Sometimes, you want a high-end meal from a restaurant you've never tried before, and sometimes you want a greasy burger cooked to perfection from a favorite local shack down the street, and FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER is that burger. It does everything that you get out of every other FRIDAY THE 13TH, all of the ingredients are more or less the same, but this is the one that truly assembles them perfectly.
To get it out of the way, no, this isn't the final chapter. In fact, it's not even close as this is the 4th out of a series that currently stands at 12 movies. But the list of positives for this installment are almost endless for me. The teenage cast, first and foremost. As a lover of FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH and other teen comedies of the era, I would legitimately watch this group of characters in a standard teen movie. I love meek Sarah blowing the lid off the repressed virgin trope by being the thirstiest one of the bunch, I love that sexpert Ted talks a big game but is actually pathetic and is deservedly the only one of the group not to couple up.
There's some legitimately strong, suspenseful filmmaking going on here, too. From that lingering shot of the empty camp after Jason's body has been driven away, to the subtle puff of breath as he's sitting in the morgue. This is my favorite incarnation of Jason, the perfect sweet spot between the survivalist woodsman introduced in PART 2 and the rotting corpse of PART 6, this Jason is just vaguely dead. Graying, bloody, black fingernails, dirtied clothes, but not over the top. It really is the perfect Jason. There's a bit after Trish, our heroine, leaps out of the window where Jason simply stands at the window and waits until she starts moving again to resume his chase, that is such a small moment but one of my favorites of the whole series.
Most of all, though, there's Tommy. The child hero at the heart of this movie strikes a personal chord because I was around the same age as the character when I first saw it, and I felt like I was that kid. Here's a kid obsessed with horror who got to use that knowledge and skill (I also wanted to be a makeup FX artist at that age) to defeat the monster, it was like absolute wish fulfillment for me and probably a huge reason as to why it became my favorite entry from the moment I first saw it. Speaking of, the practical gore gags by Tom Savini are another major highlight. Still very much of its era, but if you want to invite Jason to screen at your sleepover and only have room for one, then I say this is the one.