Recap / Film Reroll: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

A film defying all expectations...^note  Poster by ReverendVoice.

We play through the fourth Friday the 13th movie, but I didn’t tell the players they were in a Friday the 13th movie. Insert evil laugh here.

Episodes 46-47 of Film Reroll. Based on Summerspell, the classic lighthearted 1984 sex comedy.

The premise is simple. Six young friends — Jimmy, Sara, Samantha, Paul, Doug and Ted — are looking forward to spending a nice weekend at a house near an unnamed lake close to a charming little town. They get aquainted with the locals, including a pair of twin horse rider girls, as well as a put-upon single mother and her two children. But our heroes all have secrets they keep from each other. Secrets that — were they ever to be revealed — could either ruin their relationships with one another, or enhance them in whole new ways.

Also, there's a crazy, possibly supernatural Serial Killer on the loose, but that couldn't possibly be something worth worrying about, could it?

One thing's for sure, it will be a weekend to remember for as long as they live.

Starring Kara Strait^note  credited as “Pitr Strait” as Jimmy, Jocelyn "Joz" Vammer as Sara, Carolyn Faye Kramer as Samantha, Andy Hoover as Paul, and Paulo Quiros as the Dungeon Master.

Followed by Weekend at Bernie's.

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Tropes:

• Achievements in Ignorance: Out of all the players, Joz was unintentionally the closest to figuring out the true nature of the campaign right out the gate. After the group decides against picking up the hitchhiker^note who Jason does kill in the movie, she cracks that they just avoided the murder subplot.
• Acting in the Dark:
  • Invoked. DM Paulo Quiros set up a campaign based on the obscure indie movie Summerspell, which none of the players had seen. They were told to not watch or read up on any part of it, so that they could actually keep secrets from each other. However, the real twist is that the film Summerspell never existed, and that they are actually playing a Friday the 13th campaign. Paulo did this to recreate the Dramatic Irony found in almost every Slasher Movie, where the characters have no idea that there's a killer in the area until they've already started to die.
  • In the second episode, we learn that Paulo went so far in his deception that he actually uploaded the scene where Crispin Glover dances under the title "Summerspell."
• Adaptational Sexuality:
  • During the post-episode talk, Andy says that he played Paul as a closeted gay man trying to find the courage to come out to his crush. (Explaining his rather... awkward love scene with Samantha.)
  • Jocelyn says that Sara genuinely could have fallen in love with Samantha, but that it was unlikely and that it didn't pan out that way, perhaps implying that the character was bisexual, (or else that it would have been a case of If It's You, It's Okay.)
• Adaptational Villainy: Sort-of: In the movie, Tommy winds up being the one to kill Jason... when he flips out and hacks Jason to death with his machete, with it being implied in both the end of this movie and the next one that Tommy is going to wind up becoming the successor to Jason (before this wound up being dropped outright). Here, even though he gets his hands on his mom's gun, Tommy can't bring himself to actually murder Jason (even though Jason's trying to murder him).
  • Adaptational Heroism: As such, unlike in the movie (where she is too horrified to do anything), Trish is the one to murder Jason, by shoving him out a window (along with herself and Tommy) and blowing his brains out.
• Adapted Out:
  • The deaths of Axel and Morgan are no longer depicted, now only serving as part of the backstory for the campaign.
  • Rob Dier never shows up, even though in the movie, he was hunting down Jason for murdering his sister. Fans have speculated that he may have been Killed Offscreen.
• Ambiguous Situation: Jason winds up snapping Paul's neck, but Andy doesn't fail his health check. He does fail a consciousness check, though, meaning Paul goes unconscious. And since Paulo didn't openly confirm if Jason killed him, Paul's ultimate fate is left uncertain.
• Asshole Victim: Because of how gross Ted was being with the others, it doesn't come as a surprise when it turns out one of Sam's secret objectives was to get him kicked out.
