Tag Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th Part 3 — What’s Playing?

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By Casey Campbell

The third film, and arguably the third most self aware of the series, was released in 3D in the late summer of 1982.

When I say “self aware” I’m referring to the fact that it doesn’t exactly take itself seriously, and the constant barrage of 3D gimmicks lends to the audience recognizing how much fun the filmmakers were having with the concept.

If you own the recent Scream Factory release of the Friday films you’ll still find this title in 3D, but only if you have a 3D TV (which I can’t imagine is very common). If you own the Paramount 8 film set, you’ll be able to watch in 3D with the help of those old fashioned red and blue lensed glasses. I own both but always opt for the 3D version with the glasses for the added silly fun of it all.

On the latest rewatch, I noticed just how engaging 3D can be. It creates a neat depth effect that honestly adds to the film more than any of the gimmicks. Whether it’s with the old crazy guy (a stand in for Crazy Ralph from the first and second films) that scares the central group of teens with an eye ball pushed toward the screen, or some idiot playing with a yo-yo, the 3D basically never feels earned and almost always makes me laugh.

In this one, a group of kids head out to the Crystal Lake area. Once there, they start dying in creative ways. Despite the generally unoriginal nature of the basic plot, this entry is interesting for how it creates memorable and unique characters out of a group of youths. And even the characters that aren’t in the central group are quirky and strange in the best way possible.

Take quirky asshole Shelly, for example, whose main goal is to piss off everyone in the group with his juvenile antics and pranks. Not only do you relish the idea of his character being taken out by Jason, you get a few dumb red herrings out of him.

Then there’s the pregnant woman, Debbie, who says out loud that she’s pregnant once and it’s never brought up again.

Or the bikers who antagonize the group of kids, only to be brutalized in a barn. Or the store owner at the beginning with a penchant for self-theft by eating his own goods.

This entry gave every character a little something and that’s why I find it so engaging and fun (along with the silly effects). Moreover, Jason gets his famous mask and cemented his place in the cultural zeitgeist. It’s a blast.

Friday the 13th Part 2 — What’s Playing?

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By Casey Campbell

Almost exactly a year after Friday the 13th made audiences afraid to go out in the woods to drink, do drugs, and have sex, Part 2 emerged with a new killer and a fresh legacy to explore.

It’s almost impossible to deal in absolutes when discussing the Friday the 13th series. While each entry contains the same very basic elements and, to some lesser extent, the same atmosphere, everyone is particularly partial to certain entries (hence the deluge of rankings online). What I’ve gathered from the Friday community online is that Part 2, 4, and 6 are some of the very best, and I think I mostly agree.

Part 2 opens with Friday the 13th final girl Alice (Adrienne King) attempting to live her life following the events on Crystal Lake. The cold open hints at a lurking presence, dutifully recreating the same kind of scene from the first film, only with a character you not only know and like, but rooted for. And, like the previous entry, the stalking figure kills the young character. In true sequel fashion, however, the kill is preempted and even punctuated by the reveal of Mrs. Voorhees decaying head in Alice’s fridge. Why is it there? Why would the killer—eh, it’s Jason, obviously—take the head with him and put it in her fridge? Who cares! It’s a great image, and leaves a lasting impression and mood for the rest of the movie.

After the explosive opening credits, we’re introduced to the new campers. It’s been five years since the Crystal Lake murders, Alice has been found dead, and the whole thing seems to be more of a ghost story than a local tragedy.

I don’t want to say that the sequels do things better than the first installment, but they take the initial idea and explore certain ideas in more engaging ways, with a huge caveat. Mrs. Voorhees makes much more sense than Jason. Sure, the idea of Jason witnessing his mothers death thus sending him into a confused rage with little understanding of his actions is actually interesting. But it’s not actually canonical to the series, and I hate that I just typed that nerd shit out but it’s true. After hearing a story about Jason at the campfire, fated final girl Ginny (one of, if not my favorite final girl of the series, played by Amy Steel) is the one that uses her background studying child psychiatry to assume Jason’s motives. If he was real, that is. Because at that point in the story, they don’t think the little drowned boy was even alive, let alone watching as his mother got decapitated.

It’s one of those things that I want to say “Oh well!” too, like the head in the fridge, but the head fridge isn’t a constant throughout 10 more films. But, I digress. Jason isn’t a part of this movie to complain about. In fact, he’s at his scariest.

It’s shown that Jason had a facial disfigurement in the flashback sequence from the previous film. You know what’s expensive? Make up. You know what isn’t? A sack. And yet the sack is so much more effective.

Jason wears a sack on his head in Part 2, and acquires the famous hockey mask in Part 3. The sack is a great look for Jason. It’s creepy, with only one eye hole, and he’s dressed a bit like a disgruntled farmer in a dirty flannel and overalls. He’s even shown to be residing in a dilapidated shanty out in the middle of the Crystal Lake woods.

Part 2 is an awesome entry in the early days of the fledgling series. It employs a crop of fun and naive youths to be dispatched by a fresh new villain in the form of Jason Voorhees and does so with aplomb.

Friday the 13th (1980) — What’s Playing?

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By Casey Campbell

I’ve been a fan of the Friday the 13th series for about two years now, yet I’ve watched each of the films many times in that short period. There’s something remarkably comfortable about these movies, with their summer settings and reliable structures. They aren’t exactly scary and the MPAA notoriously butchered them in the editing room but, like I said last summer in my review of The Final Chapter, the Friday the 13th movies are like a warm blanket for me. That being said, I’m going to try to dive into each entry over the course of the summer.

