FRIDAY THE 13TH FRANCHISE OVERVIEW or What the Hell did i just watch?

Being a horror fan for years you'd think i'd have seen every Friday 13^th movie, well you'd be wrong. That was up until this week when I decided to take the plunge into Paramount's slasher franchise.

Like with Halloween and A Nightmare On Elm Street, I'd only ever seen 1 or 2 of the films in their respective franchises but never watched them all the way through from start to finish. So here we are, 2017 and I have now just finished all the films with the exception of Jason X which I have seen a few times and wish never to see again. And what was my verdict?

Out of the nine films that I watched which included Jason Goes To Hell, the first Friday film when the franchise switch hands to New Line Cinema, out of all 9, I enjoyed only 2 of those movies. But i'll get to those two in a bit. Firstly I want to take a look at the origins of the Hockey mask wearing, Machete wielding maniac, Mr Jason Vorhees.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)

The original Friday The 13^th, released by Paramount pictures in spring of 1980 in the US, was an audience smash. I can see why, it was tense, horrific and owed just a little debt to Hitchcock's Psycho and Mario Bava's proto-slasher classic, A Bay Of Blood. Audiences lapped that stuff up and with it coming off the back of John Carpenter's seminal and probably still the best Slasher grand-daddy, Halloween, people wanted to see teens get their throats slit and body parts cut off. Writer/Director Sean S. Cunningham had already dabbled in the horror genre by producing Wes Craven's horrific 1972 rape/revenge video nasty, The Last House On The Left, he brought his knowledge of horror to F13 and a franchise was born. The film followed the misadventures of a group of teen councillors at the infamous summer camp, Camp Crystal Lake. Years earlier a young boy by the name of Jason Vorhees died when he drowned in the lake. Our camp councillors including a very early role for Kevin Bacon, find themselves stalked and killed off one by one by an unknown assailant. It's no mystery that Jason never actually appears in the film and that the actual killer was his Mother, Mrs Vorhees. Anyone who has ever watched the opening of Craven's SCREAM will know this. The film boasted some excellent practical gore FX by the legendary Tom Savini and it's actually quite a good film. Much like the SAW movies, it started off on a promising note but went down hill afterwards.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART II (1981)

Only one year later, debuting director Steven Miner brought us the second instalment in the Friday franchise. Miner went on to be a decent director in his own right with films such as House (1985), Warlock(1989), Forever Young (1992), Texas Ranger (2001) and the actual terrible remake of George A Romero's Day Of The Dead. Miner also turned his hand to another long running Horror Franchise with Halloween H20 (1996) which for me is by far the best of the Halloween sequels and injected a bit of new life into the stale franchise. Here he brings us his version of Jason, a burlap sack wearing killer with revenge on his mind. Camp Crystal Lake has closed down but a camp next to it is open and Jason goes on a killing spree, doing what Jason does best, hacking, slashing and killing those poor innocent youths. Jason never actually drowned and lived in the nearby woods his entire life. Decent enough twist I guess. My problem with this isn't the fact that Jason wore a sack with eye holes over his head, it's the fact the film it's self, is boring. There was no menace to Jason, I just found myself picking up my phone and checking Facebook every 15 or twenty minutes. This seemed to be the start of the decline and it only the second movie.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III (1982)
So here we go again, Steven Miner returns for this 3^rd instalment in the franchise, this time in the ultra amazing, waste of time and money cinema gimmick that actually ruins movies instead of enhancing them....3D. You can tell from the outset this was to be a 3D movie as objects are aimed at the audience by pointing them at the camera. You can probably tell that I am not a supporter of the 3D process. The film opens with Jason, who survived the ending of Part 2 makes his way to a roadside store, kills the people working and living there then makes his way back to Crystal Lake where a new group of kids are re-opening the camp. 90 minutes of the same shit that happened in part one and part two. Kids get killed...pretty much it. Oh Jason finally gets his Hockey mask too. There's almost no plot, no character development and the kills are just routine. The film was basically made to show the gimmick of 3D. Nothing to see here...move along.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984)

