"Friday the 13th" Series
Film comment by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1995 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions
IF IT'S FRIDAY, IF IT'S THE 13TH, IT MUST BE FRIDAY THE 13TH
What do decapitated teenagers, machetes and hockey masks all have in common? Easy, they're all prominently featured in the "Friday the 13th" films, those classic horror movies of the 80's we all know and love like a part of us (say, a severed arm or leg). What other movie can you name offhand that was deep and meaningful enough to spawn eight sequels? GONE WITH THE WIND? Hardly. CITIZEN KANE? Jason could rip that proverbial rosebud to shreds with his bare hands. No, the "Friday the 13th" movies are clearly what celluloid was created for, with their poignant dialogue ("John? ...John is that you? ...John? ...John? AAAAAAAHHHH!!!"), creative death scenes and of course, the enigmatic killer Jason.
Supposedly drowned in Crystal Lake at the tender age of seven, Jason Voorhees lurked in the depths of the lake for twenty years, until he felt the time was right to begin murdering teenage campers. By the end of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII, JASON TAKES MANHATTAN, the total body count was 83 (according to a reference in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART IX). Never mind that the series would have us believe Jason lived in the lake for fifteen years and didn't age, yet in the second movie, five years later, he was an adult. That just proves that the "Friday the 13th" movies are too deep for any of our finite minds to understand.
The first 13th movie was released in the Reagan election year of 1980. Of course, in that one, Jason isn't the one doing the killing, it's his mean ol' mama (played by Betsy Palmer) out for revenge. You see, the reason Jason drowned at summer camp was because the counselors were too busy with ... uh ... other things to help. So fifteen years later, when someone tries to re-open the camp, Mrs. Voorhees decides to celebrate by killing the new counselors. The first movie doesn't give us Jason but it does give us plenty of gore, including a spear through the chest, axe in the forehead and an excellent decapitation effect at the end. Watch for that, unless, of course, you're seeing the movie on TV. In that case, forget seeing any of the decapitations, axe-murders, maimings, gougings, stranglings, beatings and knifings.
The first movie was successful enough that the next year, through the scientific miracle of cloning, the producers were able to make a sequel that looks exactly like the original, with only a few minor variations. This time, Jason himself takes up the family hatchet, passed on to him from his beheaded mother, and slays some horny teenage camp counselors himself. No, it doesn't take place at Camp Crystal Lake (or Camp Blood, as the townsfolk often affectionately refer to it) again. The senseless killings occur at the camp across the lake, which--and correct me if I'm wrong--is never given a name during the movie. It's five years after the last series of brutal camp murders and no one has heard from Jason since.
Suddenly, on FRIDAY THE 13TH (PART 2), the killing starts up again. It seems Jason is out for a little revenge for his mother's dismemberment, which we relive at the beginning of this movie. In fact, the first hour of this sequel replays the last half hour of the first movie--in slow motion! Then, in horror movie tradition, the teenage girls are stalked, in a script obviously written by a teenage boy. Take, for instance, this sample dialogue:
TEENAGE GIRL: Oh my God! I'm being chased by a madman in a hockey mask with a hatchet! Whatever will I do? ... I know, I'll take off all my clothes and go skinny-dipping!
Yes, this is your typical horny teenager movie, with ample sex and violence. Rest assured that I didn't see any of the sex, as my mom was standing by with the remote control, ready to zap anything she deemed unsuitable. All in all, I got to see about ten minutes of the movie. But I did manage to see some pretty gruesome stuff. For example, some guy in a wheelchair with a machete implanted across his face. Ouch! He might need more than one Band-Aid to take care of that cut!
The second movie also attracted movie goers across the country who enjoy the intellectually-stimulating scenes of sex and violence. At this point the producers could have released a third movie that was an exact rehash of the first two with nothing to add to the legend, but they decided to go one step further and make a sequel that was an exact rehash, blah, blah, blah, and was also in 3-D. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 had all the usual 3-D gags (baseball bats and yo-yo's shoved in the screen) in its theatrical showing (both days of it), but when it was released on home video, somebody forgot to throw in the 3-D glasses. So when you watch the video, you see constant inane 3-D gimmicks, like someone's eyeball flying into the camera, but since you don't have the glasses, you have to let your imagination do all the work.
