Series Link 02.10.09: Friday 13th Continued

Posted by Arnold Furious on 02.11.2009

Yet more killing at Camp Crystal Lake!

Friday 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)



There's one good thing about Friday 13th Part VII; it marks the Jason debut of one Kane Hodder. The stuntman has become the definitive Jason Voorhees thanks to his performances in four Friday 13th movies. He made Jason more animalistic and single minded. Like a child or a zombie. Or a zombie child! The director for Part VII is John Carl Buechler who also directed Ghoulies Go to College, which should explain why I don't like him in the slightest. To be fair Ghoulies III isn't even the worst Ghoulies film. But Part VII has a genuine shot at being considered the worst of the Jason movies even if it was Buechler's insistence to cast Hodder over CJ Graham. The ridiculous nature in which Jason was released from death in Part VI was clearly done with the tongue embedded in cheek. But Part VII starts with psychic child Tina (Lar Park-Lincoln) using her mind powers to release Jason from his watery grave. The original plan was to have Freddy Krueger come over from Elm Street and do a crossover. When the two copyright owners (Paramount & New Line) couldn't agree on terms that was scratched. Freddy appeared in Dream Master instead, which although it's mediocre is still miles better than this.

To be fair to Buechler he tried his hardest to make this Friday movie the most gory and violent of the series. But his cut was rejected NINE times by the MPAA before it was eventually cut down to make an R rating. The lousy script is an interesting talking point also as it was written by one Manuel Fidello…who doesn't exist! It was ghost-written by an unknown scribe after Daryl Haney was fired from the job after demanding more money. If you're writing a horror movie never overestimate how important you are to the producers! Maybe he was trying to figure out how Jason could have been underwater for ten years (according to the director) with all the time lapses elsewhere in the series.

The biggest problem with Part VII is it's basically just a bunch of kids being killed one after another. There's virtually no plot and no setup. Jason's involvement is seemingly at random as he attacks first at night and then disappears for a while. What's he fucking doing? Did he suddenly get scared of daylight after being underwater for ten years? The huge chunks of unaccounted for time is merely there because the script says so. No one really thought it through. This is one of the worst casts of any Friday film. Outside of Kane Hodder (Jason himself) there are no interesting characters and no good actors. The telekinesis is lame. Even the makeup is stupid looking. And what exactly is Jason doing in this movie? He gets re-animated and just goes on a killing spree. Why? What's his motivation by this point? I guess he's just a jerk.

VOORHEES' VICTIMS –

1. 18 minutes (which feels much longer) Jane (Staci Greason) gets attached to a tree…by a tent spike! Jason must have left his machete in the lake.
2. 20 minutes. Michael (William Butler) follows suit and Jason even uses the same spike for continuity fun.
3. 25 minutes. Cretinous Dan (Michael Schroeder) gets a hole punched in his back before Jason breaks his neck. That'll teach you to do lame Ahnolt Schwarzenegger impressions!
4. 26 minutes. Judy (Debora Kessler) suffers the best death in the entire series as Jason picks up her sleeping bag and bashes it against a tree. I know JD Dunn loves that one. It was parodied for fun in Jason X where Jason kills one VR girl by bashing the other in a sleeping bag on top of her.
5. 35 minutes. House proud Russell (Larry Cox) gets the machete treatment.
6. 36 minutes. Sandra (the extremely nude Heidi Kozak) gets dragged underwater by Jason Jaws. Jawson if you like. Kozak at least gets in the most amount of nudity in one scene before she goes. It's practically pornographic.
7. 47 minutes. Unattractive Maddy (Diana Burrows) gets tarted up in an attempt to gain a mate from the throng of random kids. Jason takes exception to someone thinking about sex and sickles her in the neck.
8. 50 minutes. Personality void Ben (Craig Thomas) becomes the third person to get their head crushed by Jason's bare hands. He actually leaves a naked girl in order to get picked off. No man would leave in the middle of sex to go looking for someone in the woods. Enjoy death, Craig!
9. 51 minutes. Kate (Diane Almeida) gets stabbed in the eye with a party horn. Yanno, the WAAAAAH kind that people blow into. It makes a little comedy TOOT as it impales her skull.
10. 55 minutes. Drunken frat-boy idiot David (John Renfield) goes searching for a midnight snack but his stomach ends up getting filled with knives instead of tasty treats.
11. 58 minutes. Sci-fi loving nerd writer Eddie (Jeff Bennett) gets the old fashioned machete treatment after sexy Melissa kicks him out of bed. What's with all the coitus interuptus?
12. 62 minutes. Robin (the booblicious Elizabeth Kaitan) gets thrown out of the window. Unlucky. Nice hooters! She was actually quite likeable. I'd have cast her as the lead. Only without all the supernatural nonsense.
13. 64 minutes. Amanda (Tina's Mom – Susan Blu) gets sacrificed by Doctor Douchebag Crews. To be fair Amanda shouldn't have called him a coward.
14. 68 minutes. Dr Crews (Terry Kiser) gets picked off as Jason gets really silly and whips out a tree trimming saw. If the good Doctor didn't fall over every second step he could easily have escaped. Fuck him. This death got clipped up really badly. Thanks a lot MPAA!
15. 73 minutes. Melissa (Susan Jennifer Sullivan) has the misfortune of not believing in Jason Voorhees. Axe to the face! BOOM! This is also chopped up pretty badly in the edit. Bloody MPAA!

