Our final Halloween horror triple from Shawn Francis is his look at the exhaustive slasher documentary, Crystal Lake Memories, it runs at 400 minutes and is apparently the complete history of the Friday 13th franchise. Checkout Shawn's review after the jump....
Written By Shawn Francis
I’ve
mentioned all this before in several other reviews but seeing as I’m
reviewing a doc about the making of the Friday The 13th
franchise, I think I’ll bring it up again since now it seems even
more apropos. At heart I love movies that are more about monsters,
demons, creatures, aliens, slimy beings from other dimensions, etc,
than I do about human beings killing and/or torturing other human
beings.
The
80s was a remarkable era for horror movies. I remember it well. It
encompassed the tail end of my grade school, all of my high school
and the very end of my teen years. While that slice of cinema history
produced some very memorable monster movies (i.e. The Boogens, Q—The
Winged Serpent, The Thing remake, The Fly remake, The Blob remake,
The Incubus, Titan Find, Alien, etc, etc), it also saw the birth of a
destined to be second iconic slasher, Jason Voorhees, coming
in right behind Halloween’s own, Michael Myers.
Just
to show you how averse I was to watching some hulking loon killing
people, I didn’t end up seeing Halloween (1978) and
Halloween II (1981) until October of 1992. I had just been
laid off from this job I recently got and had some kind of stomach
flu. All the Halloween movies were being run this particular
day and for whatever reason I decided to give them a watch. I had
already seen Halloween III (1982) and was already a fan of that movie
but when I got done watching the first and second, I quickly added
them, too, to my roster of favorite Halloween movies..
Even
as I watched the opening credits I kept remembering when they were
airing on TV for the first time, listening to that creepy theme music
and getting instantly frightened by the potential horrors I might see
if I decided to watch them beyond that point. When I was a kid I
would judge a horror movie on how watchable or not watchable it might
be on how scary the opening credits and music were. When it came to
those Halloween movies, forget it. I was out.
Concerning
the bloody exploits of Jason Voorhees, I kind of became a fan of his
on the Jason Lives (1986) sequel. The gore scenes to me were
almost comic bookish and so it didn’t really affect me. I therefore
eventually saw The New Blood (1988) in an actual theater mind
you and enjoyed that one, too. For some reason I never saw Jason
Takes Manhattan (1989). I remember wanting to but when I found it
he doesn’t really “Take Manhattan” I think that’s when I lost
interest. And I still have not seen it. I also saw Jason Goes To
Hell (1993) in a movie theater and really enjoyed that one, too.
From what I read about Jason X (2001) in Fangoria it sounded
like it had incredible potential. Skipped it at the theater but
caught it on cable. Never saw it all the way through. I couldn’t
stand it. Freddy Vs. Jason (2003) is the last time I ever saw
Voorhees on the big screen, and, yes, I enjoyed the hell out of that
one, too, even though it’s more of an Elm Street sequel with
Voorhees guest starring.
I
did not see the first Friday The 13th (1980)
until some time in either the late 90s or early 2000s when it was on
the IFC channel one night. I made a deliberate decision to view it
since I had never seen how this franchise got started. My initial
reaction when it was all over . . . it was a particular creepy movie.
And that reaction surprised me. Because of that I consider it
probably the best movie in the Voorhees legacy.
Now
keep in mind at that time I still had not seen Part 2 (1981), Part
III (1983), The Final Chapter (1984) and A New Beginning
(1985). I didn’t end up seeing Part 2 until several years ago
and even though I enjoyed it I didn’t think it was better than the
first one. To this day I still have not seen III, Final Chapter or
New Beginning, but initially planned to, if I could have gotten a
review copy of that new blu-ray set that came out in September.
Back
in grade school I had a friend who was becoming a diehard horror fan
and his father used to take him to all the current horror movies. He
was even getting into Fangoria and would on occasion bring that
magazine to school and show me all the gory photos in it. I was
always thoroughly grossed out when he told me about the movies and
showed me the magazine, but I remember I kept turning the pages to
see more.
“Oh
that’s gross!” I would say, pointing to some victim of Voorhees,
then turn the page, “Ugh, look at that!” I would say looking at
another. Quickly I would turn the page, and so on and so on it went
with every issue he managed to bring in. I remember a teacher picking
up the magazine, being slightly grossed out and setting it face down
on his desk. Rob would then turn back it over when the teacher walked
away.
In
2005 Peter M. Bracke released the comprehensive tome, Crystal Lake
Memories: The Complete History Of Friday The 13th,
which did a pretty damn thorough job of chronicling any and
everything related to the movie franchise. Now we actually have a
documentary based on the book, and it does a pretty damn thorough job
of chronicling any and everything related to the movie franchise.
It’s
narrated by Cory Feldman and bookend by a scene where he is around a
campfire at Crystal Lake one night telling some young kids about the
history of Jason Voorhees. This is our in into the doc.
Here’s
the scene selection from both discs and you can synch them up
perfectly with each movie. All twelve are covered and even the 1987
TV show. Each one, and the show, is chronicled from conception to
release and they interview as many actors as they can find. Not
interviewed either because of scheduling or because the actual actor
didn’t want to be, not sure which it was, is Kevin Bacon, Tony
Goldwyn, Crispin Glover and Robey from the TV show.
DISC #1:
(Run time: 3:50:45)
I—Prologue/Long Night At Camp Blood
II—The Body Count Continues
III—A New Dimension In Terror
IV—Jason’s Unlucky Day
V—Repetition
VI—Resurrection
TV—Curious Goods
DISC #2
(Run time: 2:49:15)
VII—Jason’s Destroyer
VIII—Terror In Times Square
IX—The Nine Lives Of Jason Voorhees
X—Evil Gets An Upgrade
XI—Winner Kills All
XII—Reboot
XIII—Reflections In The Water/Epilogue
Video/Audio/Subtitles: 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen—5.1 Dolby Digital—English/Spanish subtitles (Note: I could not get a blu-ray to review so the above specs are for the 2-disc standard DVDs).
As
for extras you get trailers and a commentary between director Daniel
Farrands, author of the book the doc is based, Peter Bracke and
editor Luke Rafalowski.
From
what I could discern from the talk of the movies I haven’t seen yet
it appears A New Beginning, Jason Takes Manhattan and Jason
X are the weakest ones in the franchise. Out of those three I’d
still like to take in a viewing of A New Beginning even though
it seems to be an “alternate universe” installment with a killer
who is and isn’t Jason Voorhees.
They
do pose the question to the surviving females of some of the movies
if they’d be up for a Friday that unites them all to take on Jason.
They all agreed they would do it. Yeah, I’d like to see that one as
well. As of this review Sean Cunningham revealed in an interview that
was posted around the web on September 13, 2013 that—“There
will be another Friday the 13th, which will probably get shot in the
spring. If it all goes as I would like, it would then be
released at the beginning of 2015.”
He
also commented on the potential for a video game and another TV
series—“I think there will also be Friday the 13th: Crystal
Lake Chronicles, which is sort of a Smallville. We’ve been on-again
off-again with that for years and there are a bunch of great stories
to be told, but I think the way that it’s finally going to get
delivered is not through a conventional television network, but
through the Internet. I can’t tell you who the delivery people will
be, but it won’t be the traditional route. There’s also the
possibility of webisodes, and I think we even have an idea for a
terrific Friday the 13th video game.”
This
new documentary easily blows away the His Name Was Jason (2009)
one by light years and is a must have for any die hard fan.
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