Friday The 13th

I'm going to review this franchise starting with the 2009 remake as I have little to no recollection having seen it and then I'll go through the main series, from part 1 to 10.

Friday the 13th (2009), the best way to describe the opening to this movie is that its like a bands greatest hits album, but a really good one. The first act is a run through of the most famous moments from parts one to three. We get to see the beheading of Jason's mother, his first kills at camp crystal lake when he's wearing the burlap sack and then we see him trade it in for the iconic hockey mask.

It's strange that this film belongs to the same collection of platinum dunes remakes, as they are all either passable (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) or down right soulless and awful (A Nightmare On Elm Street) , you can tell this film was made by people who love the series and understood the assignment given to them. 

This is also quite possible the most threatening Jason has ever been in a movie, unlike the other films here he is shown as a skilled, intelligent and efficient hunter and survivor. The filmmakers sought to explain how he traverses great distances at the camp and knows where to be at the right time, through having an underground system of bells that are linked to tripwires above ground which help him to indicate the precise location of his victims.

The way Jason is shot in the film and the ominous lighting used on him is excellent, he looks utterly terrifying. They did really well expanding the lore here without compromising what works about the character, in fact its the scariest iteration of Jason that I've ever seen.

The only negative I have to say about the remake is that one of the would be victims is such an intolerable arsehole that we are just waiting to see him die through the whole movie. Other than that the cast are pretty good, even Jared Padalecki from Supernatural who is usually the most boring and wooden man on earth is surprisingly decent as the main protagonist. 

All in all I am very surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie and how much it respected the franchise and even completely improved upon the earlier films, it's exactly what a remake should be.

Friday The 13th part 1 is an extremely frustrating film. It should have been a forty minute short but as the filmmakers wanted to make a full feature length movie it is extended by unnecessary meandering pointless scenes included solely to fill out the runtime.

I understand the franchises place in horror cinema but up until the last twenty minutes where the overall quality ranges from pretty good to excellent, it is tediously slow and a chore to sit through.

We spend the vast majority of the movie watching the camp counsellors walk around aimlessly, go swimming, fix a broken generator and play strip monopoly. Their characters are indistinguishable from one another and none of these scenes serve to move the plot forward at all. Oh and occasionally there is the odd brief kill to break up the pointlessness that is ninety percent of this movie. 

Now you may think, maybe this is due to the film being dated, well, you're plain wrong in was made in 1980, many low budget horror films from even before that time did not have these issues, 
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the best horror films of all time and it was as low budget as you could get.

I believe these issues were all as present when the film came out as they are now. Now with that out of the way, I don't want to completely shit on this film because as soon as Betsy Palmer is revealed as Pamala Vorhees and we go into Jason's backstory and the film actually begins moving, it's quite good.

The ending is fantastic, when the psycho-esque score of stabbing violins fades into a rising orchestral crescendo as final girl Alice drifts away in a canoe on the cold still waters of camp crystal lake having survived the ordeal, it is a beautifully shot, serene and put together scene. And the final jump scare is an unquestionably iconic moment in horror history.

I really wish I had more good to say about this movie other than that but the truth is even as good as those moments are they don't save the film, they only set up the beginnings of a unique lore that will be expanded upon and polished in future instalments.

Friday The 13th Part 2 is a much better film than the original, the pacing has greatly improved the time around, the camp counsellors while still disposable are more interesting, have a better group dynamic and I found myself caring about one or two of them.

I think the filmmakers were fully aware of all the flaws in the first movie, I believe it's even purposefully referenced in a line of dialogue when one of the group is recounting the story of Jason's death as one counsellor says to the other that "the second act needs a little work", which is precisely where things go terribly wrong in the first film. 

One thing I've noticed about this series is that these early entries are really not as original as they're made out to be bar the central storyline, Jason in this film is dressed identically to the killer in the 1972 slasher The Town That Dreaded Sundown, with the burlap sack that covers his face. The films score is essentially the score from psycho with a few alterations and the POV shots are taken directly from John Carpenter's Halloween. 

But the film itself is really not bad at all, it's like its director Steve Miner took the last twenty minutes of the original and realised it was the only thing that worked about the film and made it the entire movie. 

