I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular but.. oh my God, how the hell could they just keep on making these movies?! Seriously, if you think bombing the mountains aimlessly in Afghanistan is a waste of money then this series will blow your mind.
So prepare some hard liquor and join me as I watch this movie franchise that makes less sense than a Twin Peaks dream sequence – although having made that reference now I wish they had included the dancing dwarf and the finger snapping mystery music to make things less boring.
The following text beyond this point will contain spoilers.
Friday the 13thSomething that I actually like with this series, although completely unintentional, is how you can give a straight answer to the question “can you tell me which movies are good in a chronological order?”. The answer to that question is that out of the 10 original Friday the 13th movies each movie beyond the first one gets gradually worse with the 10th movie really not giving a shit anymore.
But it is interesting to make the journey and watch this degradation because the first movie which created this series is actually an “OK” movie. The setting for the movie is Camp Crystal lake, a summer camp for kids where some boy name Jason Voorhees drowned a few years ago because the camp counselors were a bunch of horny teenagers busy getting it on rather than watching the kids.
So a couple of years into the future from that accident someone is stalking and brutally murdering the new camp counselors (Kevin Bacon being one) at Camp Crystal lake. The story builds up this belief that it is Jason, having come back from the dead, doing these murders. Soon everyone but one girls is dead, and as she is making her escape she bumps into mrs Voorhees which soon after turns out to be the actual killer. Mrs Voorhees extracting her demented vengeance upon the promiscuous teenagers for allowing her son to drown. The movie ends with the leading girl managing to behead mrs Voorhees in a final battle and wakes up unconscious in a canoe in the middle of the lake. Watching the cops and ambulance personnel arrive from the canoe she is suddenly jumped by a half rotten corpse that drags her overboard and into the lake.
So the movie was OK and had an interesting twist twice over with Mrs Voorhees being the murderer and the weirdo corpse which I guess we are led to believe was Jason Voorhees himself. Though the last couple of seconds were pointless I have no doubt that those last seconds were also the reason for the sequel.
Friday the 13th part 2Already this movie will get on your nerves. It opens up with the leading girl from the first movie – being well and wandering about in her apartment for what seems forever in a sequence that is somewhere about 12 minutes long. Consider that all of these movies barely reach 90 minutes running time you realize that you are fed filler material from the very beginning. And all these long scene do is to show that the main character did not die at the end of the previous movie – just so she can be killed by a new mystery killer at the relative beginning of the sequel and we will never hear about her again. We are then introduced to new main characters that are instantly obnoxious making you wish they were dead already.
Then the movie explains that the camp had been closed for a few years since the last murders but is now going to reopen and the new camp counselors gather at Camp Crystal lake to learn about a bunch of stuff they need to know once the kids arrive. Having wasted 12 minutes at the beginning the movie wastes no time in showing us all the important assess (literally) so that we are fully emotionally invested with these teenagers. Once the murders start the explanation is that “Jason saw his mother being killed in the last movie and is now after revenge”.
Seriously? And the idea that Jason did not drown but survived and lived as a deformed hermit in the middle of the woods in a shack for 20+ years obviously not having any contact with his deranged mother but somehow knowing who she was and watching her as she committed murders and then being killed herself…..? Anyways, after Jason thankfully kills every last one of those morons that made the redshirt-cast we are left with the two least unlikable characters and those are the elder counselors. These two face off against Jason and manage to kill him, yet they don’t, then they flee, and the last scene is them standing inside a house and we get a similar ending as the first movie. Though this time adult Jason jumps through a window and grabs the girl – who then through the magic of dissolve cut ends up on a ambulance stretcher outside of the house in broad daylight. Cops and ambulance personnel everywhere.
There is only one solution for a WTF ending like that. Sequel!
Friday the 13th part 3Wasting no time to waste time the movie opens up with a summary of the previous two movies and a title sequence that lasts 7.5 minutes. Following that we spend 7.5 minutes following two hicks in another sequence of no consequence. After 15 minutes we are finally introduced to our machete fodder. Another set of young adults travelling in a Scooby doo van make their way to a house in the woods which becomes the new main set. Jason returns, now wielding the machete that “almost” killed him in the last movie he makes his way to a barn where he sets up residence, and after killing a few bikers he goes restless and checks out what else he can kill in the immediate vicinity. He finds a hockey mask which he dons, because why not, and then stumbles upon the house where the main cast is living. To tell the truth they are not as retarded and obnoxious as the cast of the previous movie but you don’t really give a shit about any of t hem one way or the other. The movie still feels the need to show you some tits and ass to keep you awake for a few more minutes I guess.
So guess what happens at the end? Female lead chops Jason in the head with an axe, goes out on a canoe, wakes up, sees Jason alive and running towards here with a rapeface and she is then jumped by a female rotting corpse that comes out of the water and drag her over board followed by a scene where the police finds her stating “she is the only one alive” and drive off with her to the loony bin as she screams. I shit you not.
There are just a couple of things that really make no sense here, the last scene with Jason he ran at her without the mask – in the end scene he lays with the axe to his head and his mask on in the barn. His mother who I can only presume is the female corpse appearing out of the water had her head chopped off two movies ago and still was a loose head in the 2nd movie.
So many loose ends, there is only one thing to do about that…. Sequel!
Friday the 13th part 4 ”The final chapter”The final chapter?.... I wish.
So the movie starts in the usual way – though the movie makers probably realized no one gives a shit about the people getting killed and made the ”sum up montage” much shorter this time around. Bless their hearts.