• Bittersweet Ending: While the ending of this campaign is arguably lighter than in the film^note the twins survive unlike in the film, and Tommy doesn't suffer any Sanity Slippage and mutilates Jason, Paulo does still state that Trish and Tommy are rattled by what transpired, and Tommy winds up mildly crippled.
• Boom, Headshot!: How Jason is finally killed, courtesy of Trish.
• Broken Record: When Jason bursts into the cabin, Carolyn realizes who he's supposed to be. The problem is that she takes a bit to say anything beyond "I know who he is!"
  Carolyn: No, no, not like... like, I know who the killer is!
  (people start laughing)
  Kara: Yes. Carolyn-
  Joz: What?!
  Kara: You're gonna have to, uh, say some new words?
• The Bus Came Back: A Meta example. Carolyn Faye Kramer makes her first appearance in the show in over two years.
• Call-Back:
  • To the last episode Carolyn Faye Kramer appeared in.
  Carolyn: Sam rolls her eyes.
  • When Jimmy rides his bike back to the house in the middle of the night, the players wonder if he's going to get attacked by a dinosaur.
• Chekhov's Gun: Tracy's gun, though Tommy tries to use it as soon as he brings it up. It just takes a while for someone to successfully load and fire it.
• Convenient Replacement Character: Once their original characters die, Joz, Kara and Carolyn take over Ted, the twins Tina and Terri, and Tommy, respectively.
• Creepy Twins: Downplayed with Tina and Terri. They Speak in Unison when they first appear, which spooks out the players, but otherwise they just act like regular sisters.
• Cutting the Knot: After Tommy talks Jason into coming with him to see his mask collection, Tommy instead decides to go into his mom's room to grab her gun... while Jason is standing next to him, watching this happen. It is only after Paulo explicitly points this out to Carolyn that she realizes she should just show Jason the masks first.
• Destination Defenestration: At a critical moment in the climax of the campaign, Trish manages to tackle Jason out of a second-story window... at the consequence of also tackling Tommy, as Jason was in the middle of throttling him. Tommy winds up breaking a leg as a result.
• Developing Doomed Characters: Much like the film, the majority of the campaign ends up becoming this, as most of the cast are killed off in the climax. Especially Sara and Doug, who seem to be on their way to getting together right before they die.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: After Jason puts on Tommy's bug-eyed alien mask^note most likely because it reminded him of himself, Tommy tries to psycho-analyze him and convince him that he doesn't need to hurt others just because he looks different. Because the necessary roll was a failure, all this does is cause Jason to attempt to strike Tommy; Joz concludes that this meant Tommy hurt Jason's feelings.
• Dramatic Irony / Gave Up Too Soon: Paulo's scheme almost falls apart right at the start of the campaign when Joz tries to look up Summerspell so that she can learn who the rerollers are playing. However, when Paulo tells her not to as to avoid spoilers, she then admits she couldn't get any info because she got the wrong IMDB page.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Samantha tries attacking Jason by jumping towards him dramatically... only for him to catch her mid-air, smash her head against the ceiling, and then throw her against a wall, killing her.
• Fauxshadowing: Discussed: After Carolyn makes the connection between Tommy's mask collection and Jason, Paulo points out how Tommy was originally supposed to be the franchise's next villain after this movie, only for it to not really work out.
• Final Girl: Trish, as in the film. (Subverted in that Tina and Terri also survive here, but they never end up fighting Jason at all.)
• Foreshadowing:
  • Paulo and Tim actually provide the players with accurate information about the film (such as the cast and the events in individual scenes) while still leaving out anything that would identify it as a Friday the 13th film.
  • Meta-wise: In Part 2, there are two specific lines^note Kara's indignant "Andy, you've abandoned me in two movies in two days!" and Andy's semi-joking guess of Margaret Thatcher when Carolyn tries to guess who Jason is that imply that this campaign was recorded after they had recorded the Weekend at Bernie's campaign.