Friday 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)



The film opens with shots of New York and how many scumbags there are living there. So, here's how this should have gone down: Jason gets drawn into Manhattan by something or other and starts hacking people to death resulting in a violent showdown with New York's finest. It could have been good! In Part VIII Jason gets brought back to life by a stray anchor ripping open a power cable in Crystal Lake. Nevermind that the boat is way too big to even fit in Crystal Lake and there's really no need for a power cable across the bottom of a small lake...Jason is back to life. Seeing as no one is stupid enough to re-open Camp Crystal Lake this leaves Jason needing to hunt further afield. Luckily for Jason there's a boat heading for New York City so he hitches a ride. Kane Hodder really does a great job playing Jason but director Rob Hedden has him jumping out from places in almost comedic fashion. It's this kind of behaviour that makes this one of, if not the worst, of the Friday series. Trivia titbit: Rob Hedden wrote WWE films production The Condemned!

Rob Hedden is a really lousy director. He knows what a stalk n slash movie looks like but he totally misses the point of it. It goes like this. Scene one: killer stalks and slashes someone. Scene two: background about how the lead character is troubled. Scene three: killer stalks and slashes someone. Rinse, repeat. Yawn. There are some lame bits about boxing and cocaine and Peter Mark Richman does a truly horrid job of playing main teacher Mr McCulloch. So the cruise to New York slowly rambles on with main character Renee (Jenson Daggett) suffering nightmares of a drowning boy (Jason). Can we just get to New York already? This isn't Friday 13th: Jason Takes a Cruise. The characters are pretty thin, even for Friday 13th. And the audience is basically left just wanting to see who gets killed next because the only character worth caring about is Jason Voorhees.

Actors in this film who need to attend acting class's stat: Peter Mark Richman, Scott Reeves, Vincent Craig Dupree and pretty much everyone else too. Alex Diakun, the crazy deck hand, is particularly awful. The only person who comes out of Friday 13th Part VIII with any kind of dignity is Kelly Hu (Lady Deathstrike in X2, which leaves me thinking I'd love to see that fight). Her small and quiet role is subtle and Kelly plays it well. Oh, and Kane Hodder who turns in the usual strong performance as Jason Voorhees. It's a pity that his performances as Jason come in the worst Friday 13th movies because he's the best Jason. Rob Hedden is the worst director to handle Jason though so you've got the great performance from Kane Hodder and the inane direction from Hedden. Jason is a supernatural character but he's always stalked his prey by moving slowly but surely behind them. Allowing them to make the mistake through fear before he finishes them off. Here he either flies or teleports and regularly defies the laws of physics because Rob Hedden figures that'll make him scarier. Or something. Swing and a miss, Rob.

Anyway, we get to New York after the cruise ship bit and a long rowing boat section that follows it. There's annoying Julius to say "we did it, we're in New York. New York City!" As if the Statue of Liberty wasn't enough to convince us. And there's Mr McCulloch to criticise the boy who saved his life. "Wonderful choice of places to dock". Both these two just NEED to die. C'mon Jason, sort it out! Meanwhile Jason has clearly been studying all those years underwater and gained his Swimming Merit Badge. After all what else was he going to do? The badge empowers him to swim from wrecked ships off the coast to the exact same place the lifeboat was going to. Either that or he just teleported like he does the rest of the time. And then McCulloch has the bright idea to "split up" presumably so Jason can kill everyone one person at a time like he usually does. Considering how many people live in New York Jason runs into very few people to kill. And just when you think it can't get any worse there's a terrible slow motion car crash. Then there's a flashback sequence designed to make you hate McCulloch even more, if that were possible, and I'm still not having any fun. Jason's final pursuit of the teens through New York is one final chance at redemption and that comes up short too. Jason walking through throngs of people without doing anything is just wrong. The final insult being when Jason decides not to kill four street punks but instead just shows them his face. BULLSHIT! There is one moment for horror fans though as Kane Hodder's Jason throws Ken Kirzinger (a future Jason) into a mirror in the diner.

Paramount was disappointed with the return on this film (a tame $14M) and sold the franchise to New Line so they could do their money spinning Freddy Vs Jason film. Based on this entry Paramount was shit out of ideas anyway. Speaking of shit…that's how Jason gets killed off in this embarrassment; a deluge of toxic shit. I feel dirty.