Amy Steel as Ginny is also a better lead than Adrienne King's Alice in the original, she's given one moment in particular that easily cements her place in the final girls hall of fame. Overall while you can tell that the series is still in its infancy the kinks are being ironed out to make way for Jason Vorhees to become the horror icon he is known as today.

Friday The 13th Part 3 is another disappointing entry in the series, as I mentioned with the first film, I know I'm bored when I start writing the review for the movie before its even finished. I'm struggling to make it through the early films in this franchise, for the most part they're just not at all that good. 

The most standout thing about this film is that it is responsible for Jason wearing his iconic hockey mask but other than that it is a generic and flat out boring slasher film that clings to the same formula as the previous two without bothering to add anything new. The only new idea it has it hints at only briefly and then does nothing with it. You're led to believe that there will be a secondary antagonist in the form of a group of hotheaded bikers that the teens have a run in with but they are quickly dispatched before anything worthwhile is done with them.

Richard Brooker, the actor playing Jason in this film is awful, Jason is sluggish, slow and frankly appears to be bored the whole time. There is nothing remotely intimidating about him whatsoever. It's a completely lifeless performance. He is bested more times by the teens than Ghostface falls over in the Scream series. While that works with Ghostface it makes the "hulking monster" that Jason is meant to be look weak and impotent. 

The last five minutes are somewhat enjoyable, 
but that's probably because it was drawing to an end.

Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter Is definitely an upgrade from the third film, it's more or less on par with the second. It clearly has a higher budget than any of the previous entries and although Jason is used sparingly he is finally the complete version of the character that's associated with the series.

The cast for the disposable teens this time around is the most eccentric of all the first four films, featuring most significantly Crispin Glover and a very young Cory Feldman. Crispin Glover is essentially playing George McFly from Back To The Future which makes the movie instantly a little more watchable. It follows the same formula as before but has a slightly different twist, being that Jason is now an unkillable monster.

There is no reason given for this decision, he simply has come back from the dead after being done away with at the end of the third movie, but who needs reasons when you have a franchise to build. After all Freddy Kreuger was resurrected by a dog pissing fire on his grave, by the fourth film in a slasher series it's a general rule that logic and reasoning no longer apply.

There is one aspect that stood out about this movie and it was a highlight of part two, the only other decent entry in the series so far, when the protagonists use Jason's trauma against him to get the upper hand and go in for the kill. It's a trait that sets him apart from Michael Myers, no matter how invincible Jason is, at his core he is a wounded child trying to right the wrongs of his past in the most violent and horrific way possible, he has a vulnerability to him that can be exploited. 

Overall it's a perfectly ok film, it's nothing special but it's not terrible.

Friday The 13th: A New Beginning is hilarious and every character in this film is so ever the top. 

The basic outline of the story is that our main survivor from the last film Tommy is now in a halfway house for young offenders, except it's not really a halfway house, more of an extremely relaxed camp for eccentric nutcases. I actually really enjoyed this movie, it's seen by many fans as among the worst in the franchise and it definitely is but because its so damn stupid I had so much fun with it. 

From the over the top rednecks to Tommy putting a guy in a suplex and throwing him through a sink because he startled him, to the stereotypical 80's new wave girl being killed while dancing the robot in her room, to a patient being brutally butchered by another because he offers him a chocolate bar when he's busy chopping wood, it's damn stupid fun. 

Its a film that is so bad that Jason didn't even want to be in it, 
no I'm not kidding, Jason Vorhees isn't even in this film.
I'll tell you the ending because lets face it you're not watching this anytime soon, the villain is a copycat killer who has taken up the mantle because he's the father of the boy who was murdered when he tried to give the angry lumberjack a chocolate.  

Overall its the stupidest one so far but it works because of how bloody stupid it is.

Friday the 13th part 6: Jason Lives. You can tell this film was made as a response to how awful part five is, it's a true sequel to the fourth film, you could literally skip the fifth entry and go straight from part four to Jason lives and it wouldn't make a difference, in fact it tells a much more cohesive story that way. 

This time around the film opens with Tommy heading to Jason's grave to incinerate his body as he cannot rest for the fear that one day Jason might return. While there Jason is resurrected by ..lighting, why? I don't know, magic lightning?, it's never explained and it doesn't need to be. Now Jason's back from the dead again and ready to go on a rampage. Now Tommy must team up with the sheriff's daughter to find him and stop him for good.

