Gaping plot holes, continuity problems, bad
acting, we love everything about the "Friday the 13th" franchise
which, like Jason, simply won't die. I don't pretend the "Friday
the 13th" movies are anything but cheesy time wasting slasher
flicks, but they're a great fascination for me, and they're also
some of the first horror movie series I've ever been exposed to.
Jason and I go a ways back and my experience with horror movies
is best summed up with the hockey mask and the machete. I've
been Jason for Halloween three times, I've studied everything
about the films, and the best memory I have of late night
television is Jason storming "Arsenio Hall." Yes, I am a
hardcore buff. Sure, Michael and Freddy are cool, and
Leatherface is okay, but Jason is just the be all and end all of
slasher films for yours truly. I'm proud to admit that. So, we
finally bring you our Halloween treat for you readers, our
Friday the 13th report card.
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FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)
Grade: B-
The Deal:
Here is where we get the sense of how Jason picked up
his hobby for body decorations. Our killer for this
first film manages to somehow take all the heavy bodies
and pin them up along the doorways for reasons still
unknown. And yes, she rips off Michael Myers by doing
so. Maybe she and his mother played Canasta together. We
never did find out what Mrs. Voorhees true intent for
the camp was. Did she just lurk around there and kill
anyone that entered? Did these camp counselors have a
connection to Jason's death? It's never been clear, but
this first installment is a slow moving story that's
never as good as it can be. The dread is only present in
the climax where heroine Alice (who gives off a Jamie
Lee Curtis vibe), is forced to deal with a woman who
wants revenge and chops her head off in one of the
corniest, but coolest endings ever filmed for a horror
movie. More so, I never really did find out what the
climax for Friday the 13th meant in the long run, but it
did inadvertently signal things to come. |
It's the same formula as the remaining films, but with
older counselors this time. And yes, they're murdered
three ways to Sunday... or Friday as it were.
Cunningham's direction is great, and the performance
from Betsy Palmer is the right dose of over the top
emoting and goofy rage that makes this film so much fun.
Best Death: Who of course can forget that classic kill
that even Kevin Bacon himself still recalls with great
amusement? Even after such an illustrious career, Bacon
will always remember the spear through the throat after
some good sex that recalls that old morality theme urban
legends are made of.
Favorite's Ranking: 7 |
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART II (1981)
Grade: B
The Deal:
One of the
bigger plot holes in the series involves this sequel. A
summer camp is built right next to Camp Crystal lake and
yet we're never told which camp it is the other
counselors set down on for the rest of the movies. Was
Camp Crystal Lake really re-built or was the sign put
down on this new one where Jason roamed around? Either
way, a la "Halloween," our previous character Alice is
murdered with an ice pick through her head shortly after
surviving the attack, and mysteriously Jason, who we're
told was a young boy with a mental disability has the
clear idea of how to find Alice and get into her house.
Now living as a hermit, Jason, with a sack over his head
(ripping off "The Town that Dreaded Sundown") wreaks
havoc on the small group of counselors that happen onto
the new camp.
This is really the start of the entire franchise as
we're now given Jason in all his chaotic blood soaked
glory, dons a peculiar mask, and faces off with a rather
annoying virginal heroine.
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One of the
highlights of Part II is the climax in where we
discover what became of Mrs. Voorhees' head, and the
sick game of pretending to be Jason's mother to
distract him. It's a device that would become a
consistent saving grace for our virginal heroines in
tight corners, for the rest of the sequels. How
Jason became a man after drowning is just utterly
confusing to fathom, but Part 2 has a considerable
dread about it that is hard to dislike.
Best Death: I'm
a big fan of Mark's death. The knife to the head as
his body rolls down a stairwell is an image that has
been burnt into my brain since first watching it as
a child. For a long time I thought it was a scene to
"Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
Favorite's Ranking: 4 |
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FRIDAY THE 13TH: 3D (1982)
Grade: C-
The Deal:
This is by far one of the worst of the Friday the 13th
films and yet, it's also one of the first one I ever
remember watching. After going five years without having
seen this, the one thing I remember about it was that
this is the film where Jason gets his mask and sets down
on a farm. While many like Steve Miner's installment
with a sense of amusement, Part III is one of the lamest
of the installments. Without the advent of 3D, this
movie ranges from flat to just plain stupid. The scenes
where our actors implement the 3D cues are horrible.
