13 th films alternate perspective frequently during this
period, all with the apparent goal of providing generic orientation, which seems
necessary considering the radical narrative experimentation.
1993, the year that Jason Goes to Hell was released, proved a low point for
the release of slasher films, with the only significant addition being Leprechaun (dir.
Jones), a film in which a Leprechaun kills anyone to defend and retrieve his gold.
This included a centrally supernatural storyline, as well as strong ties to comedy,
though structurally retaining slasher elements. Leprechaun became one of the more
significant horror films from the early 1990s to begin a sequelised series that
consistently released films throughout that decade, and into the early 2000s. A more
‘serious’ (that is, less comedic) franchise begun in the early 1990s was Candyman,
which also retained structural similarities to the slasher, but remained firmly within
the supernatural, with many similarities to the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, and
fewer ties to Friday the 13 th . A made for television sequel to When A Stranger Calls,
for a franchise that had clearly run out of creative steam. Still, with a box office take of $34,872,033
it was obvious that Freddy would be back to haunt dreams afresh.” (Kerswell; 2010; 161)