VOORHEES' VICTIMS –

1. 9 minutes. Jim (Todd Caldicott). Speared through the mid-section by the freshly re-animated Jason. I guess he didn't take too kindly to Jim borrowing his hockey mask to pull a prank on his girlfriend. Er, wait, that's actually impossible. Ah, since when does this movie care about possible?!?
2. 11 minutes. Suzi (Tiffany Paulsen) escapes the initial attempt on her life but let's face it…boats are not very big. Her hiding place is rather obvious and Jason spears her in a lame scene.
3. 21 minutes. Metalhead guitarist JJ (Saffron Henderson) gets her own pink Flying V smashed over her head by music critic Jason. This death is also totally nonsensical as Jason gains teleportation powers to make the kill. Horrible directing.
4. 28 minutes "Other boxer" (David Jacox) gets stabbed through the chest with a hot rock from a sauna. Poor David's character doesn't even get a name.
5. 37 minutes. Sexy bitch Tamara (Sharlene Martin) gets stabbed with a shard of mirror after some body double nudity.
6. 38 minutes. Jim Carlson (Fred Henderson), the chief engineer, gets a harpoon in the back.
7. 39 minutes. Admiral Robertson (Warren Munson) gets his throat slit checking on the fallen Carlson.
8. 46 minutes. Eva (Kelly Hu) makes a decent go at running away but teleportation Jason teleports right next to her and gets his strangle on.
9. 49 minutes. Film school dweeb Wayne (Martin Cummins) who has an annoying habit of talking about himself in the third person gets thrown onto an electronics board and electrocuted. Someone needs to do a safety evaluation of this vessel!
10. 52 minutes. Miles (Gordon Currie), the character with no personality at all, gets picked off by Teleportin' Jason and thrown onto a deck post.
11. 57 minutes. Deck hand (Alex Diakun). For a character that's so important to the plot (IE, the guy everyone else thinks is doing the killing) he doesn't even get a name. He does get an axe in the back though.
12. 66 minutes. Mugger #1 (Sam Sarkar) tries to rape the main character only for Jason to stab him with his own syringe.
13. 66 minutes. Mugger #2 (Michael Benyaer) tries to back up his homey with gunfire. Jason breaks his head open on a steam pipe. Very underwhelming scene.
14. 69 minutes. Irritating Boxer Julius (Vincent Craig Dupree) goes to spar with Jason. After all Julius is undefeated. But Jason is undead. Julius gives it everything he's got and Jason just stands there and takes. "Give me your best shot". Jason punches his head off.
15. 71 minutes. Irish cop (Roger Barnes) gets dragged into an alleyway and picked off.
16. 77 minutes. Charles McCulloch (Peter Mark Richman), the true villain of this movie, gets his deserved comeuppance. Although Jason goes teleporting again to do it. Charles gets himself drowned in a barrel of sewage. Jason, for once, seems to be really enjoying himself.
17. 87 minutes. Sanitation engineer (David Longworth) gets bashed in the head with a wrench. Seems harsh. His only purpose was to introduce a bit about toxic waste flooding the sewers every night at midnight. That sounds pretty illegal and extremely far-fetched. But at least it explains the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)



So after the financial disappointments of the last two Friday 13th movies, not to mention how much they sucked, Paramount sold the franchise to New Line. Often referred to as the "House that Freddy Built" New Line Cinema was accustomed to working wonders with horror franchises. The plan was to do Freddy Vs Jason. Unfortunately they then ruined the Elm Street franchises with a seriously crappy 5th film in 1991. Dubbed "The Final Nightmare" (sound familiar?) it ticked every box in the ‘does this movie suck' survey. So they needed to rebuild Freddy, with the help of Wes Craven, and to keep Jason fresh in everyone's minds and to set up the eventual Vs picture. New Line was enthused to begin with and started pitching ideas and possible directors around. The idea being their re-launch would immediately distinguish itself from the previous Jason pictures. Tobe Hooper was considered as director before it was offered to John McTiernan (Die Hard). But John was interested in working with Ahnolt again and signed on for Last Action Hero instead. So New Line had to settle for rookie Adam Marcus, which isn't the best of compromises considering the names lined up beforehand. Say, let's hire Clint Eastwood to direct our movie! He won't do it? Then we'll have to go for our second choice; Claudio Fragrasso!

Jason Goes to Hell begins with Mr Voorhees returning to Camp Crystal Lake, as he inevitably does, to hack to pieces whoever he can find there. The start of the film is suitably atmospheric and builds tension nicely as we follow the usual hopeless naked lady around Camp Crystal Lake. The use of lighting failures helps to press home the vulnerability of the ‘target'. When Jason finally appears after five minutes it's following several false jumps. But it turns out the girl in question, played by Julie Michaels (yum), is an FBI agent and she was bait to lure Jason into an FBI trap. Jason is killed, blown to pieces in fact, and the FBI whoop around like they won Vietnam. All in all the opening 8 minutes is quite sensational. Comparative to the start of Halloween: Resurrection where Laurie Strode gets one last go around with Michael Myers. And then they do a wacky possession angle. The main aim to make the film feel more ‘New Line-ish'.

