next time around. Maybe." Writing for Variety, Greg Evans criticized the screenplay as well as Marcus's direction: "With one or two exceptions, freshman director Adam Marcus forgoes the camp humor and inside jokes that marked the tail end of the slasher craze, opting instead for a straightforward Saturday night drive-in approach...Blame Marcus for the film’s complete lack of tension and style, but also point a machete or two at a bland, occasionally inept cast and scripters unable to contribute a single innovation to the genre." Robert Cauthorn of the Arizona Daily Star wrote: "Yeah, there's a lot of shower taking and slaughter here. And a plot about evil bloodlines, tabloid TV, soul shifting, and God knows what else. It doesn't make a lick of sense, but it's a definite improvement over the other non-movies in the series." The Statesman Journals Ron Cowan wrote: "The ninth version of this fitful series is easily the clumsiest, worst acted, most gory and worst written of the bunch, as ready to indulge in sexual titillation as sadism and oozing bodies." Kory Wilcoxson of The Courier-Journal also criticized the film's gratuitous violence, adding that "the plot is ridiculous, the dialogue wooden and the acting a laugh. But you know that going in. The question is: Is it scary? Not really. It's more disgusting than frightening." Other media Comic books A three-issue comic adaptation of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday written by Andy Mangels was published by Topps Comics. As the comics are based upon the original shooting script of the film, elements that were left out of the film are used in them. Trading card Topps also released a series of trading cards for the film. Novelization The FBI sting that occurs at the beginning of the film is foreshadowed in the novel Friday the 13th: Hate-Kill-Repeat, which takes place between the events of the seventh and eighth films. The epilogue of the book states that the FBI, upon discovering Jason Voorhees actually exists, have begun making plans to trap him and "send him straight to Hell." Other references Freddy Krueger's clawed hand coming out of the ground and taking Jason's mask was a reference to the future crossover Freddy vs. Jason between the two, which had been in development hell since 1987. It was finally finished in 2003, a year after this film's sequel. The film features the appearances of the Kandarian