Franchises: Friday the 13th. Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982)

Friday the 13th Part 3 begins with a recap of the climactic scene of Part 2, with Jason cornering Ginny in his shack and just about to kill her when Paul rushes in and rescues her. The new footage then begins after Paul and Ginny limp away from the shack; we see Jason pull the machete out of his shoulder and crawl away, leaving the sack that was on his head behind. That's when we get the zoom-in on the severed, decayed head of Mrs. Voorhees and then, we're hit with a funky, disco theme as the title and credits come at us in 3-D in bright-red colors and it's a whopper of an effect, setting the stage for what I think is one of the most enjoyable movies in the franchise. I feel that this is the quintessential Friday the 13th movie and a perfect one with which to introduce a newcomer to the series since I feel you don't have to seen the previous movies to enjoy it (although that's kind of the case for the majority of the movies as well). Not only does it work as a great example of the slasher subgenre but it also works in a nice little niche of its own. It has all the right ingredients: some likable, if not well acted, characters, a big body count, great kills, and, of course, Jason's transformation into an icon with the acquisition of the hockey mask. Most significantly, I feel that this is the entry where the series finds itself, firmly establishing its identity as well as the formula that would stick to throughout most of its duration.

After the events of Part 2, Jason retreats before the police arrive and comb the camp, promptly killing a couple who run a nearby grocery store as well as stealing some new clothes from their clothesline. The next day, a group of friends head up to a small farm property by the lake for a weekend of fun in the sun... and sex, of course. But unfortunately for them, Jason is hiding on the property and proceeds to kill each of them, along with a trio of bikers, one by one.

I really like the setting for this particular film. Even though it still takes place at Crystal Lake, the main house is a cozy cabin rather than a camp, allowing for a nice change of pace. I think the reason I like it so much is because my family owns a property very similar to it and, since I never went to summer camp, I'm able to relate to that more. Plus, instead of being would-be camp counselors in training, the characters here are just friends heading up there for a good time and I feel that makes what happens to them more unnerving. Just put yourself in this situation: you're going somewhere with your friends for a nice weekend, unaware that some psychopath is lurking nearby and ready to kill all you for no reason other than he knows you exist. That's a little more palpable of a situation for me personally.

Even though the acting in this one is pretty bad, I actually like the characters here quite a bit. Our lead this time is Chris Higgins, played by Dana Kimmell, who used to live on the property that serves as the setting until something horrific happened to her. She was attacked by a hideous man when she ran into the woods after having a fight with her parents, and I don't think it's any surprise that the man that attacked her turns out to have been Jason. I actually like this because she's the first person in the series since Mrs. Voorhees to actually have some sort of connection with Jason. She's never forgotten that horrible experience and now her worst fear has come true: the man who attacked her has returned. However, it could have been pulled off much more effectively if not for one problem: Dana Kimmell can't act for the love of crap. It's not bad to the point that it's unwatchable but still, her voice and the way she delivers her lines feels so awkward and unrealistic. The part that really makes me cringe is the scene where she tells her boyfriend Rick about her encounter with Jason. She tries, bless her heart, but she's just not good. Not only that but, during a moment when she's running scared, she tries to sound like she's crying but instead sounds more like she's laughing and even looks like she's smiling. Mrs. Kimmell, I love your character, but you're just not a very good actor.

Playing Rick, Chris' boyfriend, is Paul Kratka. Not much to say about this character. He does come off as a nice guy and there actually is some backstory between him and Chris: he hasn't seen her for a long time and now that she's finally back with him, she's distant towards him and, even though he understands that something's bothering, it's still rather frustrating for him. It's not often that you get any kind backstory between a couple in a Friday the 13th movie other than they want to bone each other, so I have to give them credit for that, but, as it is with Kimmell, Kratka's problem is that he's not a good actor. Again, he's not terrible, but you don't have to be an acting teacher to know his performance is pretty bad.

Our horny couple for this film is Andy and Debbie, played by Jeffrey Rogers and Tracie Savage. In fact, Debbie is actually pregnant, making her death as un-PC as Mark's death in Part 2. In addition, Andy's death has to be one of the most painful one ever in the series. (We'll get to that in a minute.) But acting wise, neither of them are that good. Rogers in particular is one-dimensional and Savage is really hot but there's not much else to her. There's literally nothing to Catherine Parks' role of Vera, the girl who's set up with the practical joker, Shelly. All we get is that she clearly doesn't like Shelly but can't bring herself to actually tell him. Another interesting couple is Chuck and Chili, played by David Katims and Rachel Howard. They're like a stoner, hippie couple left over from the 60's given how they dress and the fact that all they do is smoke dope. Not only that but they seem older than the other actors, like they're into their 30's or so. (For some reason, the first couple of times I watched this movie, I initially thought they were Shelly's parents. Yeah, I'm kind of stupid.) Katims is okay but Howard is unbelievably bad. Watch how she acts after discovering everybody's dead bodies right before her own death. Even for a slasher movie, her acting there is unforgivable!

The most memorable character in the film is Shelly, the prankster played by Larry Zerner. He's always scaring people and pulling horror movie-type tricks on them. It's not something he does out of malice, though; he just thinks it's fun. However everybody else can't stand him because of it. Vera, his proposed date, especially hates his guts and Shelly knows she does, but he tries his best to impress her; nfortunately, he goes about it in the worst way possible and makes her dislike even more. Shelly is also an important character in the whole of the series because he's the one who brings the hockey mask that Jason ultimately makes his trademark look. Now, it could be argued whether or not that particular hockey mask lasts past the fourth movie but at least Shelly probably gave Jason the inspiration to make it his go-to mask.