Jason Voorhees has gone beyond legend in Jason Goes to Hell. He's become a serial killer and wanted FBI target. Not to mention the target of bounty hunters like Creighton Duke (Steven Williams – one of the patrol troopers from the Blues Brothers). He has a wacky theory about Jason. He's been able to survive because he switches bodies when one gets destroyed, which isn't even true. He finds Diana Kimble (Buck Rogers' Erin Gray) who is the last living member of the Voorhees family. Presumably the daughter of Jason's father from another marriage. No wait, she's Jason's sister. She also has a daughter herself, which is Jessica (Kari Keegan). Seems Jason has some relatives he needs to go and see. But he wasn't bothered about them before so why is he now? I guess he'd just been busy. He sure knows where Camp Crystal Lake is though and he makes his way back there again. You'd think by now the teenage kids would have learned but their theory this time out is that ‘hey, Jason's dead, lets go party at Crystal Lake'.

The possession angle is what keeps Jason Goes to Hell ticking over and yet not having Jason there is kinda lame. Like Part V where it was another killer. It's just less enjoyable and less frightening. The killer that can change bodies thing is nothing new but it's been done better (Fallen for example). And the lack of Jason truly hurts the film. That and some of the wacky script decisions like eating the heart, the finger breaking jail cell scene, Jason wanting a clean shaven body, Steven changing to a complete badass in the space of 2 minutes etc. The lack of good characters or even sympathetic ones is worrying. Mainly because every character with the exception of Jessica is essentially there to either play host to Jason or die. I know the old ‘stalk n' slash teens' routine was a little played out but the possession routine isn't anything approaching fun. It felt like New Line was trying to get from A to C and this is the B they need to get to Freddy Vs Jason. Couldn't they conceivably use the wacky ‘magic dagger' and ‘only a direct relation can kill Jason' gimmick without all the possession stuff? Sometimes being different is a good thing but not in this case. The acting is the standard level of terrible but no Jason = no interest. And what's up with the ‘Jason' we get at the end? Since when was Jason an alien?

The one saving grace of Jason Goes to Hell is that when he's finally killed by Jessica and sent to hell his hockey mask is picked up by the hand of Freddy Krueger. After all Krueger was also sent to hell at the end of his "Final" movie. This would have lead directly to Freddy Vs Jason if it weren't for the lack of script. No one seemed capable of writing it so they opted for Jason X instead.

VOORHEES' VICTIMS –

1. 14 minutes. Phil the Coroner (Richard Gant) rather bizarrely feels the urge to eat Jason's heart. Now that's just stupid. Jason possesses him and presumably hacks apart his insides with a tiny machete. Either way he's dead.
2. 15 minutes. Assistant Coroner (Dean Lorey) gets a probe through the back of the neck.
3. 16 minutes (via TV report – killed off camera) Security Guard #1 (Tony Ervolina)
4. 16 minutes. Security Guard #2 (Kane Hodder). Also killed off camera. His dead body appears in a new report.
5. 28 minutes. Alexis (ginger Kathryn Atwood) gets sliced up by "Jason" (its just Richard Gant with blood on his face) for daring to go camping at Crystal Lake so soon after his ‘death'.
6. 32 minutes. Fellow camper Deborah (Michelle Clunie), in one of the best Jason deaths, gets a spike through the chest while she's in the process of riding her boyfriend. Then torn in half! NASTY!
7. The boyfriend Luke (Michael B. Silver) gets whacked off-screen. Like Jason would leave anyone alive!
8. 35 minutes. Waitress Edna (Diana Georger) gets her head slammed in a car door. A good surprise death this one if somewhat impossible.
9. 36 minutes. With his body not holding up Jason switches to Josh (Andrew Bloch). Interesting/lame that he appears as Jason in the mirror.
10. 39 minutes. Diana (Erin Gray) gets a knife sharpener in the back.
11. 56 minutes. TV sleazeball Robert Campbell (popular TV actor Steven Culp) gets possessed by Josh/Jason. Josh then melts, which we can assume happens to all former hosts. The jaw falling off is a nice touch.
12. 64 minutes. Officer Ryan (Madelon Curtis) gets her head bashed against a locker as ‘Jason' invades the police station to impregnate Jessica.
13. 66 minutes. Officer Mark (Mark Thompson)
14. 66 minutes. Officer Brian (Brian Phelps). Heads bashed together.
15. 67 minutes. Fat dumbshit Ward (Adam Cranner) gets bones broken in fairly graphic fashion before being tossed aside.
16. 69 minutes. Shelby aka Pookie (Leslie Jordan) gets a deep fat fryer facial.
17. 69 minutes. Foul mouthed fatty Joey B (Rusty Schwimmer) gets her face elbowed in.
18. 70 minutes. Vicki (Allison Smith) gets impaled a skewer and then has her head crushed until her brains pop out of the top of her head. Entirely ridiculous scene.
19. 75 minutes. Officer Randy (Kipp Marcus). Possessed by Jason then decapitated.
20. 78 minutes. Creighton Duke (Steven Williams). Bearhugged to death. It is a devastating hold!