So now we have the 4^th film in the franchise, The Final Chapter, and the start of what is known as the Tommy Jarvis trilogy. As per usual a group of kids arrive at crystal lake to party. They arrive at the home of one of their friends who's little brother Tommy is obsessed with creature masks and make up. Jason shows up and starts killing everyone. The same shit as before, not a huge amount of originality in this one except for the introduction to Tommy Jarvis, a character who will appear again in the next 2 films. The ending doesn't explain why tommy cuts his hair off and coerces Jason towards him so his sister can chop him up. It don't work folks so little Tommy Jarvis, played by a young Corey Feldman, decides to go apeshit and chop the masked killer to pieces, killing him. The film was written and directed by 80s Cannon action maestro Joseph Zito, the man responsible for Chuck Norris action spectaculars Missing In Action and Invasion USA and Dolph Lundgren's first leading role in the action packed Red Scorpion. This is the 4^th film in the franchise and it was, by this time, starting to bore me senseless but I must prevail and do this. Onto Part 5: A New Beginning.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING (1985)

1985's A New Beginning takes us back to Crystal Lake, now being used as halfway house for mentaly unstable kids. Tommy Jarvis, now a lot older finds himself stuck in the his halfway house, barely speaking a word. One of the troubled youth's kills another with an axe and the body is taken away by the paramedics. The people start being killed off one by one by a mysterious man in a hockey mask wielding a machete. Has Jason come back from the dead? Is it all part of Tommy's hallucinations or something much more simple? It's the latter. The kid who died was the son of one of the paramedics and the kid didn't know so the paramedic decided to dress up as Jason and take revenge. Simple as that. Jason doesn't even show up in this one. But even though old puck face doesn't actually make an appearance, this was actually one of the better sequels. The final confrontation in the barn was tense and there were some nice kills for a change, although the ending confused me, did Tommy take on the persona of Jason, did he kill Pam?..

JASON LIVES: FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI (1986)

We jump a year now to what I would describe as the BEST DAMN FILM in the entire franchise. Why? Well this one, Jason Lives, puts a shot of adrenaline into the dull slow moving franchise. The script is good, not just by Friday standards but by general 80s studio standards. Sure it still has some flaws but don't they all. We catch up with Tommy, now an adult who has escaped, well left the mental institute with a friend. They're on their way to dig up Jason's corpse and destroy it once and for all to stop Tommy's hallucinations. Tommy loses control grabs a metal pole off a railing and drives it into Jason's maggot ridden rotting corpse. With a storm up above, lightening strikes the pole which resurrects Jason as an unstoppable, zombie like killing machine. Tommy watches Jason kill his friend before he escapes to the county Sheriff's office. Believing him to a nutjob they lock him up. When the murders keep happening, the sheriff believes that Tommy is responsible and it's up to Tommy and the sheriff's daughter to prove his innocence and destroy Jason.

What makes Jason Lives stand out amongst a barrage of dull horror clones in this franchise is the clear love that was put into the film by debuting writer/director Tom McLoughlin. It felt at home alongside films like The Monster Squad, Night Of The Creeps, The Blob, Fright Night and Evil Dead with a slight dash of Police Academy thrown in. We get to see Jason in daylight, he has the best Jason costume and he's menacing. The film also adds a bit of humour to the proceedings which really livens up the story. The Cast are better than any of the other films with 80s horror veteran Thom Matthews (Return Of The Living Dead) taking over the role of Tommy Jarvis and nailing it. I absolutely loved this 6^th film in what so far I would describe as a bucket of fuck. Jason Lives is THE best film in this franchise hands down.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE NEW BLOOD (1988)
And we come to this, Jason lives saw the Tommy Jarvis saga come to an end and with Jason chained up at the bottom of the lake it's time we introduced some New Blood. See what I did there? Part seven is called The New Blood. They shouldn't have bothered with this after the excellent Jason Lives. Once again Jason is revived via the magic of electric and starts to kill people again. Although here's the twist, this time it seems he's up against Stephen King's Carrie, a girl with psychokinesis who years earlier accidentally killed her father on the docks of Crystal Lake for hitter her mother. This one was fucking dull. I didn't care for any of the characters. The kills were sub par but and this is probably the film's greatest asset, Jason was this time played by Kane Hodder, who brought a menace to Jason that had been lacking in the previous films. I'd still go as far as to say that for me, C.J Graham was the best most imposing actor to Play Jason. Hodder comes in second. I just didn't care for The New Blood.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1989)