There are also three biker punks whose only purpose in the film is to act like major dicks to the main characters as well as serve as more cannon fodder: Fox, (Gloria Charles, who looks even better now than she did back then!), her boyfriend Ali (Nick Savage), and Loco (Kevin O'Brien). The minute they show up in the supermarket, they come across as complete assholes who just love harassing people and go as far as to try to burn down the barn after Shelly manages to get back at them for doing so to him and Vera. That's what ultimately leads to their demise. Ali actually proves to be pretty damn tough since he survives a serious beating that Jason gives him and shows up near the end of the film, although he ultimately gets killed in a particularly gruesome way when he tries to fight him again.

One last group of characters I have to mention are Harold and Edna (Steve Susskind and Cheri Maugans), the couple who own a grocery store and serve as Jason's first victims in this movie. Harold is one of the most disgusting characters ever. He owns a store and yet, he has no problem going through all of the food, eating and drinking some of it, then putting it back. He even goes so far as to eat fish-food and then spit it out when he makes the mistake of reading the ingredients on the back! The worst part is after he gets scared by a snake in his rabbits' pen and he has to run to the bathroom because not only do we see him sitting on the toilet but we actually hear the turds hitting the toilet water! Good God, was I glad when Jason finally killed this gross piece of crap! Edna is a pretty nagging and shrewish wife but can you blame her after you see what she has to live with? To me, she looks and feels like something a precursor to the more outrageous and hilarious Ethel Hubbard in Friday the 13th Part V.

Steve Miner returns to direct from Part 2, going on to make this the most technically well made Friday the 13th yet. He and cinematographer Gerald Feil really made this one look good, particularly given how this one was filmed in 3-D on a fairly low budget and was the first in a resurgence of the gimmick by Jaws 3 and Amityville 3-D following it. As a result of the gimmick, there are a lot of shots where things come right at the camera (the credits, a yo-yo, apples and oranges, an eyeball, and the various weapons Jason uses) and it can seem a bit odd when you watch the movie in the regular format, which most probably have. I have heard that in 3-D, this film is a hoot and hopefully I'll have a chance to see it some time. (The 3-D on the Blu-Ray, by all accounts, doesn't work all that well.) Honestly, though, the 3-D shots have never bugged me that much, although they do look a bit hokey when viewed in the regular format. But like I said, 3-D aside, the film is very well shot and has some rather good camera techniques (the best being the long crane shot at the beginning and the angle on Andy's painful death).

In this film, Jason becomes a bit more developed as a character and, more importantly, starts to become the iconic horror movie villain that he now is. One way in which he does so is the evolution of his image and the biggest step in that aspect, of course, is the introduction of the hockey mask, although in retrospect, it's doubtful that anybody at the time knew that the mask would become so iconic and forever linked with the character. More than likely, they were just looking for a new mask to replace the bag which, by all accounts, no one on Part 2 was particularly fond of, and since the hockey mask looked good, they just left it on, turning it into an icon purely by accident. Jason also gets some new clothes from Edna's clothesline, replacing his overalls with a green button shirt and gray pants, which would become his standard wardrobe for a long while into the series. As for his actual physical look here, it's completely contradictory to how he was at the end of Part 2. He's completely bald now, as he was when he was a child, making one wonder what happened to all the stringy hair he had before. Plus, before he crawls away in the prologue, we see him remove the machete that Ginny plunged into his shoulder and yet, if you watched the ending scene in Part 2 where he bursts through the window very closely, you'd see that the machete is still in his shoulder, which makes some wonder if that scene really happened. Honestly, I chalk it up to just being a simple continuity error more than anything else. This series isn't known for being consistent on certain things. In any case, I like Jason's face in this film. I think it looks much more realistic than the way it did previously as well as really sinister, especially in the scene where Chris sees him unmasked in the window and he growls at her. Speaking of which, Jason also shows some real rage here, the best example being when he's looking for Chris in the barn and becomes clearly frustrated when he can't find her, throwing things and tearing stuff apart. The late Richard Brooker plays Jason this time and not only is he good at displaying such emotion, he's also really agile in his movements, no doubt due to the fact that he used to be a trapeze artist. When he runs after Chris, it feels very threatening.

There's another element to Jason here that wasn't present before and it comes in regards to his past encounter with Chris, which we can assume took place some time between the events of the first and second movies. In the flashback, Jason seems more intent on carrying Chris off than actually killing her. He eventually does manage to get her and Chris says that she blacked out afterward and doesn't know what happened. That raises a disturbing question: what exactly did Jason do after she blacked out? Did her parents save her from him right then or did something more sinister happen? I don't know about you, but the idea of Jason possibly violating and raping Chris really freaks me out. But then again, maybe Jason, basically having the IQ of a child, was just curious and carried her off because he wanted to know more about women? Who knows? It's never explained and leaves our dirty imaginations to fill in the blanks.

This movie has the highest body count yet and some really good and inventive kills. Harold gets a big meat-cleaver in the chest, Edna gets a knitting needle in the back of the neck, Fox gets a pitchfork, off-camera, in her neck, Loco gets another pitchfork right in his stomach, Shelly is killed off-camera but shows up later with a cut throat (that had to suck, wandering around with a slashed neck
that whole time), Vera gets one of the worst: a harpoon right in the
eye, fired from Shelly's harpoon gun (notably, she's the first person that Jason kills while wearing the hockey mask), and Andy's death is particularly painful. He tends to walk upside-down on his hands and while he's doing so, Jason slices him lengthwise with a machete and you later see his mangled body, with his legs completely cut
off. The idea alone just hurts. Debbie's death is similar to Kevin Bacon's in the original: she's lying in a hammock when Jason puts a knife up through her neck (how did he slip underneath that hammock without her noticing?) Chuck gets thrown into an electricity box and electrocuted to death. Chili gets a hot poker rammed right through her chest. Rick's death is probably the most
memorable: Jason squeezes his head until one of his eyes flies out. It would look a lot better if the head wasn't so obviously fake and you couldn't see the wire the eyeball is on. The last death, and a particularly nasty one, is that of Ali. As I mentioned earlier, he gets knocked senseless by Jason but shows up at the end to save Chris, only for Jason to slice his hand off with a machete before proceeding to do so again and again after he falls, with the sounds of the whacks being rather cringe-inducing.