Jason X (2001)



If you can overlook the plotting here Jason X is quite good fun. Although most Jason films are fine as stand alone films. It's how they fit into the series that really affects the rating. And Jason X follows in the now hallowed tradition of ‘if your horror character has become somewhat stale then do a film about them in space'. Such films as Critters 4, Lephrechaun IV and James Bond's Moonraker as fine examples of franchises just throwing a space gimmick at the latest film to try and earn a quick buck. Yeah, Moonraker doesn't entirely fit in with that but it still sucks.

The first concern over Jason X was the hiring of James Isaac to direct. True he'd worked on some great films (Gremlins, Return of the Jedi, The Fly, Enemy Mine, Naked Lunch) but he was a creature effects guy on those pictures. Generally effects guys tend to struggle to collect together a coherent narrative. It was also written by Todd Farmer, who'd previously written…nothing. Are you suitably worried yet? After New Line's horrible handling of Jason Goes to Hell it seemed as if they were set to drop the ball once more. When it came to casting there were more unusual decisions. TV actress Lexa Doig was hired as the lead, and perhaps the strangest piece of casting in the franchise's history saw David Cronenberg in a supporting role. Yes, THAT David Cronenberg. At least common sense prevailed when it came to casting Jason as fan favourite Kane Hodder returned for his final appearance under the mask.

I'll say one thing in Jason X's favour. At least it doesn't have the same tired formula as the rest of the movies as Jason most certainly goes nowhere near Camp Crystal Lake. Basically Jason didn't go to hell at the end of the last film but rather got cryogenically frozen by the US government. Presumably until the world developed a cure for homicidal behaviour and machete dependency. Sleazy military doctor Wimmer (David Cronenberg) wanted Jason to be a cure for all kinds of things. What with his ability to regenerate. Of course that doesn't really work out too well. Our hero Rowan (Lexa Doig) uses herself as bait and ensures Jason gets frozen. Which works out fine until 2455 when they're de-frosted by a bunch of kids from a spaceship visiting the remains of "old Earth".

So Jason recovers, as he always does, and starts hacking his way through an assortment of space dumbasses. Jason X borrows liberally from other, better, sci-fi films. Although it's kinda weird that there are so many teenagers in space. The dialogue is pretty rough with only the odd sentence feeling in place in the future. The simple fact of the matter is this just hasn't come from a creative enough brain. Not that anyone that good really wants their name on a Friday 13th movie. They have a rep. Shame because I like sci-fi generally and Jason X is a promising concept. In the end we have the same old shit with Jason Voorhees hacking people apart for 90 minutes. Pity.

The characters are paper thin. The android is a nice try. Sgt Brodski isn't bad but the rest of the cast are weak. But then, by this point it's a case of ‘what do you expect from a fuckin' Jason Voorhees movie'? The VR system is a huge let down with the CGI being beyond ropey. I know it's meant to look like a game but come on! The Professor is basically Gorman out of Aliens. Kay-Em is Bishop. Even Brodski's tough guy persona is shattered when his dialogue gets jokey. So the kids seal themselves off and hope for the best. I think the biggest crime of Jason X, coming from an effects guy, is that the special effects are so lousy. I know the budget wasn't there for something really nice looking but then why even attempt some of the shots? The film is littered with references like Solaris and Grendel and Alien (the character Dallas, although most of the entire film is based on Alien/Aliens). The whole android v Jason battle might have been more entertaining had it been better handled. Like Freddy Vs Jason was. Make both characters entertaining them have them go to town. But in their fight they forget to make Jason interesting.

Then things take a turn for the worst. 65 minutes in Kay-Em destroys Jason and the movie is effectively over. But there are six survivors. There's no way six people survive a Friday 13th movie. Luckily exposition in this one doesn't take long. "Hey, can't we just do this instead". "Sure". And they accidentally leave Jason lying around for the Nanobots, or whatever they are, repair him. So we get UBER-JASON! Yeah, it's pretty bad but Jason X does do one great thing…it reminds me how awesome Alien & Aliens are!

