They Killed The Final Girl In The Lamest Way Possible
Danielle Panabaker’s Jenna was the picture perfect Final Girl archetype: she was sweet, smart and kind. She was the only one of her group who didn’t treat Clay Miller like crap. She was exactly who you would envision at the end of this movie doing battle with Jason all by her lonesome. And I have to admit to wanting to see it because I am a sucker for the lone frightened girl who defeats the big bad movie maniac. However, I am also all in for movies surprising me by killing a character I was almost 100% sure would live till the end like what happened with Samuel L. Jackson’s character in DEEP BLUE SEA. So I would have been fine with Jenna getting killed by Jason in the middle of the film. My issue was with how lame her death was.
Thatwas some weak sauce. If the character that is most likely to be identified as a Final Girl is going to get a shocking death then at the very least have her go out after an epic chase like Helen in I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. Instead Jenna got a death that you’d expect to see happen to the comic relief character. In my research I found out the filmmakers had a better death in mind for the character but it wasn’t in the budget to film it so they went with the incidental death. I think they should have found a few extra shekels somewhere and actually given the character the death she (and the audience) deserved.