Being
a horror fan for years you'd think i'd have seen every Friday 13th
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 13th, 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 3rd 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.
So here we go again, Steven Miner returns for this 3rd 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 4th 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 4th 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 6th 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.
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 42nd 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 13th
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 13th
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!!!
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| Original Source: http://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3369353/ranking-all-12-friday-the-13th-films/ |
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