VOORHEE'S VICTIMS –

1. 5 minutes. Private Johnson (Jeff Geddis) throws a towel over Jason's head so he stops looking at him funny. Big mistake. We don't see him picked off but we see the results as he's been hung from the ceiling on a chain.
2. 5 minutes. Guard #1
3. 5 minutes. Guard #2
4. 5 minutes. Guard #3
5. 5 minutes. Guard #4. Jason goes kill crazy after the military decide him escaping would be a bad thing. Using a chain and the army's weapons against them he makes short work of the four guards.
6. 6 minutes. Dr Wimmer (David Cronenberg). Impaled on a pole for daring to try and escape. That rivals Kevin Bacon for famousness!
7. 29 minutes. Adrienne (Kristi Angus) named after heroine of the first film, gets her face shoved into liquid nitrogen then smashed apart. Nasty. Worse still is Kane Hodder totally cops a feel on BOTH boobies before doing so. Good to be Jason.
8. 33 minutes. Stoney (Yani Gellman) is the first to get a taste of Jason's new found machete, which is a surgical tool with serrated bits.
9. 37 minutes. Space hippy Azrael (Dov Tiefenbach) gets casually broken over Jason's knee. It's such a great kill because Jason is fully aware of how weak he is and just treats him as a nuisance. Like swatting a fly.
10. 37 minutes. Dallas (scribe Todd Farmer) gets his head crushed against the wall.
11. 42 minutes. Poor Sven (Thomas Seniuk) gets his head slowly twisted round the wrong way. Nasty, nasty kill. Great sound effects.
12. 43 minutes. Condor (Steve Lucescu) fends Jason off with some good close combat skills but then gets thrown onto a mining drill, which he slowly slides down in a spiral. Even if I'm not digging the film I'm seriously digging some of the kills.
13. 45 minutes. Geko (Amanda Brugel) makes the mistake of backing into shadows. Oh dear. Has she never seen Halloween? Throat slit. Again, the sound effects make this one so much more than the visuals.
14. 46 minutes. Kicker (Barna Moricz) is the first one to unload his weapon but foolishly takes his eye off the prize and gets cut clean in half.
15. 47 minutes. Briggs (Dylan Bierk) is killed off-screen and found hanging on a very big hook.
16. 49 minutes. Fat Lou (Boyd Banks) is busy communicating his concern to the space station when Jason pops up to the cockpit to have a look around. And whatta ya know, he brought his machete.
17. 54 minutes. Professor Lowe (Jonathan Potts) tries bribery, including giving Jason his machete back, which is clearly not a smart move. He's butchered somewhere off-screen. Later revealed to be decapitated.
18. 61 minutes. Crutch (Philip Williams) gets electrocuted when Jason slams his head into the control panel repeatedly.
19. 71 minutes. Janessa (Melyssa Ade), the film's most annoying character, is sucked through a grate into space. This scene is a fine demonstration of how Hollywood doesn't understand how space works. What's with the rushing of air when the hull is breached? What air? Besides punching the hole Jason doesn't do much. Weird how the strength of the vacuum of space is enough to destroy Janessa's entire body and yet she's still able to hang onto the floor with her fingertips for 30 seconds beforehand. MOVIE SCIENCE!!
20. 82 minutes. Sgt Brodski (Peter Mensah), having survived a load of abuse including being stabbed twice, rides Jason into Earth II's atmosphere to save the others. Jason naturally survives. He always does.

Freddy Vs Jason (2003)



Now this is the movie New Line wanted to make when they bought the rights to Jason Voorhees. And rightfully so. The terror loving public were desperate for a big ruck between the two horror heavyweights. I actually didn't see the film at all until I was doing the Series Link for Elm Street a few months back. So here's the review from the Elm Street link.

The plot follows on from Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. Neither of which, incidentally, were the last in the respective franchises running orders. The idea being that both Krueger and Voorhees have been dispatched to Hell and Freddy wants out. So he sends Jason back to Elm Street to kill enough people that Freddy gets his strength back via the old ‘soul consumption' trick. The idea being that if Jason kills people on Elm Street everyone will think its Krueger and remembering him will bring back his powers. As the dim and characterless teens remember Krueger the nightmare begins again! Its horror for a new decade with new rules. There gore and gratuitous nudity everywhere in this flick. The shower scene for example is just excessive (although I'm entirely in favour of nudity, excessive or otherwise and Tammy ‘body double' Morris has huge titties) and the little girl with no eyes in the first dream is over the top compared to the kids skipping rope, which is the classic visual that follows. There's a distinct feeling that the movie's quick pacing and dumbed down themes are entirely for an audience that can't be bothered to follow a plot with any kind of complexity. There are attempts to throw in little references to past films to appease that audience but it didn't work in AVP and it doesn't really work here.