So we jump right in at… what should have been the ending of the 3rd movie. The girl who survived was taken away by a police patrol in the broad daylight – the 4th movie opens up with Police helicopters and search party at the barn where Jason’s body was left for several hours I guess? Jason’s body is taken to the nearest hospital and placed in the morgue. Jason wakes up and murders the horny staff members before he somehow unnoticed leaves the place, leaving a trail of bodies behind him.
Then the movie cuts to establish the new main characters and surprises us with both a young Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover? I’m already much more invested in these characters than all the characters in the sequels together and they have not done anything but appearing on screen. Corey Feldmans character “Tommy” lives with his mom and older sister in one house and the teenage group of which Crispin Glover is part of arrives to set up residence in the neighbor house. Tommy and his older sister go for a ride with their car when it breaks down in the middle of the forest; somehow the movie then wants us to believe that Tommy is a boy genius when it comes to car repair even though he is probably 8 years old. A hiker finds them, and helps them repair their car. Then informs them that he is out to hunt Jason who has escaped and whom he believes is making his way back to Camp Crystal lake. Tommy shows hiker his latex monster mask collection which he apparently made himself, this is located in his bedroom which itself looks like the WETA workshop at the peak of shooting the LoTR trilogy. All this effort is put into this kid being a makup artist and monster mask maker just so that the ending can make any sense. After a LONG while Jason finally arrives and saves us from more meaningless teen angst but unfortunately killing Crispin Glover.
In the final showdown we get Tommy, his sister and the hiker all battling Jason. The hiker is killed leaving the two kids to fend for themselves. Tommy shaves his head and applies theater makeup to somehow mesmerize Jason for a moment with his stupid looks – long enough for Tommy to grab a machete and thrust it into Jason’s skull. The sister faints then wakes up at the hospital. She finds out that her brother is OK, they both survive, Jason is dead, no one appears to jump anyone out of anything – THE END.
Honestly, this movie is the best out of the 3 sequels and they should have just stopped here. But fuck that- let’s make a sequel!
Friday the 13th part 5The movie opens up with a dream sequence where Corey Feldman’s character “Tommy” still played by Feldman witnesses how two hillbillies dig up Jason’s grave to desecrate it but then Jason’s corpse comes alive killing them both and turning to Feldman who wakes up and the adult character is travelling with some mental hospital staff taking him to a resort near Camp Crystal lake where alternative treatment of young people with mental problems is taking place. The comic relief in this movie comes from two hillbillies making threats with the Police against the resort because they dislike the young patients walking around and fornicating on their land.
As repulsive as these two are I cannot blame them for their state of mind. So we soon witness that the alternative treatment, that is letting the patients walk around and do as they please, may not be the brightest idea as one homicidal patient kills the annoying fat kid with chocolate smeared around his mouth. Yeah whatever movie, don’t let the plot get in the way of your obvious need of filler scenes.
Following that Jason cleans up the surroundings from completely unnecessary "characters", often composed of two scenes – one introducing the victims and 1 minute later another scene with the victim getting killed. Somehow this is meant to be important, but as these people aren’t even part of the main cast I really don’t care at all. I think it boils down to these movies having a running time of 90 minutes when obviously each and every movie could be cut down to 45 minutes, which would make a half decent TV series featuring Jason .
Movie ends with the usual showdown, though they increase the number of survivors to 3 this time around. Tommy , a female and a kid. They manage to kill Jason again, only that this time it seems to have been an imposter/copycat. Tommy wakes up in the hospital finds Jason’s hockey mask in his room and goes nuts. The female survivor walks into his room only to find the hospital window smashed, the doors closes behind her and Tommy (?) is now dressed in the hockey mask and also dressed in a patient gown with a knife in his hand ready to stab her back. “Dam dam daaaaam”.
Yeah the ending makes no sense once again. But I’m sure they will get it right – in the sequel!
Friday the 13th part 6 Well once again Tommy is the main character here, now a few years later judging by the new actors age and looks, Tommy and his friend make their way through the night to find Jason’s grave and make sure he is really dead. Which once again causes lots of confusion. First of all, in the 4th movie we saw that Jason existed, in the 5th he still lived and killed people. At the end of the 5th movie an imposter was killed wearing the Jason hockey mask. Tommy found the hockey mask in his room and we were supposed to believe that Tommy due to his delusions and mental strain was the killer all along. Now in this movie, somehow the real Jason was supposed to have died? Eh.. better not to think too much about it else your head will start to hurt.
So anyway, the two idiots find Jason’s grave dig it up, impale the awfully decayed body with a piece of the metal fence surrounding the cemetery. And guess what, the storm gets more intense and a bolt of lightning strikes the metal rod impaling Jason’s chest – animating him Frankenstein style. Jason kills Tommy’s friend, Tommy runs away but as he tells his story to the Police off screen he is then thrown in jail because no one believes his drivel.
Tommy tries to convince the Police that Jason lives and is taken to the cemetery where the grave has been filled up and Tommy is taken away by the Police once again. Cut to the people who will get killed in this movie, first a couple thrown in to show that Jason still has what it takes. And then a scene to establish the new main cast. Tommy receives help to escape and track down Jason once again. Jason has made his way back home to Camp Crystal lake again but Tommy manages to place a snare around Jason’s neck and sinks him into the lake with a large boulder. Leaving us with Jason drowned at the bottom of the lake and everyone is happy this series has finally come to an end. Or has it? Of course it hasn’t!
Check in again tomorrow to read about the awfullness of part 7-10, the 2009 "Friday 13th" and Freddy vs Jason.
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