At least FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 isn't set at summer camp again. This time the killings occur in a cabin and barn in the woods. We meet the eight victims, who have no names, just the usual horror movie stereotypes. There are two horny ones, two chain pot-smokers, two normal ones, a fat joker with a huge afro (who is constantly faking his gory death trying to scare his friends so when he actually does walk in with his throat slit, no one cares), and the poor girl who is dragged along as the fat joker's date. As usual, only one girl (it's always one girl) is left alive by the end of the movie, and she is relentlessly stalked for the last half hour.
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 is the first one to have Jason's trademark hockey mask (in the last Friday the 13th, he had a pillowcase or gunnysack or something tied around his head to conceal his disfigured face). He gets the mask from the fat joker, who was trying to scare his date with it.
And of course they couldn't let the saga end with FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3. Too many people would commit suicide when faced with the prospect of no more "Friday the 13th" movies, so in 1984 FRIDAY THE 13TH--THE FINAL CHAPTER was rushed out. Yeah, right! And I guess FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V is THE FINAL CHAPTER: FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2. Without a doubt, THE FINAL CHAPTER is the worst "Friday the 13th" movie in the whole series. The usual innovative, creative ways of murdering teenagers are discarded in favor of the more traditional blood-and-guts. It's not entertaining gore like in the first three movies, it's just disgusting.
At the onset, Jason's body is being taken to the morgue. Of course, it doesn't stay there for long. Jason revives somehow, with his hockey mask still on and without the axe wound which chopped up the mask at the end of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3. He immediately sends a couple hospital employees to the morgue themselves, if you know what I mean, with the aid of a hacksaw and scalpel. He then goes back to the woods near ol' Crystal Lake, where a group of the horniest teenagers anyone's ever seen have moved into a rented cabin. Rest assured that most of them will be moving out real soon ... in body bags! And, when I say horny, I mean horny. What is this, a horror movie or a soft-core porn flick? My mom fast-forwarded through at least half of the movie.
Despite the appearance of three people I'd actually heard of (Crispin Glover--George McFly from BACK TO THE FUTURE; Bruce Mahler--Fackler from POLICE ACADEMY 1, 3 and 6; and future teen idol Corey Feldman. I didn't say they were famous, I just said I'd heard of them.), the movie still stank like last year's milk. And yes, Jason does die at the end of the movie--*again*, but take a look at the title of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI. Five additional sequels may clue you in to the fact that Jason and Michael Meyers (from the Halloween flicks) have drunk the same immortality potion.
As predicted, the suicide rate did go up in 1984 once movie-goers took THE FINAL CHAPTER's title literally, finding there was nothing left to live for. "If Jason dies, I die," one poor lad's suicide note read. The folks at Paramount held a conference and decided lives were too precious to let the series just end. After all, if the "Friday the 13th" dry spell had gone on any longer, the nation would have a full-scale riot on its hands. So out came FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING in 1985 and the nation began to thrive once again.
In FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V, the massacre is at a halfway house in the woods, with some teenage mental patients and troublemakers. (Is Jason ever going to get out of the woods?!) This time someone beats Jason to the first murder. A homicidal punk that happens to be chopping wood misses once and ends up hacking a poor fat kid to death with the axe. This bloody murder inspires Jason to kill the rest of the patients himself and one by one he hacks each of them into tiny bite-size pieces. As bad as these movies are, you have to admit that they've completely redefined the fine art of gore. For instance, in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V, we see someone killed by having a lit motorist flare rammed down his throat, plus Jason uses an interesting device on one kid that cracks his skull as it is tightened. What's next? Alka-Seltzer tablets on the eyeballs?
You won't believe this, but there are actually three people left alive by the end of the movie and only one is a girl. The other two are a white guy and that Dudley kid from "Diff'rent Strokes." Gary Coleman may have been in this movie too, but he's too short for me to tell. What I do know is the youth of America were glad to have their 13th movies back once again, even if it looked like the series was to take a turn for the worse after FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V. If you've seen FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V you know that it wasn't really Jason murdering in that one, but a copycat killer (someone who made copies by day and killed cats by night). And if you haven't seen FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V, your life will be destroyed by your knowledge of that immense secret before seeing the movie.
The people wouldn't stand for a Jason imposter and they let Paramount know it. 20,000 people turned out to picket on a fateful day back in 1985. The angry protesters held signs reading "Bring Jason Back" and "Ve Vant Voorhees" (a touching sentiment from a German 13th fan). Paramount decided to bring back the original Jason for FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES, which came out in 1986.