The film hurtles towards its conclusion as Freddy drags Jason into the dreamworld for a ruck. The kids then take Jason's body to Camp Crystal Lake. But why would they do that? Their reasoning is highly questionable. Does nobody just run like fuck anymore? What happened to the good old fashioned ‘Terminator' defence? Run away! The cinematic scuffle between Freddy & Jason is what everyone came to see, which is probably why all the human characters are so thin. Not that there's much going on with the horror icons either although young Jason getting bullied at the Camp is a tasty nugget of character development. The use of the Camp is probably just so they could use both iconic sets, along with 1428 Elm Street, but I wish they'd thought of a better way of getting there. Of course that helps to set up a battle between the horror icons on a second territory. Freddy's dominance in the dream world is a little confusing. If he really has powers like those; why didn't he use them more often? They seem almost limitless. The pinball sequence shows he's capable of manipulating his environment completely. It's also the worst part of the scrap between the two villains. In the long run you'd question both franchises as neither lead character can actually die. It only ends when it gets boring. Every ending is a false one.

End of the day; I think Freddy Vs Jason, despite Freddy's manipulation of Jason and easy victory over him in dreamworld, is more a movie for fans of Jason Voorhees than Freddy Krueger and the Elm Street franchise. While it's cool to see them do battle the characters around them are too paper thin to give a shit about and there's no effort made to make either icon remotely at risk of actual permanent death. It's already been established that they're both incapable of dying. Nothing in the script makes them any less susceptible. Ronny Yu does his best with limited material and at least FMJ is never boring. It never has time to be. Great idea, poor script, half-decent execution. I can see why I wasn't too excited by the prospect of it and it really is a no-brainer. I didn't have time for those in 2003. It's nice to complete the Krueger Kollection but I can see why they've never bothered considering a follow up even though this made huge money.

VOORHEES' VICTIMS –

1. 4 minutes - Heather (Odessa Munroe). Extremely naked and then extremely dead. Am I watching a horror franchise collision or what? Jason takes exception to her existence and stabs her into a tree.
2. 12 minutes – Trey (Jesse Hutch) gets his innards stabbed through the bed after railing Gibb in a short and passionless display (the fucking, not the stabbing). Jason goes for the amusing overkill by folding Trey into the bed thus creating a lake of blood that Gibb walks into. Cue screaming.
3. 19 minutes – Blake's Dad (Brent Chapman). Decapitated by Jason when Blake is asleep.
4. 19 minutes – Blake (David Kopp). After having a nightmare about Freddy Krueger he wakes to find Jason is watching.
5. 39 minutes – somewhat stealing the thunder of Krueger's return is Jason who uses a long piece of steel to stab the party monster who'd decided to hump Gibb's unconscious body. He ends up impaling Gibb too but the party guy is the one who gets it worse as he's thrown into the air.
6. 40 minutes – "It's by invite only cornpoke" are the last words of a jock party host (Colby Johannson) before Jason turns his head backwards.
7. 41 minutes – Shack (Chris Gauthier) gets hit in the spine with Jason's trademark machete…on fire! Jason strolls out of the cornfield on fire to officially scare the shit out of everyone else at the party.
8. 41 minutes – Random victim #1. MACHETE MASSACRE!
9. 41 minutes – Random victim #2. MACHETE MASSACRE!
10. 41 minutes – Random victim #3. MACHETE MASSACRE!
11. 42 minutes – Random victim #4. MACHETE MASSACRE!
12. 42 minutes – Random victim #5. MACHETE MASSACRE!
13. 42 minutes – Random victim #6. MACHETE MASSACRE! Holy kill counts Jason!
14. 56 minutes – Jason + weight of door 1 security guard 0
15. 59 minutes – Deputy Stubbs (Lochlyn Munro). Jason accidentally electrocutes himself. No problem for the living dead but big trouble for nearby copper Stubbs who Jason grabs as he's trying to make his escape.
16. Token stoner Freeburg (Kyle Labine) gets used by Freddy to inject tranquilizers into Jason to make him sleep. Jason doesn't go down without a fight though and cuts Freeburg in half with his machete to teach a lesson for that horrible Jay Mewes impression.
17. 75 minutes – Moped riding nerd Linderman (Chris Marquette) gets a moment of heroics before Jason almost absent mindedly throws him onto a metal spike. He gets to escape the burning building but then collapses in a pool of his own blood.
18. 77 minutes – Kia (pop star Kelly Rowland) makes the mistake of stopping off to goad Freddy. It seems her confidence is doing her well until Jason turns up and hacks into a tree as an afterthought.

And for kicks…here's some You Tube goodness.

Cold Heart of Crystal Lake (2003)

A fine example of exactly how cheap horror movies can be. Made for $250 this fan film directed by Joe Patnaud won him a job as an editor on Grindhouse & Rob Zombie's Halloween. This loving tribute to Jason isn't particularly well lit and is littered with profanity from the amateur thespians. One thing actors are prone to doing if you don't reign them in is add a bunch of profanity. For an amateur effort it's really not bad though. After all actors cost money! Interjecting a tame "sex" scene keeps the whole thing in line with what makes Jason mad in the first place. Is he mad at those campers for having sex and letting him drown or that he wasn't getting any? There's an attempt to show the violence that makes the Friday 13th movies popular and a few of the deaths look really cool. Tearing the entrails out is neat. Jason probably needs to be a little larger than Timothy Whitfield or having gotten an undersized Jason perhaps they needed to shoot him differently. Fun stuff to watch though and I love the ending.



