No character represented the dominance of the 80s slasher era better than Jason Voorhees. Michael Myers may have come first, and Freddy Krueger was doing his own slicing and dicing, but with eight films in 10 years, Friday the 13th ruled the horror genre. Jason was there for most of them, ripping horny teenagers apart in gory fashion over and over again. The best film in the franchise is arguably 1984’s Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (spoiler alert: it wasn’t), which delivers the scariest version of Jason (Ted White) and introduces Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman).
The kills are aplenty like usual, yet one of them doesn’t work. When one victim, Rob Dier (E. Erich Anderson), keeps shouting, “He’s killing me!” during his death scene, it caused viewers to mock the strangeness of someone narrating their own demise. This wasn’t bad writing, though. Director Joseph Zito did it intentionally because he was haunted by a real-life story which ended in a similar fashion.
Rob Is Looking to Avenge His Sister’s Killer in ‘Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter’
Before starting with Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, you must first go backwards to Friday the 13th Part 2. The second film is notable for having Jason, sporting a sack over his head, as the killer for the first time. One of his victims is the teenage Sandra Dier (Marta Kober). That’s the end of her story, but not for her family, because her brother, Rob, shows up two movies later, looking to find the person who killed his little sister and get himself a slice of vengeance.
This leads to Rob befriending Tommy Jarvis and his older sister, Trish (Kimberly Beck). When Jason shows up at Camp Crystal Lake, and shit starts going down again, Rob heroically faces danger instead of running away. As Kimberly goes through Jason’s house of horrors and starts finding the bodies of his latest victims, she runs screaming to the basement to warn Rob. Her new friend immediately charges up the steps, only for his foot to fall through, causing him to drop his machete. When he goes back down to get it, Jason lurks in the dark, waiting.
Rob Shouts “He’s Killing Me!” When Jason Voorhees Is Stabbing Him
It’s a creepy shot to see Jason Voorhees coming out of the shadows, with only Rob’s face lit up by minimal lighting. The hockey mask-wearing slasher strikes quickly, slamming Rob up against a wall. The young man screams his lungs out for Trish to run as Jason pulls a weapon out of a toolbox and starts bringing it down into Rob’s chest. This is where the scene turns weird, because Rob’s shouts now turn into, “Oh God, he’s killing me! He’s killing me! Run! Run!” He slowly falls into the darkness and grows silent as death takes him, and Trish indeed starts running.
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The lack of gore and not being able to see exactly what is happening is effective, but fans mock Rob’s last words. The “Trapped in the Basement Scene” on Movieclips’ YouTube page is filled with comments like, “Best line delivery ever,” “I like how he narrated his death,” and “Geez, tell the whole neighborhood, why don’t you?” May he rest in peace, but E. Eric Anderson’s line delivery is a little awkward, which doesn’t help. Still, this scene is no joke. It’s actually the scariest in the whole movie.
Joseph Zito Was Inspired by a Terrifying True Story
Rob narrating his own death is not lazy filmmaking. Instead, it’s purposeful and meant to invoke chilling terror. The idea for the dialogue came from director Joseph Zito, who revealed what compelled his decision in a book about the Friday the 13th franchise called Crystal Lake Memories. In it, he recalls reading a New York newspaper about a man being stabbed to death who cried out, “Please stop hurting me, please stop killing me.” The imagery of a victim crying out to his killer in his last moments haunted Zito, so he added it to Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.
Rob is the only character who could be given this challenging dialogue. If you thought it sounded silly before, imagine it being shouted by some run-of-the-mill teenage fodder. Rob Dier is different. It adds extra weight to his death scene to see him crying out like this in his last seconds alive. He came here to find his sister’s killer, and he is going to fail and knows it. He’s built up as the hero who’s going to help save the day, only to die alone in the dark. Still, even as he’s scared to face death, he’s coherent enough to call out to another and tell them to run. He couldn’t save his little sister. He can’t save himself. But maybe, scared yet brave, he can save Trish in his last breaths. It’s not a silly death. It’s one of the most heartbreaking of the franchise.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is available to rent or buy on VOD services in the U.S.