A big gripe of mine with the others films is that the kills are all boring and that's a pretty big problem for a slasher movie. But here they're pretty good, the movie all around appears to have a higher budget than any of the previous four entries.

The story is more interesting and its two leads have really good chemistry together, Tommy's story is done complete justice and the movie retains the right amount of quirky-ness from its side characters while treating Jason like the imposing threat that he is. 

Overall I have no real complaints, 
they really did Jason justice in this movie.

Friday The 13th: The New Blood is ridiculous, its like with each new movie the writers sit around a table with a bunch of cocaine and decide whoever comes up with the most nonsensical way of bringing Jason back from the dead wins. This time around Jason is resurrected accidentally by a psychic who is grieving the loss of her father who she killed by mistake as a child and for some reason because he drowned in the same lake as Jason when she tries to bring him back Jason is brought back instead. 

HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE!. 

Half the film is like a lifetime version of Carrie the other half is another below average Friday the 13th movie. The film overall is at its best when its leaning into its stupid excuse for a plot, the characters aren't as over the top as I'd like, which the film really needs because of how silly its premise is, its mildly entertaining but that's only because the plot is so laughable but it doesn't quite hit that spot of being so bad that its good. 

The most notable thing about this film by far is that its the first entry to feature Kane Hodder as Jason who will go on to be what to many is the definitive version of the character and he is good in it but he definitely did deserve a better movie to make his debut. 

Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is so much fun, I have no idea why nearly all fans of this franchise dislike this movie, I enjoyed the hell out of it. It knows exactly what it is and gives you everything you'd want from Jason being in a New York setting. 

A lot of people complained because half of the film is Jason chasing the teens on a ship and I was even led to believe by other people's descriptions that very little of it actually takes place in the big apple, that's really not the case. What you get is an hour of what is basically Friday the 13th: Cruise Control and then they arrive in Manhattan for the last forty minutes. They fully deliver on the premise. It's 80's cheese as its best. 

I don't know why but everything about it worked for me. As silly as it is the film actually has a really strong atmosphere, whether its Jason lit up by the glow of lightning during a storm on the deck of the boat or him stalking through fog filled New York alleyways. 

This film basically started a trend of putting slasher villains in different scenarios which always ended up in space for some reason. Overall its one of my favourites of the whole franchise.

Jason Goes To Hell is terrible, among its worst offences are that it makes the same mistake as part 5 with Jason hardly being on screen and while it surpasses the absurdity of that film it is nowhere near as fun to watch, it's a real slog to get through.

Friday the 13th films do not work without Jason Vorhees being present on screen, Jason is killed at the beginning of the film and brought back in yet another hilarious “lets see how we can resurrect Jason” scenario, this time for some reason the mortician working on his body eats his heart and becomes possessed by his spirit.

Now Jason is jumping from person to person possessing them and forcing them to kill in his place and he’s shown only in brief glimpses when they look in the mirror.

The writers decide invent new lore out of nowhere and make not even the slightest effort to make it make any sense, apparently now Jason can only be killed by someone in his bloodline, trouble is he also can be reborn by possessing the body of one of his family members. Why? I don’t know and neither does the writer of this movie.

The one thing this film has going for it though is that it was setting up a Freddy Vs Jason vs Ash movie with both the necronomicon making an appearance and Freddy’s Glove coming out of the ground to claim Jasons soul at the end.

The whole movie treats Jason as if he is a deadite, and although it could potentially make sense for Jason to be a deadite, the events that set up the first Friday the 13th could very well have occurred at the same time that Ash first read from the book, leaving Jason’s drowning body open to being possessed by a Kandarian demon, who's to say that the cabin in Evil Dead isn't near camp crystal lake.

If there was a Freddy Vs Jason Vs Ash film that wouldn't be a bad idea but here its as if this move exists in an entirely different universe from the other films as there is no justification to make that significant of a change to Jason's character

The biggest problem with this film though is that it is flat out boring, I’d already lost interest in it before it was even close to being over no matter how stupid it got.

Overall its the worst entry in the series and is a complete and total abomination.