Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
At least this one gets credit for trying to mix up the formula a little bit. Sure, its still basically Jason stalking and killing a bunch of teens, but this time, its on a BOAT! Then, its in MANHATTAN!
In order to have the plot be a little bit different, though, it requires a massive amount of improbability. A group of high school kids are taking a boat trip to NYC that is apparently school sanctioned since there are 2 teachers on board (what the hell high school is this? Why didn't they just take a bus?). So, instead of stalking kids through the woods, Jason does his work throughout the ship. This allows him to expand on his pattern of continually more outlandish methods of killing that has been established in the last few films (one victim is dispatched with a sauna rock). Eventually, Jason causes a fire on the ship, causing the survivors to abandon it and head for Manhattan (with Jason in hot pursuit). Eventually, the last 2 people alive are stuck in the sewer with Jason, where he is taken down by the most implausible ending to a Friday the 13th film yet (even more implausible than the ending to Part VII, where the psychic girl uses her powers to resurrect her dead father from the bottom of Crystal Lake to drag Jason down to the bottom) - a flood of toxic waste hits Jason, devolving him back to what he looked like as a kid when he initially drowned (????) before he dies.
This is by no means a good movie, but at least they had a little fun with what had become a very tired premise by the time.
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)
This installment also tries to change up the stale Friday the 13th formula, but in a completely different way than the previous film. Final Friday decided to completely embrace the supernatural side of Jason (which had always been there below the surface, seeing as how he is an un-killable zombie that originally rose from a lake) and run with it full speed ahead.
After a fairly inventive opening (in which an already resurrected Jason is caught in an FBI sting and blown up), only Jason's spirit is revived instead of his body and he begins to inhabit other people in order to continue his killing spree, jumping from body to body. It turns out that Jason will always return from seeming death unless he is killed by someone from his own bloodline. It just so happens that some of his relatives are still around, and eventually one of them doers manage to kill him once in for all, as he is dragged down to hell (and his mask is grabbed by the hand of Freddy Krueger to boot!).
This film scores a few points for originality, but the franchise was definitely in need of ending at this point. However, it took 2 more sequels - one of which tried to mix things up by sending Jason into space(!) (Jason X) and one that paired him up finally with Freddy (Freddy vs. Jason) before it was finally put to rest, only to be resurrected (much like Jason himself) in a reboot (2009's Friday the 13th).
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