If you can hang in there through the first few scenes, you'll discover that FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI is actually a pretty entertaining movie. Tommy Jarvis, the same kid who killed Jason last time, goes to the cemetery to dig up Jason's bones just to "make sure" he's really dead. He makes sure, all right, when Jason comes back to life and murders Tommy's friend. Tommy goes to the cops with the terrible news, but--as in every single horror movie since the beginning of time--they don't believe him and lock him up.
Of course, the sheriff's beautiful daughter lets him out and the two of them go back to Camp Crystal Lake to stop the masked menace. Yes, those geniuses have opened the camp again, but they changed the name from Crystal Lake to Forest Green. This doesn't fool Jason. He hacks up the poor counselors and terrorizes the young campers, as well as taking care of a few War Game hunters (you know, the ones who go into the woods and stalk each other with paint guns). The movie's best moment comes when one of the hunters shoots Jason with the paint gun. Jason looks down at the paint splatter in amusement--then rips the guy's arm off! Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor...
In fact, the theme of this movie seems to be "Severed Body Parts" (hey, wasn't that last year's prom theme?) and that's exactly what we get. In addition to the aforementioned arm, Jason also takes off a few heads. He should really be more careful. He might hurt someone!
Everything was back on track, but none of the screen writers contracted by Paramount could think up an original idea for the seventh chapter in the "Friday the 13th" saga. So they decided to rip off Stephen King. The official subtitle of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII is THE NEW BLOOD, but we insiders like to call it JASON VS. CARRIE. The main character is a telekinetic girl named Tina who presents Jason with his greatest challenge to date. Not that anything can stop him. In FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII, he is shot, blown up and basically brutalized by the girl's levitated projectiles.
We find out Tina inadvertently caused her father's death as a young girl and has been institutionalized ever since. She's checked into a cabin near Crystal Lake for a weekend of heavy therapy with her doctor and mom. She goes down to the lake alone and focuses all her mental powers on the lake, in an attempt to raise her drowned father from the dead. She ends up reviving a well-rested Jason instead. Oops. But it was a simple mistake. After all, her father was a hockey player. And, as would be expected, no one believes her tall tales about the man in the mask.
Most of the murders in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII are just your basic routine hackings, but a few are noteworthy, even to a fine connoisseur of "Friday the 13th" movies like me. For instance, Jason attacks a woman zipped up in a sleeping bag. He picks her up, feet first, and swings the head of the bag into a tree. Ha ha ha! ... Well, I guess you just had to be there. Another one that caught my eye amid the mindless choppings was Jason ramming a sharp object (either a meat thermometer or a small lawn sprinkler) into a girl's eye. And yet another has Jason chasing a woman through the woods with a long-handled electric buzz saw with an even longer cord!
The gratuitous two-and-a-half star rating is due to Jason's showdown at the end with Tina. Even though we all know none of her mental attacks will harm Jason in the least, it's still fun to watch him get hit with the flying nails and other manifestations come-to-life.
The "Friday the 13th" producers had finally hit their stride. And for FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII they decided to film a screenplay that was original, amusing and suspenseful. But they were determined to work around those things and make a movie for the 13th fans. And in 1988 we got Jason Takes Manhattan. I never thought I'd give three stars to a "Friday the 13th" movie, much less one with so many numerals in the title, but FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII is several breaths of fresh air over the tired 13th concept of campers in the woods. Jason actually does get out of the woods this time, as he decides to go to New York for some sun, fun and axe murders--the three ingredients for a successful vacation.
Contrary to the title, most of the movie doesn't take place in New York, but on a cruise ship filled with high schoolers on a senior trip to New York, many of whom won't be returning on the trip back. Jason stows away on board, utilizing some of the luxury liner's best features. For example, he takes one of the red-hot rocks in the ship's sauna and sears an unsuspecting teen. Believe me, it looks a lot worse than it sounds.
Three of the teens (plus two teachers) manage to escape the deranged Jason and make it to New York safely on a lifeboat. Bad news: So does Jason. The Manhattan setting provides some of the best moments in the whole "Friday the 13th" series. A few examples: --Jason going nine rounds with an aspiring young boxer, who challenges him to "give me your best hit." Jason knocks the guy's head off. The decapitated head turns up later on the dashboard of a police car. Boy, and I thought fuzzy dice were tacky... --Jason kicks over a street gang's stereo. The gang's about to jump him when his raises his hockey mask, showing them what's underneath. They decide to leave him alone. --Jason riding the subway, where he completely fits in with the other New Yorkers. --Jason looks up in bewilderment as he sees a giant hockey mask on a billboard.