Chasing Jason (2004)

While Cold Heart takes a serious look at Jason and tries to mimic the Friday 13th movies, and does a pretty decent job of it, Chasing Jason takes a lighter hearted look at the character. Imaging Jason being involved in a relationship is cute and the film references come thick and fast making Chasing Jason a funny and rewarding experience for fans of the series. This is so good it belongs on an Ultimate Jason DVD release as an extra. Superb spoofery with lines like; "We both like hiking through the woods". The fruit salad bit and the part with the sweater cracked me up. "He obviously really hockey, a lot". "He'd get really mad if I smoked or drank". Dig the punchline too. Thanks to director Chopper Denton. And thanks to the World Wide Web he's now shooting a movie starring Kane Hodder. I love the movies.



Total Kills – Jason Voorhees.

And this is where Jason is in a league of his own as a horror icon.

Friday 13th – Zero. Mrs Voorhees is the killer although Jason does get to drag a girl into the lake at the film's dream-like conclusion. I'm not counting it.

Friday 13th Part 2 – Nine. A whopping tally in his killing debut including the chick from the first film. He really takes no shit and establishes the Voorhees habit of absolutely killing everything he runs into.

Friday 13th Part III – Twenty One. Another 12 kills here. All in fabulous 3-D! Jason was hacking apart everything that moved by this point.

Friday 13th: The Final Chapter – Thirty Four. A new record setting 13 kills in only his third movie. Jason was on a roll. Sadly he was also dead. Not that it stops most horror slasher series from ending! Freddy Krueger, during his entire movie career, only killed 33 people on screen. Jason had already bettered that in just three films.

Friday 13th: A New Beginning – Thirty Four. No Jason Voorhees in the fifth movie so no more kills. Boo!

Jason Lives: Friday 13th Part VI – Fifty Two! Another 18 kills in Jason Lives. Another new record. Hell of a way to make a comeback. A half century in just four movies btw.

Friday 13th Part VII: The New Blood – Sixty Seven. 15 more. Bit disappointing he doesn't go after the record. But another bloody haul for Jason.

Friday 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan – Eighty Four. Another 17 kills racked up for Jason. And he's swiftly approaching the inevitable 100 kill mark. Impressive stuff.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday – ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE! Over the tonne mark in impressive fashion with another new record; 21 kills. Most of them take place outside of his own body but its Jason soul that takes everyone down.

Jason X – One Hundred and Twenty Six. Racking up a record equalling 21 kills again in space Jason is well ahead in the horror kills stakes!

Freddy Vs Jason – One Hundred and Fourty Four. 17 in his final, to date, outing. Halfway to a second century, almost, and the undisputed King of Kills! Jason Voorhees ladies and gentlemen.

RATINGS

Friday 13th **1/2
Friday 13th Part 2 ***
Friday 13th Part III *1/2
Friday 13th: The Final Chapter ****
Friday 13th: A New Beginning *
Jason Lives: Friday 13th Part VI ***
Friday 13th Part VII: The New Blood *
Friday 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan BOO!
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday BOO!
Jason X **
Freddy Vs Jason **1/2

Box Office

Friday 13th. $39M
Friday 13th Part 2 $21M
Friday 13th Part III $36M
Friday 13th: The Final Chapter $32M
Friday 13th: A New Beginning $21M
Jason Lives: Friday 13th Part VI $19M
Friday 13th Part VII: The New Blood $19M
Friday 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan $14M
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday $15M
Jason X $13M
Freddy Vs Jason $82M

The 411 –
I know people are critical of horror franchises pumping out multiple sequels but its simple economics. Horror movies are generally cheap to make and have a big audience. No wonder studios frequently request multiple sequels from tired franchises. Jason is the best ever example of this as all the Jason movies made a tonne of profit up to Jason X when they actually gave the film a half reasonable budget ($15M) and it failed to get it back. The problem with Friday 13th in particular is that is has so very little to say and is thoroughly uncreative in saying it. Most of the Friday movies are highly derivative and interchangeable. I wouldn't recommend watching them all in the space of a month like I did. As stand alone efforts all of the movies are passable for what they are with the possible exception of some of the really bad ones. I know people are upset at another remake but Jason is one character who could be fine in a remake because so many of the original series are so poor. I would say 5 or maybe 6 films of the original series are actively bad, which isn't a particularly good average. Here's my recommended viewings:

Final Chapter
Jason Lives
Jason X
Freddy Vs Jason

I guess you have to see the first one for horror history reasons but those are the most fun to watch of the series. Hopefully Marcus Nispel is able to make something that's at least entertaining for the re-boot.