• Four Is Death: Literally: Trish winds up being the one to kill Jason because of Paulo hitting 4 on his damage roll.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: A side effect of the campaign only focusing on the teens (as long as they're alive, at least) is that Jason never gets a proper introduction. Yes, it's mentioned that two hospital workers were murdered by a maniac, but it's never revealed why there's a Nigh-Invulnerable, deformed, masked Serial Killer running around.
• Groin Attack: Samantha hits Jason in the crotch with a frying pan. He takes 6 damage but is otherwise uninhibited by her attack.
• Hope Spot:
  • For a while, it seems like Sara might be able to get away from Jason, but then he catches up with her and finishes the job.
  • After managing to talk Jason into going with him to see his masks, Tommy starts thinking out loud about the "poisonous chemicals" in his room^note in other words, Carolyn is starting to plan out how to kill Jason as Tommy, before Paulo promptly shuts this down.
• Horse Jump: Jimmy tries jumping over a ravine when he and the gang are out riding with Tina and Terry. However, the horse doesn't actually jump, (apparently realizing that it wouldn't have made it across). Instead, Jimmy is flung off the horse and lands on the downwards slope on the other side of the ravine, not quite reaching his intended destination. Fortunately, he's not seriously injured.
• I Knew It!: In-Universe. The players all consider that they might be in a horror movie, but Andy was the only one who directly named Jason as a potential killer. Joz and Kara later say that they also had their suspicions, while Carolyn admits that she really had no idea until the murderer showed up.
• Inconsistent Spelling: A Meta example. Paulo has consistently spelled "Summerspell" as a single word, but given that this is an audio medium and that the film doesn't actually exist, some fans have instead spelled it as "Summer Spell." This misspelling even made it into the poster shown above.
• Innocently Insensitive: Jimmy probably didn't mean to hurt Trish's feelings when he gave her a drink, but he clearly pushed a button of hers, as she rushed home immediately. It's implied that she's had some bad prior experience with alcohol.
• Insistent Terminology: It's not "LEGOs" it's "LEGO." ^note Both are technically inaccurate. While "LEGO" is commonly used in reference to the material, even on TV Tropes, (e.i. Built with LEGO,) it is officially only the name of the company which makes it. The toys themselves are called "LEGO Bricks."
• Killed Offscreen: According to Paulo, Tracy dies the same way as in the film, but her death isn't witnessed by any player character.
• Kissing Cousins: Defied. Paul's secret goals were to kiss a guy and to get his cousin Ted laid, but his player, Andy, was explicitly told not to combine the two. (The other players point out that Eleanor Roosevelt married her cousin named Ted...)^note It should be noted that the rerollers got Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt mixed up, and it was Franklin Roosevelt who Eleanor was cousins with and married to.
• Lethal Chef: Downplayed. Jimmy fails his cooking roll by 1, meaning that the chicken ends up slightly overcooked, but still perfectly edible. And hey, it's the thought that counts.
• Lighter and Softer: The first episode, compared to the film. Mostly because it cuts out all of Jason's scenes and focuses entirely on the teens. As expected, everything gets much darker once Jason does show up.
  • Funnily enough, this trope is actually Inverted during the lake scene. In the film, Samantha only pretends to drown to freak Sara out. Here, Sara actually starts drowning for real and has to be rescued by her friends.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: Carolyn references this, pointing out that just because her character hates hitchhiking hippies doesn't mean that she also does.
• Meta Girl: Samantha/Carolyn Faye Kramer, to the point of coming across like a total Talkative Loon Cloudcuckoolander In-Universe.
  Kara: I really love... I d- I do not get tired of Carolyn Faye Kramer's post-modernist, fourth-wall-shattering conception of Reroll reality, that anything that is said may as well be happening, regardless of anyt- it's just, like, it's very Dada, and I'm into it.
• Mind Screw:
  • When Sam and Paul are having their intimate moment in the bedroom, Kara briefly tries to say something, only to cut herself off... where upon Carolyn (still in-character) acts like Jimmy spontaneously appeared in the room, and demands to know why they're there.
  • After the group overhear an elderly couple mention a vigil happening that night for some deaths occurring at the nearby hospital, Paul begins getting angry over the fact that the others are focusing on the vigil at all, as it isn't their problem. After Jimmy calls him out, Samantha dismisses it as him "doing his character a thing", which winds up briefly derailing the scene due to the borderline-meta nature of it.
    Kara: Did you just out-of-character speak to me in-character about him b-
    Carolyn: No, I was in-character, and "character" is a word that people can use in that- not- as, like, "his character"...
    • It gets worse when Andy continues to defend his aggressive apprehension of the plot development, but it not being clear if it's in-character or out-of-character, culminating in him openly asking Paulo if the elderly couple was in the movie... followed by Joz stating that at that point, Sara decided to get up and walk away from "this very loud discussion at the pizza table".
      Paulo: (laughing) About if this couple is in the movie?
• No Seat Belts: Ted tries to speed up his escape from Jason by not bothering with his seatbelt and driving straight through the garage door. He ends up knocking himself unconscious on the windscreen, and drowns when the car rolls down into the lake.
• No Sympathy: After Jimmy takes a machete to the back and falls down unconscious, Paul not only shuts and locks the door to the house without even considering checking on Jimmy, but he bluntly informs Ted that Jimmy died and they need to escape from the killer.
  Kara: Wow, uncool! Andy, you've abandoned me in two movies in two days! You are out of my life!
• Not so Dire: Right before Paulo rolls damage for Trish's shooting of Jason, he debates whether or not he should say the number he needs to roll, before Andy makes him come out and reveal it: 4. He needs to get that in two dice... so, naturally, the first dice roll is 4.
• Oh, Crap!: This is everyone's reaction to Paulo-as-Freddy dropping the murder bombshell to Sam in Part 2, but special mention goes to Kara’s remark:
  Kara: Here. We. Motherfuckin' go.
• Only the Author Can Save Them Now: invoked In a bizarre, roundabout way as Paulo was playing both relevant characters: Right as Jason is about to throttle Tommy to death, Trish manages to tackle them out a window and manages to shoot Jason dead before he can get back up.
• Point of Divergence: Not that it made a significant difference in the long run, but after Jimmy gets hit in the back with Jason's machete, Kara cheerfully remarks that this attack put her at 0 HP as a result of falling off of the horse earlier.
  Paulo: You take not but 7 damage.
  Kara: Cool. Because of the horse incident, that puts me at zero. (everyone else laughs) Guys, if there is a God... they're laughing. They are laughing.
• Reality Subtext: An unintentional example. Jimmy's backstory (which Paulo inferred from the film) is that he suffers from low self-esteem and impostor syndrome, which only got worse when his girlfriend broke up with him after their first night together. Kara Strait — who plays Jimmy here — coincidentally went through the exact same thing in her youth, and was understandably shocked when she read her character notes.
• Red Herring Suspect: Freddy, the guy at the vigil who tells the gang about the murders, becomes one by accident (to the extent that Carolyn still suspects him after the real murderer is revealed). The players are also suspicious towards the Hitchhiker and the Pizzeria Owner, both of whom are entirely innocent.
• Rewatch Bonus: As Andy himself admits, Paul secretly being attracted to Doug was repeatedly hinted at throughout the campaign.
• Serious Business: Kara admitted after the fact that after Jimmy died, she completely wrote off the rest of the campaign, and was quietly hoping Jason killed everyone. But when Tommy was left at the mercy of Jason, she quickly changed tact and began hoping against hope Tommy managed to kill him.
• Shout-Out:
  • Paul does a Solid Snake impression - and asks if there's a box somewhere in the lake - to make the situation less embarrassing after Sara does a terrible dolphin impression.
  • After Andy makes a joke that every guy has exactly the same thought when they encounter the twins, Kara replies, "Yeah, the Overlook Hotel".