Finally we come to Paramount's final film in the saga of Jason Vorhees before he got handed over to Newline Cinema. Jason takes a vacation in this fun, if a bit unintentionally funny slasher flick. Jason finds himself awoken once again by electricity, kills a couple on a boat and steals their mini ship making it to shore. There he boards another boat, passport in hand and Machete packed in a bag, He joins a group of recent graduates on a party cruise from Crystal Lake to NYC baby!. He kills a bunch of people on the boat, gets off and kills a bunch more on the streets of New York. That's essentially the plot of Jason Takes Manhattan. The biggest problem with this film isn't the fact that it's the same old schtick again, thats part and parcel of this franchise, it's the fact that its called Jason Takes Manhattan and for the first hour and ten minutes of the film its set primarily on the boat. There's some neat kills in this one, the punching a guy's head off, stabbings and my favourite scene from all 10 of these flicks, Jason kicking over a boom box. Part 8 is a lot of fun as it doesn't seem to take it's self too seriously and it's nicely shot. There's some great picturesque shots of fog covered mountains and seeing Jason standing on what looks like either times square or 42^nd Street, lit up by NYC's neon lights is pretty badass. There are some pretty decent performances too with the screen debut of Kelly Hu (The Scorpion King, Marshal Law) and the beautiful Jensen Daggert as our lead final girl. For me, Jason Takes Manhattan and Jason Lives are the best films in this sequel because of the fact that they don't take themselves too seriously.

JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY (1993)

Now that Paramount is done with Jason and shipped him off to New Line, home of Freddy Krugger, what can they do with him?....totally fuck him up! Thats exactly what happened in this film. What starts as an interesting Friday like opening of Jason stalking a naked chic through the woods becomes something so entirely bonkers and not what you want from a Jason flick. Taking inspiration from The Hidden (1987) and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers type Sci-fi and mixing that slasher movie style in with it made what I can only describe as a blended fuck up. This whole film was wrong. I admire New Line and director Adam Marcus for trying to inject a bit of life into the old Puck face but they fucked it so monumentally that it's an affront to fans of this series. The only good points I can actually point too are the character of Kreighton Duke who was a badass and some of the scenes were pretty cool like the police shoot-out. Other than that, Jason Goes To Hell can fucking stay there if this is what New Line think fans want from their Jason movies....

But my friends that was not to be, we had to get another Friday 13^th Movie, it had to try something different, to set itself apart from the films that came before. But how? How can they up the ante? JASON IN SPACE!!!!!! It's a terrible movie and one I shall not be talking about. However, New Line did redeem themselves slightly with the better than average mash up of Freddy Vs Jason. That film was a blast.

So there we are, that's the entirety of The Friday 13^th Franchise summed up in less that 6 pages. I can't say I enjoyed all 9 movies, i'd be lying if I did. The majority of the Jason films are crap, they're dull, uninspired and repetitive with only two movies that actually stood out and gave me a smile. Thats really not good when the two best films in a franchise are parts 6 and 8. Obviously these are just my opinions and don't count for shit but if you enjoyed reading my thoughts on the series then please, by all means, drop me a message or comment below letting me know your favourites.

Peace Out!!!