There's always a final battle/chase between Jason and the last survivor(s) in these movies and this one has one of the best. I love it because it starts in the main house and goes all over the property, has Chris both running from Jason on foot as well as attempting to drive away using the van, before it finally ends in the barn. It's just unrelenting and, surprisingly, Chris manages to give Jason a lot of punishment: she pushes a bookcase on top of him, stabs him in the hand and knee, causing him to both yell in pain and limp for the rest of the movie, clobbers him in the back of the head with a board, almost runs him down with the van, hangs him, and finally puts an axe in his head, which takes a few seconds to finally put him down. It's always nice to have a lead woman who'll fight back instead of doing nothing but running and screaming.

There are also some rather odd and quirky, as well as downright funny, scenes in this film that are worth mentioning. My favorite is when they're driving to the lake and a cop car suddenly comes up behind them. Desperate to get rid of the pot Chuck and Chili brought, they eat it and... the cop goes right by them. They just ate pot for nothing and their reactions upon realizing this is funny as hell. In another scene, they come across a bizarre old man who's basically a stand-in for Crazy Ralph sleeping in the road. When the group talks to him, they not only learn how weird he is but he also shows them that a severed eyeball that he found, which promptly freaks everyone out and they drive off, but not before he warns everyone to go back. There's also a juggling contest between Shelly and Andy at one point and while there's not much to be said about, I had to bring it up because how often do you see a juggling contest in a horror film (or any film, for that matter?) The most inexplicable part, though, comes at the end when it seems like Jason is about to kill Chris but suddenly disappears. And then, out of nowhere, Mrs. Voorhees' corpse comes out of the lake, grabs Chris, and drags her down into the water, mirroring the famous ending scene from the first movie. It's surprising because Mrs. Voorhees had never been mentioned in this movie except in the footage from Part 2 (let's not even ask how she suddenly has her head back). Obviously, it was meant as nothing more than just a last minute shock moment but it's still inexplicable and, like the scene it imitates, it's ambiguous as to whether it actually happened or not since Jason is shown still lying in the barn, with the hockey mask on and axe in his head. That's actually an eerie ending because the last image is of the lake before we fade to black and the credits roll.

There's not much new music in this film to discuss because most of it is recycled from the first two movies. The only noticeable new piece of music that Harry Manfredini wrote is the disco-style theme, which I really like because it sets the tone for a movie that's just meant to be pure slasher fun. It's like they're saying, "Let's party." One piece of music that's new is an odd bit when Shelly sneaks into the barn after hearing a noise, which follows a familiar theme that was first heard in the original movie. Not much to say about it other than it does sound a little odd and doesn't feel like Friday the 13th style music. Also, to punctuate the eerie ending I described, Manfredini comes up with a creepy, melodic version of the theme that sounds like it was played on really high strings. It really leaves you with a strange feeling, with the shot of the lake that accompanies it making you wonder if Crystal Lake really does have a curse.

As you've no doubt gathered, Friday the 13th Part 3 is one of my favorite entries in the series. Not only do I think it's the one where the series firmly established its identity and formula and, I also feel that it's a perfect example of what the series is all about: just having a good time watching Jason do his thing with some really good kills, fun and likable, if not well-acted, characters, and a nice setting to go along with it. Like I said, I think this one is a great place to start for a newcomer for those very reason. My absolute favorite is still to come but this is still a very entertaining slasher film and is definitely in my top five for the series.

Franchises: Friday the 13th. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

This was the one that I saw around the time I was fifteen that got me interested in seeing the other movies in the series. Mind you, I'd seen bits of some of the other movies before but this was the first Friday the 13th movie I actually sat down and watched. I came in on Vicky's death and watched it all the way to the end, thoroughly enjoying what I was seeing. After that, I was determined to see all the other films in the franchise. As everyone knows, this is the movie where Jason Voorhees becomes the villain of the series but this is before he gets his iconic hockey mask. Like Mrs. Voorhees being the killer in the original movie, I heard that little tidbit from one of my friends who had seen the movie long before I did.

Five years after the events of the original movie, a new camp opens on Crystal Lake, despite the area's grisly history. And as before, the teenage camp counselors who are training for their summer jobs are stalked and killed by a mysterious man who turns out to be Jason Voorhees, who apparently didn't drown but has been living in the woods near Crystal Lake all these years.

I will admit that the very notion of making Jason suddenly appear and start killing people himself is a bit shaky. We were told in the first movie that Jason did indeed drown in the lake in 1957... or did he? During a campfire scene in this movie, Paul says that his body was never recovered from the lake, suggesting that maybe they just thought he was dead but, in actuality, he managed to get to shore on the far end of the lake and, due to his apparent lack of mental capacities, didn't know how to get back to the camp or his mother and just took to living in the woods. That would explain how he was eventually able to see his mother get killed by Alice in 1980, become filled with murderous rage, and set out on his killing spree. Of course, that also raises questions about the original movie's ending. If the ending scene with Jason attacking Alice in the canoe was meant to be a dream, why have that last suggestive shot of the lake and Alice saying, "Then he's still there." And if it did take place, how is Jason an adult in the pre-credits sequence where he kills Alice, which we find out takes place two months after the first movie's events. Obviously, this is a lot nitpicking but it does serve as an example that the screenwriters weren't thinking in terms of continuity even this early in the game.

