Day 17 Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th Part 2

The greatest debates among horror hounds come from this series.

Is it Kill! Kill! Kill! Mom! Mom! Mom! Or Chi Chi Chi Ah Ah Ah!

Who played the better Jason? Kane Hodder or C.J. Graham?

Which film had better nudity? Friday the 13th A New Beginning? Or  Friday the 13th one?

The answer is Jeannine Taylor in Friday the 13th part 1, though A New Beginning…well jury is still out.

These movies have seen some things man. They have gone to hell and back. Sailed the shores of New York, and ventured out to the depths of space. It’s so close to having 13 films total!! But alas.

Actually be thankful they didn’t go with their last idea for a Friday film. It involved a reality show being shot found footage style and yeah. Yeah. World and life as we know it is better off without it.

So just for the fun of it, let’s pretend no one has seen this movie, act surprised when we get to the twist ending! Please try.

So HALLOWEEN came out and dropped a challenge. It took a holiday and made it bloody. Up until that time it hadn’t been done before. Horror wasn’t really seen as being that terrifying so much as cheesy. So Studios began trying to replicate the success of that film. Which meant Christmas horror, Thanksgiving, you name it. But someone had the bright idea, screw holidays. Let’s Make Friday the 13th a date to remember!

And so it was.

Friday The 13th!!

Enter Kevin the Bacon. Yes The Baconator was in the first Friday the 13th. He even had a pretty cool death scene. However this was right on the cusp of him dancing his way into Footloose, so he tends not to discuss it so much. Which is sad.

But he IS in it!, in shorts no less too. So have at it.

So the plot of the film begins with the death of two camp counselors who decide having premarital sex is a good idea. Which they learn it wasn’t as they were killed off by a killer whom we can’t see. In fact All the kills in this movie we don’t see the killer. Just their mannish hairy hands and wonderful taste in flannel.

Flash forward we are in the 80’s and following a counselor on her way to camp. Looking for a ride and talking to the towns people. All of whom seem intent on her being crazy for going to that camp after what happened. See some well to do people thought it was a good idea to reopen the camp after the first set of murders. So the counselors are gathering to do their part in reopening the place. This lady is on her way to make her mark and we follow who we see as being the obvious lead of the film. But much like Psycho we learn all too soon this lady was never going to make it to camp. She hitches a ride in someones jeep, and soon realizes this was a mistake as she gets her throat slit!

So then we move to the actual camp! And Kevin The Bacon.

They’re all a pretty likeable sort, and seem to get along well with each other.

Until one gets stabbed in the stomach, and stabbed in the neck, and face struck by an axe…and Kevin Bacon getting an arror through the throat…actually it doesn’t work out well for any of them.

BUTT! And I do mean butt. There is some sex going on here! Some drinking, actually a lot of drinking, and possibly teens smoking the marijuana. Mostly drinking, like a lot. Did I mention the nudity?

YES I know they are ALL dying. But they are exercising their rights to party and bang. Which gives us the staple this series is known for. Bewbs, butts, and front stuff. With glorious kils.

Seriously this becomes the formula not just for these films, but all films after.

Living history on the screen people! Learn it, love it, live it!

Don’t live it by killing people. Just….just acknowledge you learned something. Leave it at that.

So the only real hero we have in this film, is a good girl who mostly drank with her friends and was pretty cool to be honest. Alice.

Alice is a good, and has the most going for her. So we should root for her. It’s a good idea.

So people go missing over the course of two days. All dying badly, and poor Alice is left to discover this on her own. Which leads us to the beginning of the films big twist moment! Alice runs into another camp resident who just showed up, the only adult out of the entire group in fact. Pamela….Pamela Vorhees. Yes. The mother of Jason Vorhees. So this is where the film also decided to introduce a fun concept to its slasher story. A female serial killer. Forget the fact some of the kills earlier had obvious man hands and lots of body hair. Pretend it never happened and we’ll be just fine.

So yes. Girl power! We get another final girl, and she has to face off against a pants crappingly insane murderous mommy.

Pamela tells us the story of how her little baby boy, mongoloid Jason died from drowning. Because the counselors weren’t watching him! Either they were off smoking the dope, or having the sex. But no one was there for her baby boy and he drowned. So she heard him in her head. Telling her to kill them. Kill them all. Which as the man who scored the film said, is where the films iconic music comes from. But even with him clearly saying “This is what you hear in the music” we all still hear it a different way. Think of it as a pre “Is the dress blue or gold” debate.

So things don’t work out well for killer mom. There’s a lot of slapping, smashing, punching and biting. Eventually even an oar fight with a nearby boat. But Oar is no match for Machete. Which Alice uses, decapitating Mama Vorhees, forever ruining her sweater. Which was a very nice sweater to be honest.

Alice ends her freak out by…..well having a dream sequence. We see her drifting along in the boat she and Pamela had their oar fight on, and as the music swells and she sighs in relief. A deformed mongoloid Jason leaps out of the water and takes her down!

But don’t worry! It was only a dream. Ooor was it?!

She is being comforted by local sheriffs and a medical team. She ask them about the boy in the lake which confuses them. Leaving her to believing that it could’ve been real and more importantly….that Jason could still be out there.

Roll credits and a happy ending of PTSD!

Until the sequel. DO DA DOOO!!

Friday the 13th Part 2

Welcome to the best part about these movies up until part 7. These movies (Up until part 7) had a continuity between them. Each film opens with a recap of the last films events. Catching you up to where the film is going now.