What I'd really love to see is a cross between JASON TAKES MANHATTAN and HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK, with Jason stalking Macaulay Culkin. Instead, four years later, the ninth and final entry in the series was released, JASON GOES TO HELL. Silly me. I actually thought Jason might be dead after that swim he took in the toxic waste at the end of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII. Nope, he's alive and well, face reconstructed and in perfect health after a rejuvenating trip to Dick Clark's plastic surgeon.
And he's somehow made it back to his old house at Crystal Lake, where he's up to his old tricks, as we see at the beginning, when a teenage girl just happens to walk in to the empty house, take off all her clothes and take a bath in the abandoned Voorhees house. They always say none of the things that happen in the "Friday the 13th" movies ever come from real-life experiences. This scene proves them wrong. As a matter of fact, I know a lot of girls that routinely bathe in abandoned houses. Of course, they've all seen Elvis and been abducted by UFO's, too.
Actually, it turns out the nude bathing girl is a plant, designed to lead Jason into the woods, where he is gunned down and blown up by the SWAT team. That's the last we see of Jason for an hour and twenty minutes. After that, we get a ridiculously contrived story-line about Jason's spirit possessing about half the people in Crystal Lake, as he attempts over and over again to kill his sister and niece. You know a horror movie's in trouble, plot-wise, when it stoops to stealing the plot from other really bad horror movies, in this case Halloween II, 4 and 5, not to mention the worked-to-death plot about being able to inhabit the form of anyone he chooses.
It's definitely not a movie for true "Friday the 13th" fans. I should know, since, after all, I'm a member of the official "Friday the 13th" Fan Club, complete with limited edition cubic zirconium hockey mask pin and the series of commemorative plates depicting the best murders in the 13th series (I particularly like to eat my meals off the one that has Jason ramming a lit motorist flare down an unfortunate teenager's throat).
Speaking of creative murders, this movie couldn't be more lacking in that category. We don't get 3-D darts (from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III) or motorist flares (featured prominently in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V), we just get routine hackings, like in THE FINAL CHAPTER, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART IV. This movie's almost as bad as THE FINAL CHAPTER, making it the second-worst movie in the 13th series. JASON GOES TO HELL is even worse than the 3-D one! Hopefully, Jason won't be coming back to life yet again for FRIDAY THE 13TH PART X. And I mean that!
After this overview of all nine Friday movies, I'm sure you statisticians are looking for something a little more practical than mere star ratings. And for you and anyone who's stuck at home on Friday night and wants to watch people being murdered on a TV screen instead of just looking out the window and watching people get killed (like I can in my neighborhood), I have put together a best-to-worst ranking for the movies. 8, 7, 1, 6, 2, 3, 5, 9, 4. If you don't give a damn about watching bad horror movies, then just use those as lucky lotto numbers.
Still others may wonder while watching the movies what criterion the writers have established for the characters, deciding who gets to be the lucky girl that survives the massacre and get the best of Jason. It's hard to say exactly, but I can certainly tell you what behaviors are sure to get you killed in a "Friday the 13th" movie. Smoking pot, drinking beer, sleeping with someone, insulting the main character, talking about how absurd it is to think Jason is still alive, ranting and raving about how Camp Crystal Lake has "a death curse," playing a practical joke on one of the other characters, taking a crap in an outhouse (FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V only), taking a shower or spying on someone skinny-dipping or taking a shower will all get you a one-way ticket to the afterlife.
When all other movies are long since forgotten, the "Friday the 13th" movies will live on. No time capsule on 20th century civilization would be complete without them. And don't you dare think the "Friday the 13th" canon is complete. In coming years you'll see FRIDAY THE 13TH PARTS X, XI and MCMLXXXVIII hit a postage-stamp-sized screen at the nearest mall quasiplex. And remember--if the calendar says it's Friday the 13th, the power just went out and there's a burly man in a hockey mask standing over you with a machete in hand, don't say I didn't warn you...
-- Movie Critic at LARGE website -- http://www.missouri.edu/~c667778/movies.html
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