We're introduced to Jason as soon as the film begins. We seem him slowly walk across the street to where Alice Hardy, the last survivor from the original movie, is currently living. (Let's not even get into how he could have possibly found out where she lived.) Inside, Alice is having a nightmare about the horror she went through that night at Camp Crystal Lake and we see almost the entire last quarter of the first movie with her trying to escape Mrs. Voorhees. Usually I actually like recaps but I've

always felt that this was kind of pointless unless you hadn't seen the first movie. (I don't know why you would watch the second one if you hadn't seen the first but that's just me. Remember I just stumbled across this movie the first time.) After her nightmare, Alice argues with her mother on the phone, suggesting that things have been difficult with them since what happened and she's been trying to distance herself from her

parents in order to recover. After that, we have a long, drawn out moment where Alice gets a phone call and when she picks up the phone, there's nobody there. I guess we can assume that was Jason, suggesting that he's smarter than he seems. The part that follows is quite suspenseful, ending with the cliche of a cat screeching through a window, providing a jump scare. (It won't be the last, of course.) Right after that is when Alice discovers Mrs. Voorhees' head in her refrigerator and is killed by Jason, who sticks a small knife into the side of her head. One thing I've always found intriguing is that after he's killed Alice, Jason places the whistling tea kettle off the eye on the stove. Was he going to have some tea now?

One thing the Friday the 13th series is good at is having each individual movie's title come up in an interesting way. In the original, we had the title come forward and break some glass, as if hitting a window; this one goes a step further. The title Friday the 13th comes up and then explodes and Part 2 is revealed in its place. It's an awesome visual. This movie's credits sequence also begins a tradition of the series in having the credits be the usual white lettering on a black background but with each credit appearing in a different position as the title theme for the respective movie plays. (The original just had a fairly standard credit sequence.) Except for Part 3, this credit sequence would appear in every film up to Part VII: The New Blood.

As with the original movie, the film is very well photographed, this time by Peter Stein. It's a bit more polished and not as lush looking as the first movie but it looks very good and, as before, the wilderness environment looks absolutely gorgeous. In fact, this movie solves the darkness problem that I mentioned in my review of the original, showing that the crew was more experienced this time around.

Steve Miner, who was associate producer on the original, makes his directorial debut with this movie and I personally think he's a much better director than Sean Cunningham. He manages to keep the pace moving, never allowing the movie to drag, and he doesn't put in scenes that cause the movie to grind to a screeching halt, which happened in the first one. I wouldn't say he's a great director, as this movie is still pretty conventional, as are his other films, but as far as technicality and pacing go, he's superior to his mentor.

While most are still two-dimensional, some of the characters in this movie manage to rise above traditional slasher movie acting and come across as likable and worth caring for. The heroine, Ginny, played by Amy Steel, is one of the best lead women of the series in my opinion. The minute she arrives at the camp, she's a likable, spunky, and intelligent woman who also just happens to be very lovely. She's apparently majoring in child psychology and that gives her

the ability to temporarily subdue Jason near the end when he has her cornered. In fact, at the bar when she, Paul, and Ted are talking about the legend, she's able to understand what could be going on inside Jason's head, how his only relationship was the one with his mother and, because of that, he sees all other people as evil creatures that took her away from him. Of course, she's still not above fighting back against Jason when he attacks. In fact, she probably didn't know who he was until she came across his shack in the woods and saw Mrs. Voorhees' mummified head. She still decided to kill him because there was no choice but you just get a sense that even though she's terrified of him, she does understand him. She also doesn't scream that much either. She does when Jason pops up and frightens her but she doesn't spend the whole time screaming to the point where you hope he does kill her. She's also a fighter, using a chainsaw to slice Jason's shoulder, break a chair over him, and eventually put a machete in his shoulder. My favorite part is when she's hiding behind a bush, hears Jason coming, and kicks him right in the balls! That's awesome!

Paul Holt, played by John Furey, is kind of the typical macho male lead but he does come across as a caring, nice guy who sincerely wants to help these kids become counselors. He's stern when he has to be but never comes across as a dick. He also has a playful side, creeping everybody out around the camp fire as he tells them the legend of Jason, leading them to believe that he's out there, and having Ted suddenly jump up with a weird mask and spear, scaring everyone half to death. It turns out Paul didn't do it to be mean, just to get it out of everyone's systems so they can forget about it. Paul is also a mystery because at the end of the film after Jason has done his obligatory last scare and smashed through the window, Paul disappears and is never heard from again. Some have theorized that maybe he ran off in a panic but I doubt that, seeing as how he saved Ginny from Jason after he was beaten senseless. My guess is that after Ginny blacked out during the last attack, Jason killed Paul and took his body back to his shack, where he kept some of his victims. But it's all speculation. This very scene causes continuity issues with Part 3, as we'll see when we get to that film.