I really dig this entry, but I don’t think I have much to say on it in particular. It has great effects from the even greater Tom Savini, a nice whodunnit mystery culminating in one of the most famous conclusions in slasher history (maybe a little less notorious then Sleepaway Camp but still) and, possibly most important, it kicked off a hell of a series. But why do I love the series as a whole?

In terms of my enjoyment of each individual film, it comes down to a few simple things: atmosphere, “characters,” and what I deem humorous. The first four movies are fairly contained as a quartet of simple slashers in the same location with the same kinds of characters and a slew of tropes. It’s always summertime, which makes these movies a must watch in the summer, and the camp scenes feel honest in their depiction of young adults hanging out by the lake. The fact that the actors seem to be having fun lends to the atmosphere. The characters themselves always leave a lot to be desired, as well as the acting (minus Betsy Palmer as Mrs. Voorhees, because her performance is seriously fantastic) , but that’s part of why the deaths work for me. On one hand, the deaths mean more if you care about a well rounded and dimensional character, but these movies never seem to be serious in their scares. That is undoubtedly a personal view of mine that comes with a dose of ignorance. I wasn’t alive when ten of the twelve films came out, meaning my perspective is one of hindsight as opposed to in the moment.

Either way, I’m glad the characters in the first four movies are given at least something that makes them unique in the world of the film. I would argue that the films following the 1980 original offer more meat to the characters, making them memorable, and in some cases tragic, when they eventually get killed off. I don’t remember character names in the first film like I do Tommy Jarvis, Demon from Part V, or “Dead Fuck” Jimmy from The Final Chapter.

For humor, the first four are the stand outs for being more “serious.” They’re low brow slashers made quick for profit, but they still stayed away from outright humor more so than A New Beginning (“Them damn enchiladas!”) and especially the tongue-in-cheek Jason Lives. Yet, they still have a quirky nature that makes them much less doom and gloom and more quick thrill silly slasher. Crispin Glover dancing in The Final Chapter is something I’ll never forget.

Paramount wanted to move away from the series with the fourth movie, hence the false title of The Final Chapter, but it made too much money so they returned to the series and pumped out four more in that decade alone. The 90s saw Jason return for an opening scene before being blown up, which is a pretty swift metaphor for how out of place and widely hated that movie is. The best part is the closing tease for Freddy vs. Jason which wouldn’t see the light of day for another decade.

We’ll get to those though. It’s really wonky how such a simple series was able to blossom into an ugly flower that people, either surprisingly or unsurprisingly, return to with vigor. Let’s hope that shitty lawsuit can get settled so Jason can come back some point this millennia.

Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter—What’s Playing?

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By Casey Campbell

The fourth iteration of the, in my humble opinion, incredible first half of the Friday the 13th series is the best of the bunch, as well as a delightful opening to my “Favorites Week.” This series is rife with unoriginality and samples of the past, but it’s still a warm blanket to me. I love this series, even the shittiest entries (like when Jason was in New York for about fifteen minutes, or when he killed folks in space) are an absolute delight. Of the bunch, twelve in total, the fourth entry has to be my favorite.

This is the one where Jason reanimates to kill a slew of teens living next to Tommy Jarvis’s family.

Not only does this entry reintroduce the brutally beautiful make-up work of Tom Savini, who was last seen impaling Kevin Bacon through the neck in the original Friday the 13th, but it inadvertently creates a new lasting character in the series in Tommy Jarvis.

The third entry is a blast because of the 3-D visuals and all their excessive glorified gore, but also for how it expanded the mythos of Jason. It’s the one where Jason ditches the potato sack for his now famous hockey mask.

The fourth entry surpasses the second and third in my book because of how well it utilizes the previous films. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the original Friday movie, finding it fairly slow and boring. Sure, it has some great kills, hence my Kevin Bacon ref earlier, but it’s not nearly as entertaining as the next few. Friday part II is great, with great kills throughout (the wheelchair dude getting machete’d in the head and rolling down those excessively large stairs is a major contributor), but it lacks the memorable characters that you can directly name. Then there was the 3-D one, which put the effects before the story. It’s still fun, obviously, but not as great as the fourth.

Friday the 13th Part IV is great because of how it uses the strengths of past movies and creates the best possible Friday movie yet—which would remain the best one for over twenty years and counting.

I find it so surprising how these movies really do require a knowledge of the previous films to get a better and more enjoyable understanding. They’re probably the furthest thing from high art, yet they’re improved by the sequential ramping up of the story throughout the films. Ugh, these movies are bizarre. I see right through them, understand their various inherent flaws, and yet continue to go back to them. They’re fun, despite offering basically the same formula over and over again. Maybe that’s what I like about them after all, the familiar comfort.

I think this one is my favorite for how memorable it is despite the familiarity. It’s tough to forget Crispin Glover’s incredible dance, or the twins, or how Jason was finally taken out in the end by a bald Corey Feldman. Feldman’s character Tommy Jarvis would be brought back a few more times to differing results in future sequels. Other than Jason and his mother, who is only really mentioned after the first film, Jarvis is the only semi-consistent character in the bunch. And, he’s the first one to actually kill Jason.

These movies make me happy. They’re dumb fun, and the central idea never seems to get old. I’m pretty sure most of these movies are available on Amazon Prime, so you should rewatch them, or watch them for the first time if this rambling mess of a review piques your interest.