Which brings us to the first and only time (Until part 8) where we see….JASON….in the city!!

Also we have Jason now.

So Jason DID in fact survive his drowning. Which raises a lot of questions. Like, did his mom know he lived? Was she so crazy that she saved him and the two lived out in the woods, but she still felt he was in her head telling her to kill people? Or did he actually wake up after nearly drowning, lost in the woods and lived fending for himself? It’s never really said or explored. Sadly. But here he is. Alive and walking.

So we see him in a city setting, the outskirts of we’ll say. Walking calmly to an apartment complex where….We find Alice!! Living with her cat and PTSD in an apartment still shaken by what happened. Her cat is the true star and yes. Yes. If you have to ask yes. The cat does live.

Alice however does not survive. She opens her fridge for a nice midnight snack, but instead finds the rotting head of Pamela Vorhees in the fridge! Then gets a screwdriver shoved through her head.

Poor Alice.

So his mom avenged. Jason returns to camp. Only to find more damn people there!

More horny teens having the sex, smoking the drugs, and trying to reopen the camp! Will they never learn?!

For 7 films they never learn. So. Take that in.

So Camp Crystal lake, forever known as Camp Blood. Is being reopened. By a bunch of loveable dope loving sex fiends. There are some actually fun people in it to be fair. Also the nudity is, well it’s there and gosh it’s pretty swell.

So the happy counselors have fun, until they die. Like a lot, and badly.  We got decapitations, spears, machete for days! A claw hammer, Icepick and. Well. Even barbed wire. Jason like his mom, enjoys being creative and expressing himself through his kills.

This film has two stand out moments though I’ll have you know. It has the pleasure of being the first and last in the series where three people live. Well technically 2 but. So one of the counselors got too drunk at the bar and didn’t go back with his friends. So he never got to die! We also have counselors Ginny and her boyfriend Paul. Though Paul sorta technically is presumed dead.

This movie also has another rarity of the series. Well sort of. It kicks off a trend for later in the series actually. So we’ll call it a series first. We get to see Jason’s face! Which it is….not pretty.

Oh, by the way. Jason does not have a mask in this movie.

The famous Hockey mask doesn’t show up until part 3 actually. Even then it doesn’t happen until halfway through the film.

He went through a LOT of changes. But the initial vision they had for Jason in this movie was that of a malformed freakishly headed hillbilly. He’s wearing overalls, a flannel and a stylish potato sack on his head. With one eye hole.

It’s actually a really cool outfit and idea for him. Until we see his face. It’s a huge head with spots of hair on his face and head. Deformed jaw and eyes. It’s….memorable.

What’s also memorable is his near first defeat! Ginny while running through his maze of corpses discovers his shed out in the woods. Which has a shrine to his mother. Complete with her severed rotting head, and cobweb covered sweater. Having heard stories of his mothers slaughter spree, and what she meant to him. She decides to. Put on the sweater, and play on Jason’s memories of his mother. Being a strict speaking mother, and caring mother. Ordering Jason to put down his pick axe. Telling him to listen to her. Readying him for slash to the head and….Jason spots his mothers severed head. Puzzles over life, the universe, and why his mother who is talking to him with her head, has a severed head on the table. So he declares shenanigans and pops her good in the leg.

Sadly Jason ends up not only having his sack yanked, but he also gets killed. Not nicely either, by two camp dicks. H ewas just tryin to live man! He wasn’t wanting people moving in on his turf. But alas. They did, they got mad he killed their friends. So he had to also die.

Though just like the first film. We end on a dream sequence where Jason sees Ginny and tries rushing out to her. Only to be woken up, taken again off by the paramedics.

I have seen these movies so many times I can’t count them, countless times we’ll call it. Yeah. Ever since I was a freaking kid. I’ve seen these, rented them, and even managed to get my sister to go with me for one.

It’s kind of funny now and a story I’ve told a few times. I wanted to see Jason Goes to Hell, and my mom told me I could go if Linda went with me. So I had to convince her to go with me. Which she did not want to do. “I don’t want to see a movie full of naked girls” I told her, swore to her there was no nudity this time around. I read a story that even supported this fact. I used FACTS!! Which worked! She agreed, we went to see the movie and, under 4 minutes in and we have breast on screen. I remember my sister turning to look at me, full of judging eyes. Then much much later in the movie we had one other pair of breast I believe. Which she also turned and stared at me. She still enjoyed the movie! But yeah the facts I had were bad, and it was hilarious.

I wish I could say part 2 is where things got great. But it wasn’t. Honestly the films got better when you get to part 4-6. You get The one and only ark in the entire series, with Tommy Jarvis. A 3 film returning character who seems to be the only true person who can get rid of Jason once and for all.

But the first two worked incredibly well. Part one entered new uncharted territory in a time when Slashers were becoming a thing, and part 2 not only furthered the story, it created Jason and fleshed him out. Part three managed to further do so and was the introduction of the hockey mask Jason we know and love. The series up until part 7 had continuity and heart. After 6 though it just dropped.

Like hard, hard, hardcore dropped.

But these two are good! We get the mom to begin things, and the son to continue them. A shinning example of what I talked about in standing beside the first film, and surpassing it.

I know you’ve already checked these films out most likely, but give them some more love. I am. I bought the Shout Factory Blu-ray set. The first four films are in 4k, the rest in 2k. Includes the directors cut of nearly all the films. They look and sound amazing. You really rreeaally don’t find them all in a set due to licensing.

Soo yes! Check them out, pick them up. Sail the seas of the internet and get yourself some Jason goodness.