The Ur-text of Friday the 13th fan films is To Hell and Back. Made by a group of Pennsylvania teens in 1995, the film is rare among fan efforts to follow in that it is feature length. Much of that runtime is used profitably. The editing and cinematography are generally decent, and the lake exteriors look true to the franchise. As its title would suggest, To Hell and Back picks up where Jason Goes to Hell left off. The plot is set in motion when a goth-styled twelfth-grader summons Jason from the dead after chanting from some kind of Necronomicon (though at one point it sounds as if he evokes “Kali Ma,” apparently infusing the Voorhees mythology with some unprecedented Indic flavoring). The action that follows is almost as good as that of some of the Friday the 13th sequels; personally, I find To Hell and Back more watchable than Parts 7 and 8. As an added bonus, the ultra-cheap filmmaking gives To Hell and Back something of a grindhouse feel, fully realizing the exploitation spirit that obviously set in motion the original Friday the 13th but was never completely actualized in the series, especially as budgets increased thanks to Paramount’s backing. Because the cast is mostly teenaged or younger, To Hell and Back goes even lower than most grindhouse movies can. For instance, the film depicts the fairly grisly murder of two boys who can’t be more than twelve. Jason, however, is barely more than a child himself, as he stands perhaps a head taller than these boys. The kills are, for the most part, convincing, and the director, David B. Stewart III, has an unmistakable flare for depicting murder. Moreover, between the dialogue and the action, there are some truly haunting interstitial visuals—for instance, the wall-mounted, old-timey family portraits briefly glimpsed in the flicker of lightning. As could be expected, the acting is bad, but there are some shining stars among the dramatic dullards. Tina Celentano, for instance, who plays “Brenda,” the plucky it-girl, could hold her own in any Friday the 13th film. In terms of plot, meanwhile, the occasional draggy parts are more than atoned for with the final fight scene, which is well-conceived and well-choreographed. It is then followed by a lakeside denouement that synthesizes both Part 1 and Jason Goes to Hell in fine fashion, ending with an overly-long axe slaughter. It’s one of the finest scenes in any Friday the 13th fan film, as countless fan-fabricated kill scenes from the next quarter-century couldn't match its frenzied brutality. But despite all its invigorating kills, To Hell and Back leaves the viewer in something of a melancholy mood. David B. Stewart III evidently possessed directorial talent as a teenager, but alas, he didn’t make it big. Not all American stories of prodigy culminate in some later fame. For most of us, life just goes on and goes to hell, and there's no coming back.
You can watch the film here.
