With the fate of the movie series still up in the air, the likelihood of “Friday the 13th” fans getting a new film within the next three years seems like pipe dreams. The fan community has managed to keep the franchise alive, though, including Vincente DiSanti. After his incredibly popular 2017 fan film “Never Hike Alone,” DiSanti continues his take on the series, this time giving fans what we’ve been asking for, since “The New Blood”: Jason Voorhees slashing his way through the snowy terrain of Crystal Lake.
Tag Archives: Slasher
Fan Theory: Roy Burns is possessed by Jason Voorhees in “A New Beginning”
There’s some supernatural element in “Friday the 13th” that doesn’t fully reveal itself until “Jason Lives.” Before that, Jason was more of a mortal superhuman capable of being killed and he is presumably stopped in “The Final Chapter.” In Danny Steinmann’s “A New Beginning,” Jason is definitely dead and Tommy has difficulty moving on as he’s haunted by Jason’s image time and time again. Since the fifth film apparently still takes place in the town of Crystal Lake, Tommy is still facing the trauma of battling Jason, even though it’s established he’s buried.
You Have to See This! Terror Tract (2000)
Lance W. Dreesen and Clint Hutchison’s horror anthology is a movie that’s managed to slip under the radar and remain fairly obscure. Even in the age where old titles are being revived for physical releases, and even in the age of the anthology renaissance, not too many people talk about “Terror Tract.” It’s a shame, since the 2000 horror film is a bold mix of terror, dark comedy, and zany violence that make it feel like an EC Comic that is slowly losing its sanity as it unfolds. You wouldn’t think that the late John Ritter could have been a great person to lead such a stellar horror anthology, but he’s top notch in a film that’s so unfairly overlooked.
Friday the 13th Collection: Deluxe Edition [Blu-ray]
Full Disclosure: The “Deluxe Edition” was purchased at my own leisure and not provided by Scream Factory; the review presented is completely honest.
2020 has been filled with a ton of surprises for movie fans, and one of the better ones was the sudden introduction of the Deluxe “Friday the 13th Collection” from Scream Factory. While there have been a ton of re-releases since the initial DVD set in 2004, Scream Factory has never been prone to just re-packaging the same movies in to “new” sets, so it was no shock when the Deluxe Collection for “Friday the 13th” was announced, fans crashed Scream Factory’s site to order the set. Suffice to say, Scream Factory simply hasn’t failed horror buffs and Jason Voorhees fanatics. What began as a means of ripping off “Halloween” in 1979, Sean Cunningham and screenwriter Victor Miller’s summer camp slasher film became an iconic pop culture sensation and long running franchise.
Fear Pharm (2020)
Dante Yore’s “Fear Pham” is three quarters a really good Halloween horror film, and one quarter an absolutely ridiculous waste o time. It’s a shame because for most of “Fear Pharm,” I was genuinely lost in the engaging concept and entertaining mix of horror and comedy. Yore has a great concept with a narrative that’s mostly smooth and interesting. Yore makes good use of limited scenery while also building entertaining and sympathetic protagonists forced in to an absurd but creepy circumstance.
Slumber Party Massacre II (1987)
The “Slumber Party Massacre” movie series has never really been too much of a straight faced horror movie franchise. The original film is a dark, silly bit of slasher fodder that is famous mainly for its title. The sequel from Deborah Brock basically takes the whole series in a direction that’s bizarre, completely unusual, and borrows very much from 1985’s “Freddy’s Revenge” with its strong and blatant LGBTQ overtones.
Murder in the Woods (2020)
I love the fact that with the accessibility of filmmaking with modern technology, that more filmmakers are trying to give us different perspectives. With “Murder in the Woods” it’s one in many efforts to give us the classic genre horror fixes with different kinds of characters. This time around the Latinx characters aren’t tokens, but the actual protagonists fighting against the film’s villain.