The rest of the characters are fairly stock. Stu Charno's character Ted is the typical practical joker but, like Ned in the first movie, he never comes across a jerk, just as a goofball who likes to have fun. He is pretty obnoxious when he gets drunk at the bar late in the film, though. Like Paul, he disappears from the movie as well at the end but my guess is that he got so plastered that he never made it back to the camp. Kirsten Baker's character Terry is nothing more than the typical hot girl who wears short-shorts and belly-showing tops. She's not being slutty though. It's just the way she is. We get to see all of her when she goes skinny-dipping in the lake, which is nice. Jeff and Sandra, played by Bill Randolph and Marta Kober, are a rather adventurous couple who break the number one rule and wander onto the off-limits property of Camp Crystal Lake. Actually, Sandra was the one who wanted to go and she just dragged poor Jeff into going with her. (Kind of get the feeling that Jeff is henpecked?) In fact, Jeff seems like a nice guy who doesn't want to cause trouble but couldn't say not to Sandra. Mark, played by the late Tom

McBride, actually has a bit of a story behind him. He's in a wheelchair after a motorcycle accident crippled him but he's determined to overcome it. Unfortunately, since he's in this type of movie, he never does. He's also really strong and often arm-wrestles the other counselors. Vicky, played by Lauren-Marie Taylor, is the typical slut who's determined to get into Mark's pants. She's

constantly making innuendos at him and when she's changing her underwear after they decide to stay together, she not only sprays mouth-spray (I can't think of what you actually call it) in her mouth but in her cleavage and even in her panties! What a whore. Finally, there's Scott, played by Russell Todd. He's the perv of the group who has his eye on Terry. The first thing he does is hit her butt with a pebble from a slingshot and then wink at her in a creepy way. Later, he steals her clothes after she goes skinny-dipping. He deserves it when Jason slices his throat open with a machete.

Besides Alice, another returning character from the first movie is Crazy Ralph, again played by Walt Gorney. He doesn't do much else other than once again warn everyone that they're all doomed if they go treading around Crystal Lake. He also meets his end at the hands of Jason, so he won't be back for a third time. Besides the footage used from the original, there's new footage of Betsy Palmer as Mrs. Voorhees when Ginny pretends to be her in order to fool

Jason. All I can say about that other is that Jason must be really dumb to think Ginny's his mother just because she's wearing her sweater and says that she is.

Like Mrs. Voorhees in the first movie, Jason spends a good portion of the movie stalking the woods and watching everybody. We don't get a full-body shot of him until he kills Vicky, a technique that would be continued in the next few movies. As fans know, he's not wearing the hockey mask here but rather some sort of white, burlap sack over his head with one eye-hole cut in it. This particular look for Jason has been referred to as the "Hillbilly Deliverance Jason", "The Klu Klux Klan Jason", and my favorite, "Tater-Sack Jason." All funny names aside, I think the sack is actually scarier than the hockey mask. I can't explain what it is but it looks creepy to me. It seems more realistic to me that, if somebody was stomping around the woods and wanted to cover his head, some old sack he'd find lying around is what he would use some old sack. Jason does indeed resemble the killer in The Town That Dreaded Sundown here but, given that that film was inspired by the real-life case a killer in Texas, I think that just helps give this particular incarnation of Jason a bit more realism. Clothing-wise, Jason wears funny-looking hillbilly overalls with a checkered shirt underneath that, which I imagine he probably stole from somebody's clothesline, as he does in the next film. He's also a much thinner, average-height man here, which is amazing considering the hulking monster he would become in later movies.

And unlike later movies, here Jason has a place that he actually lives in besides just the woods around Crystal Lake. This deputy makes the mistake of chasing Jason when he sees him running through the woods and comes across this broken-down shack. Who knows if Jason actually built it or if he just came across it but, whatever the case, it's as rundown and disgusting as you can get, especially on the inside, (check out the toilet the guy finds!). There's one room in particular that is devoted to his mother's decapitated head, which he keeps in a manner similar to Norman Bates. That room is particularly eerie at the end when there's a tight zoom-in on the head and it just freezes before the credits roll.

For years, there was a controversy over who played Jason in this film. The ending credits say a man named Warrington Gillette did so but in later years, it was discovered that he only did the ending scene where Jason crashes through the window to attack Ginny (after he's lost the sack on his head) and that a guy named Steve Dash did the majority of the movie. Apparently, Gillette was initially hired to play Jason but when he couldn't cut it with the stunts, they hired Dash. However, Gillette refused to have his name taken off and Dash is only credited as stunt double. This makes Gillette look like an untrustworthy person because he went around for years acting like he did the entire movie but some could have been wise to his scam because all he ever talked about was that one scene (that said, though, Lauren-Marie Taylor has stated that Gillette was the person who portrayed Jason in the scene where he kills her). Dash has made it clear that he despises Gillette and he refuses to do conventions that he appears at. All controversy aside, though, I think Dash did a good job as Jason, managing to be fairly threatening with his movements and body language. Also, unlike Michael Myers, Jason initially ran after his victims in the first three movies featuring him, which I feel adds to the threat since it gets across that this guy is not going to just stroll after you; he's going to come at you and rip your head off. As for the makeup job Carl Fullerton did for Jason's unmasked face in Gillette's scene, I have mixed feelings. While it is impressive how ugly he is (even more so if you look at behind the scenes photos of it), I could kind of tell that it was latex and it never looked as convincing to me as Savini's design for young Jason at the end of the original. (That could be because they show it in way too much detail here.) I also don't like that he has all this stringy hair, which he would never have again. Besides not matching up with his young version, it looks like the hair is falling all over the left side of his head during the scene.

There's one scene in particular that always interests me for two reasons. It's the scene where Ginny hides from Jason under a bed in one cabin and, as she waits for him to give up searching for her, a rat wanders under the bed and brushes up against her hand. Suddenly, there's a shot of urine leaking from underneath the bed, which Jason apparently sees and it leads him to tricking Ginny into thinking that he left so he can attack her. I've always assumed that Ginny got so scared by the rat that she wet herself but I have to wonder how all that urine could come out when she has jeans on. Others have speculated that maybe it was the rat that peed. Which do you think? The moment that comes after that makes me laugh. Ginny slowly crawls out from under the bed when she sees Jason standing on a chair next to the bed. Just as he's about to kill her, the chair breaks and he falls, breaking the pitchfork he has in half. That always makes me laugh because it seems like such a slapstick moment.