There's the yo yo scene that's so stupid it's hard to
keep a straight face, and of course the spear to the eye
that's so obviously running on a wire line rigged to run
into the camera. I never got to see this in the 3D
format, but I did get to see "Freddy's Dead" with 3D
glasses and all. Thanks, paps. |
This is also one of
the phases of Jason's shape changes as he goes from
a thin set hermit, to a heavy set trucker framed
character he'd have until part six. But for all the
grief I give it, there are some damn good sequences,
including the slaughter of the biker gang that ups
the body count toward the climax and ends up giving
Jason a damn hard time, and Jason hanging from a
rope and still squirming and trying to reach for our
heroine Chris, in spite of it. This is also one of
the few times Jason has known one of the characters,
as Chris explains in a boring monologue of how she
came across Jason one day. Taking from the first
film, Chris has a nightmare about Jason being pulled
into the water by his mother, an environment that
would become his resting place, and signaled yet
another sequel.
Best Death: It's
a draw between the biker getting it while standing
on his hands, and Rick having his eyeball blasted at
the screen as Jason lifts him up and crushes his
head with his bare hands.
Favorite's Ranking: 6 |
FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984)
Grade: A
The Deal:
Supposedly, the final chapter in the entire series,
Jason happens upon Crystal Lake again to wreak havoc on
more camp counselors. This is also Jason at his meanest
and most vicious. Even though it's only second in my
favorite of the series, "The Final Chapter" is the
closest to an actual creepy horror film than the rest.
Jason is big, he's strong, he's merciless, and he's
precise, especially when he nearly lops the head off of
our heroine with an axe. One of my absolute favorite
scenes is where Jason is on a stairwell and is trying to
decide who to murder, the final girl, or Corey Feldman.
I'd have chosen Feldman, but that's just me. Yes, this
is also one of the earliest films from the series I'd
seen. My uncle had a copy on Beta, and we'd watch this
almost every day. Just like "Halloween 4," Jason is
taken back to a morgue and rises to kill some orderlies
and return to Crystal Lake. |
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There, a group of
young 'ens go vacationing and he makes with the
killing. This is also one of the movies of the
series that almost manages to build up a genuine
story and character base that worked well. Feldman's
performance is great and Tommy's a character that
should have stayed as Jason's nemesis for the rest
of the franchise. He's a horror geek experimenting
in latex special effects, and he's dazzled with
monsters. As the body count rises, Tommy's sanity
fades, especially when his dog takes a leap out the
window, and his mom is offed. Tommy had a real axe
to grind with Jason after "Jason Lives," and the
dynamic would have worked. One of the better
sequences involves Tommy watching a vacationer
undress in a window and he bounces up and down
excited at the glimpse of breasts. And then there's
Crispin Glover's improvised crazy dance that has
become a Youtube classic. "The Final Chapter" is
arguably the best of the series, and has so many
great moments you'll be hard pressed not to favor.
Best Death:
There's just no beating the death of the chubby
hitchhiker who ends up sporting a knife through the
skull so powerful that she squeezes the life out of
her banana.
Favorite's Ranking: 2 |
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FRIDAY THE 13TH, PART V: A NEW BEGINNING (1985)
Grade: F
The Deal:
Tommy is back and his sister is nowhere to be found.
Still grieving over the horrific night where he faced a
true monster, Tommy is now a goggle eyed mental patient
being shipped off the loony bin with many other young
psychotics, and his adjustment just isn't going well. "A
New Beginning" is not only the worst of the series, but
one of the worst movies ever made. That's not because
it's so utterly dated, or because of the ridiculous
twist ending that explained the killer in the film
wasn't Jason, but a near invincible orderly dressed as
Jason, out for the revenge of his son. It was the really
ridiculous climax that set up so many ridiculous
questions that were not answered in "Jason Lives." The
poster for the film should be an easy indicator toward
the ending, as the
mask featured hardly even looks like Jason's mask. It's
just an all out terrible movie and one I never bother
watching when it's on television. |
Tommy is now a man trying to convince people that
Jason is lurking about, all the while he
mysteriously knows martial arts, and escapes fate too often at the hands of quasi-Jason. The
reason why fans felt so utterly deceived was because
not only did the writers ask us to believe this
super fast, indestructible murderer was only a mere
man, but they fooled them into investing in a story
that didn't feature Jason. Skewed logic yes, but for
people who were exposed to mainly a hack and slash
horror story, you can't skimp on the central
character that made these movies so entertaining.
Not to mention that the final scene is so utterly
idiotic, and we're never told if it was all just a
weird dream from the insane Tommy, or Tommy
taking on the mantel of Jason Voorhees.
Nevertheless, Tommy possessed Jason's mask for some
reason and he was due to become the man behind the
mask.
Best Death:
It's also a tie between the well deserved axe to the
body of the obnoxious mental patient, or the well
deserved decapitation of the hillbilly cycle rider.
Favorite's Ranking: 11 |
-
Felix Vasquez Jr.
10/30/07 |