• Skinny Dipping: Paul and Samantha decide to do this, which gets rather embarrassing when Trish and Tommy show up. Sara, however, prefers to bathe with some decency, and Jimmy is too busy trying to write a Haiku to even get near the lake.
• Sorting Algorithm of Mortality: Lampshaded by Carolyn, who says that her character should have died before Joz's because she is "the slutty one." Paulo points out that that is exactly what happened in the movie.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Both Tina and Terri survive here by staying hidden in the basement. Paul is also alive - albeit seriously injured - the last time we see him.
• Take Me to Your Leader: When Sara meets Tommy - wearing his homemade alien mask - she asks to be taken to either his leader or his older sister.
• Taking You with Me: Trish is willing to risk the lives of both herself and her brother to take Jason down, by pushing him out of a window as he's choking Tommy. None of them actually die, but Jason is injured to the point that Trish can kill him fairly easily. (On a sadder note, Tommy is also mildly crippled by the fall.)
• Theme Naming: Kara wonders why all characters living near the lake seem to have names starting with a "T". (Trish, Tommy, Tracy, Tina, Terri; all names taken straight from the movie.)
• Twice Shy: Samantha and Paul, who proclaim their love for each other in the opening of the second episode. (Though this is Subverted by the implication that Paul only loves her platonically.)
• Twin Threesome Fantasy: Implied when the group encounters a pair of beautiful twin girls wearing exactly the same outfits. Andy says that every guy in the car has exactly the same thought.
• Wham Line:
  • In-Universe: When Sam meets Freddy while at the hospital vigil, she asks what happened to the people who died at the hospital.
    Freddy: I dunno, jus- someone... someone killed 'em.
    (the rest of the players begin laughing in fear)
  • The exact moment when the true nature of this session comes to light? When Doug and Sara are having their quiet moment out on the pier, and Paulo tells her to make a perception roll.
    Joz: (cheerfully) Ooh, I get it!
    Paulo: (ominously) There's a man standing behind you.
    Joz: What?!
    Paulo: He's huge. He's wearing a hockey mask. And he has a machete in his hand.
  • During the wrap-up, as everyone discusses what their secret objectives were, the reveal of Paul's^note specifically, when discussing if Joz had actually managed to deduce what it was on her own winds up casting a completely different light on the Paul/Sam subplot throughout the campaign:
    Paulo: (to Andy) I would've given you half-credit for it, [Joz] was kinda deducing [Paul's] infatuation with Doug.
    Carolyn: What?
    Andy: Yeah, but nobody got that...
• Would Hurt a Child: While he doesn't succeed, Jason is more than willing to kill Tommy, at least after he betrays his trust by pulling a gun on him.
• Wrong Genre Savvy:
  • Joz guesses that she's in a horror movie pretty early on, and decides to not pick up the Hippie, as she's probably a Hostile Hitchhiker. She's right about the genre, but the Hippie is actually one of the victims, and is likely Killed Offscreen by the real murderer soon afterwards, as in the original film.
    • Similarly, Joz admits that once Paulo said it was foggy out by the pier during Doug and Sara's scene, she assumed this was actually a Halloween campaign.
  • Once Jason makes his entrance, Carolyn keeps trying to figure out his Secret Identity (apparently thinking that she's in a Scream-esque Whodunnit mystery rather than the intended Grand Finale of a Villain-Based Franchise) despite the other players' insistence that he doesn't really have one. It turns out she's never seen any movies of the Friday the 13th franchise.
    Kara: You know it's Jason, right?!
• Wrong-Name Outburst: Played for Drama: When Andy gets fed up with how long the others were taking to gather weapons to fight Jason with instead of outright leaving while they still could, he starts addressing the others to try and get them to listen to him... except he forgets in the moment that Joz changed characters:
  Andy: I'm sick of this shit. (as Paul) Sara, nice finding a knife, that's a good knife. Sam-
  Joz: (cutting Andy off) I'm Ted.
  Kara: Sara's dead...

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