The gore effects in this movie were heavily censored by the MPAA, who didn't think twice about the gore in the first movie but I guess after all the slasher movies that followed and the controversy that came with them, they decided to crack down on the sequel. Therefore, Friday the 13th Part 2 doesn't have nearly as much gore as its parent and while there are a couple of creative kills, most of them are standard. I already talked about Alice's death. Jason kills

Crazy Ralph by slipping a cord around his neck from behind a tree and strangling him with it, as well as cutting into it a little bit through sheer force. That deputy that finds Jason's shack gets the claw of a hammer in the back of his head, which really had to hurt. Scott gets killed when he gets caught in a trap that hangs him upside down and Jason slices his throat open with a machete. That always looked fake to me, especially with how the blood flows

out of the cut. Terri is killed off-screen. My favorite death is Mark's because it's so un-PC. Jason puts a machete in his face and he goes rolling backwards down the stairs in his wheelchair. Probably the most well-known death in this film is the one where Jason puts a spear through both Jeff and Sandra, who had just finished having sex. I would love to see the uncut version of that kill. Vicky's death is really prolonged because she's first stabbed in the leg and she

cowers in the corner as Jason slowly closes in and eventually stabs her with a butcher knife. Speaking of which, you know what's interesting? It's hinted that Ginny and Paul had sex at one point so they should have been killed as well according to the rules of slasher films! I guess they weren't as solid then, though.

As I said, I really like the climactic scene where Jason corners Ginny in his shack but she fools him into thinking she's his mother when she puts her sweater on, showing how Jason's pretty dumb and naive in a childlike way. However, he eventually sees his mother's head behind Ginny and realizes he's being tricked. Just as he's about to kill her, Paul runs in and grapples with him. I love how brutal and raw the fight between the two of them is, as they grapple with and knock each other into the wall. Ginny saves Paul's life when Jason overpowers him and is about to stab him with the pick-axe by putting the machete into his shoulder. I also like the way Jason looks at his wound and how he just slowly falls backward. It's always the little things that I like.

Harry Manfredini reuses some music from the original but also manages to create a lot of new music that would be used in the next two films as well. I like the slow, creepy music that plays at the beginning as Jason slowly walks towards Alice's house and as she cautiously walks through the inside. The exciting main title theme is another one I like, as well as the music that plays during the chase between Ginny and Jason. I like the misdirection that Manfredini uses at the end when Ginny and Paul hear a noise at the door of their cabin and, thinking it's Jason, prepare to attack. The music tensely builds but instantly becomes warm and loving when Paul opens the door to reveal it's just Muffin, Terry's little dog. (This is a surprise because Muffin wanders into the woods at one point and encounters Jason. Later, Jeff and Sandra find the mangled remains of an animal at Camp Crystal Lake, suggesting that Jason killed Muffin.) But, just when Ginny is about to pick Muffin up, Jason bursts through the window behind her and all hell breaks loose. Of course, the music instantly turns frantic in that instance. To me, this is equal to Manfredini's misdirection in the moments leading up to the scene between Alice and Jason at the end of the original movie.

While I don't like it as much as further films in the franchise, Friday the 13th Part 2 is an enjoyable slasher movie and a pretty good followup to the original (as you can tell, I enjoy it more than the original). Of course, even though the film ultimately did pretty well when it was released in 1981, it's doubtful that anybody was thinking there would be any more. As a result, it feels like the series was still trying to find its footing here. With the next movie, though, it would firmly establish its identity.

Franchises: Friday the 13th. Friday the 13th (1980)

The Friday the 13th franchise. What can you say about it? It's one of the most beloved horror film series ever created (to fans, at least; not so much to most critics), and Jason Voorhees has become one of the most famous movie monsters ever. I knew about the hockey masked killer and the series of movies featuring him long before I actually saw them. Two cousins of mine watched plenty of those movies many times when they were young but I wasn't allowed to see them until I was well into my teens. I was fifteen when I finally saw many of the films all the way through and became a fan of the series myself and while these movies may not be considered technically good, at least not when compared to the classier Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street movies, as purely exploitation-style, fun slasher movies, they work just fine and many of them actually are well-made in many respects.

Long before I saw the original Friday the 13th, I knew that Jason wasn't the killer in that film, although I can't say exactly when I learned that or how for that matter (it was likely from one of my friends who had seen it). As I'm sure is true for most fans born in the period from the late 80's onward, I'd seen several of the sequels before I saw the original, which I finally saw when I was sixteen... and when I did see it, I couldn't believe how bad of a film it was. Many may consider it a classic but while I love the series as a whole, this first one is far down on my list. In fact, I'm actually surprised that it was successful enough to spawn a franchise, although, if I really think about it, it's not hard to see why it did. Even though there had been similar films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween before it, Friday the 13th is the prototypical slasher film. It got much a wider release than those other films and it was the first movie to introduce the basic rules of the slasher genre (don't have sex, don't do drugs, the last surviving girl) to a wide audience. The gore effects no doubt stunned audiences back then as well, and all the movies that followed ripped it off instead of the movies before it (which is interesting considering that Sean Cunningham and Victor Miller, the respective director and writer of the film, have admitted that they basically ripped Halloween off). So, in that regard, it does deserve its place in film history. But, that said, as I stated before, I don't think it's a very good film and for me, many of the other films in the series outdo it.

Most people probably know the basic plot but I'll state it anyway: in 1958, two horny teenage camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake are murdered by an unknown killer. Twenty-two years later, in 1980, Steve Christy is opening the place back up despite the townspeople saying the place is cursed. He and a group of teenage counselors are getting the place ready to open when the killer returns and picks them off one by one until Alice Hardy is the only one left.

Sean Cunningham, the director of the film, has admitted that he knows he's not the best filmmaker and it's good that he does because it's clear that this is the work of an amateur. Now, there are good aspects of this film that I will talk about, but both he and Victor Miller are clearly not fans of horror films, especially Miller, and that works against them here. Neither of them know how to build characters, keep tension and pace, or to properly pull of what are meant to be surprising twists. Plus, if you try to name any other movies that these two directed or wrote, you might have a hard time since this is by far the most well known film either of them have ever been involved with.

My biggest problem with the film is the pace. It's extremely slow and while that usually works in building tension, the characters, while mostly likable, are so unremarkable and the technical aspects often so amateurish that it really hurts the movie. I've always said that if it weren't for Tom Savini's kill scenes, which are too far in-between each other for my taste, this movie would be unwatchable. The gore effects are what keep the viewer's interest enough to see how the next person is going to get slaughtered. Other than that, the movie doesn't have that much going for it.

Now that I've said what my biggest problem with the movie is, I'll discuss one of the perks: the location of the movie is beautiful and is used very well. The lake and the surrounding woods are a very nice setting and are well photographed. In fact, they remind me of the woods around my house. It also sets a very nice atmosphere. Barry Abrams, the cinematographer, does a good job of moving the steadicam around the woods and the campsite,
setting a mood that the killer could be anywhere or we could even be seeing her point of view. I'll admit that many of the other films in the franchise didn't know how to do that. I also like the way the film actually looks. It looks very lush and has a rawness to it that the other movies, which had bigger budgets and were more polished, don't have. As I mentioned, the steadicam is often used as the killer's point of view and the scenes were Mrs. Voorhees is standing in the woods, watching the counselors, or standing outside a window and doing so, are rather eerie. One creepy image for me is when Brenda goes into the shower-house to brush her teeth and you can see Mrs. Voorhees' fingers come around a nearby shower curtain and move it ever so slightly. Also, when Brenda leaves, the shot of the dark shower with the overhead light slowly swinging back and forth always gives me a creepy feeling.

However, while I've just praised the photography, there is one big problem with it: the darkness. The night-scenes that make up half the movie are very dark and at some points, it becomes a problem because you can barely see what's going on. Whenever I watch the film, I often have to turn up the brightness on my TV so I can see what's going on. I understand that the movie was low budget and it was a fairly inexperienced director and crew but the darkness is a big problem nevertheless.

As would become the case for many slasher movies, the characters here are secondary to the kill scenes and while most of the actors do their jobs fairly well, they don't leave much of an impression. Adrienne King is often remembered as Alice, the girl who is ultimately the only survivor but honestly, while she does come across as nice, there really aren't that many scenes with her where we get to know anything about her. There is
one interesting scene early in the film between her and Steve Christy, suggesting that the two of them were having some sort of relationship, although it's never made clear if they were lovers (when he comments on her drawing of him, she says he looked like that "last night") or just really close friends. They also hint that Alice isn't happy with the job of being a
camp counselor and Steve offers to put her on a bus back home if she still isn't satisfied within a week. Nothing is made of it, which is typical of slasher movies, but I was intrigued enough to want to know more about it. Peter Brouwer as Steve Christy honestly doesn't have much to do and he leaves for most of the movie, so he's two-dimensional to the extreme. Kevin Bacon is undoubtedly the best known actor here as Jack but except for that fact and his infamous death, there's not much to him.
Jeannine Taylor as his girlfriend Marcie is okay and they do seem to be the typical horny couple (though nowhere near as horny as those in future movies) but there's not much to say about her either. Harry Crosby as Bill is suggested to be another lover for Alice and the scene where he's whacking away at weeds with a machete I think is supposed to make you suspect him to be the killer. Robbi Morgan as Annie, the
poor girl who never makes it to the camp, does come off as a very sweet girl despite her limited screentime and her death is a memorable one. The late Laurie Bertram as Brenda I think is supposed to be a tomboy girl who works at the camp and is also a bit kinky since it's her idea to play Strip Monopoly. Mark Nelson as Ned is not exactly an asshole but he is a prankster and troublemaker, coming off as annoying in some spots. He, of course, doesn't last long.

I actually find the townspeople to be the most interesting characters, believe it or not. I don't know why but I like Enos, the man who drives Annie to the road leading to the camp. Rex Everhart plays him as gruff but nice nonetheless. I love when he tells Annie the sordid story of Camp Crystal Lake and when she turns down his advice to quit, he blatantly says all kids, including her, are dumb. Ron Millkie as Officer Dorf, who appears in just one scene, is also memorable. He's the typical Barney Fife-esque cop who acts all tough and authoritative but in reality is a complete moron. His weird facial expressions and attitude towards Ned kill me. I love when he speeds off towards the lake before he takes off (I
thought he was going to go flying off into it). The most memorable local, of course, is Crazy Ralph, played by Walt Gorney. You just can't help but love this crazy old man who tries to warn everybody that Camp Crystal Lake is cursed (and according to the following movies, he was right). I wonder why he hid in the pantry in the main house instead of just showing up and telling everybody to leave. Did he want to half scare Alice to death?

Of course, we have to talk about the legendary Betsy Palmer as Mrs. Pamela Voorhees, who is definitely one of the most well-known characters in horror film history. When Alice first runs into her, she seems like the kindest, warmest woman and it's startling how she's able to so easily turn threatening. As every fan knows, she killed everyone because of what happened to her son, Jason. And I do agree that even though she's insane, she's a great mother because she'll both kill for her son and die for him. But I do have some problems with her. First, when she talks in a high-pitched voice meant to be Jason, I never found it scary. I've always felt it was silly. (It was scary, though, when Brenda heard it off in the distance, which drew her to her death.) Second, the entire last section of the film with her is one that I've always felt has a really bad pace. It has a start/stop feel where she attacks Alice, Alice injures her, Alice runs off, and Mrs. Voorhees chases her again. It repeats several times until the final fight between the two of them on the lake shore and it starts to get repetitive. I know she isn't meant to be supernatural but still. (I do like the scene where Alice is hiding in the pantry and that final fight, especially Mrs. Voorhees' memorable death.) Finally, the biggest problem with her is what really shows off Cunningham and Miller's inept story-telling abilities. It's supposed to be a big twist that Mrs. Voorhees is the killer but when this person whom you've never seen before suddenly shows up, driving the very jeep the person who killed Annie was driving, you know it's her. Cunningham argued that due to Betsy Palmer's public persona at the time as a wholesome person, she wouldn't seem like a threat, but as I've said, it doesn't work; they should have had her appear before if they wanted to make her an unlikely suspect. But still, problems aside, she is a memorable aspect of the film.

Tom Savini's gore effects are the main reason for seeing this film and while they are few and far between, they're very realistic and effective. The prologue kill in 1958 of the two counselors Barry and Claudette is nothing to write home about: Barry's is an off-camera stomach stab and Claudette's death isn't seen at all. I do think, however, that it's a great build up to the gory kills to come. Poor Annie has the first really graphic death: Mrs. Voorhees slices her throat open. It's a kill that we've seen many times in other slasher movies but this one always gets me because Annie did come across as sweet and naive and the look of pain on her

face as she dies is disturbing. Jack's death is probably the most famous one in the film. I'd seen the trailer where it showed Mrs. Voorhees' hand come up from under his bunk and grab his head but I didn't see what happened after that until I actually saw the movie. That looked like a pretty painful kill: an arrow slowly getting pushed through the back of your neck and out the front. Ouch! My favorite kill, however, is Marcie's death that comes right afterward: she gets an axe right in her face. To

me, that's the one that really had to hurt like a son of a bitch! Brenda and Steve die off-camera, although their bodies do show up randomly. Bill's actual death is also off-camera but the aftermath that's seen looks like it had to be very unpleasant. The arrow that's sticking out of his eye makes me cringe. And finally, we have the death of Mrs. Voorhees herself, with Alice slashing her head off. Not my favorite but it is eerie to see her hands come up after she's been decapitated.

Even though Jason isn't the killer in this film, everyone undoubtedly knows about the scene at the end where he suddenly erupts out of the lake and drags Alice down into the water with him. Ari Lehman has made a living going to conventions and banking on that less than thirty seconds of fame. I knew about the scene thanks to Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, which I saw long before I saw this movie, so it didn't scare me but I can see how an unsuspecting person would jump out of their seat (that includes my aunt, heh heh). And without that scene, I don't think there would have been any other movies because that must have given the screenwriters the idea of making Jason the killer. Cunningham and company have always said that they never intended to make sequels and that Jason was always supposed to be dead but honestly, the ending dialogue between Alice and the sergeant and the final shots of ripples on the lake make you wonder if that really was the case. Either way, it is a memorable ending scene.

Harry Manfredini's well-known score for this film, as well as almost all of the other movies in the series, is another key ingredient. Everybody knows the ki ki ki, ma, ma, ma sound (although it does often sound like chi, chi, chi, ah, ah, ah,) and how it's meant to be Jason's voice in his mother's head telling him to kill. It's undoubtedly a creepy sound and adds considerably to the atmosphere. Manfredini's other music, while pretty basic, is also effective and it is the sound of Friday the 13th. The creepiest bit is the music that plays when Alice and two others encounter Ralph in the pantry as well as when he gets on his bike and rides away. It's very creepy. I also like the bit that plays when Marcie is trying to find the source of strange sounds in the shower-house and the music that plays when Brenda is unknowingly being watched as she brushes her teeth and combs her in that shower-house. The music along with the gore manages to elevate this movie from being unwatchable.

There are two moments in the film that I've always felt are completely unnecessary. One is a scene where Alice finds a snake in her cabin and everybody else crowds inside searching for it. Eventually they find it and Bill hacks it to bits with his machete. Not only does this scene add nothing to the plot and could have easily been dropped, it's cruel because they apparently killed a real snake on-camera. I always hate it when a real animal is killed for the sake of a movie. This case may not be as appalling as what Ruggero Deodatto resorted to when filming Cannibal Holocaust but it's still cruel. I know the movie was low budget but would it have honestly have been that hard to get a fake snake and light it so that it looked real? The other pointless moment is when Marcie tells Jack about a weird dream she tends to have where she's in a thunderstorm and the rain turns to blood. After that, they go back to their cabin and it's never mentioned again. I've always been like, "What? Where did that come from?" I'm guessing they were trying to build up Marcie's character but I just don't get it. You could also argue that the scene with Officer Dorf is pointless along with the scene of Steve at the local diner but those two really stuck out to me as just being completely pointless and seem to be just filler.

Despite what I've said, I want to make it clear that I don't hate the original Friday the 13th; it's just not an entry in the series that I watch that often. It may be the catalyst and it does have some inventive and memorable deaths scenes but, as I've said, it's not very exciting, the actors are fair but don't have much to do and ultimately come off as two-dimensional, and some of the filmmaking techniques aren't well executed. But still, as I said at the beginning, there's no denying the movie's place in history and without it, we wouldn't have had such a great series of slasher movies to enjoy. That's about as much of a compliment as I can give it.