I was in the second grade when this movie came out back in 1984. It was also one of the few movies in this endless series to actually open on Friday the 13th. Looking back, it was interesting to see a lot of 8 and 9 years old get excited about a movie that had absolutely no business seeing at that age. Whether the adults liked it or not, these movies did play a part be it big or small in our young lives. They were to my generation what the “Saw” movies are to today’s generation of kids. The sight of bloody violence on the big screen (as opposed to real life) is still exciting to many, and this has been the case for longer than any of us really realize. Still, it would be several more years before I actually bothered to see it, and on television with all the good parts taken out no less.
I got to see this one recently at the New Beverly Cinema as part of the “Tommy Jarvis Trilogy” of the Friday the 13th franchise. This trilogy is comprised of Part IV: The Final Chapter, Part V: A New Beginning, and Part VI: Jason Lives. When the title “The Final Chapter” was thrust at us on the big screen, you can imagine the uncontainable laughter that erupted from the audience. I’m sure Paramount Pictures really believed that this would be the very last one… that is, until they saw the box office grosses.
We have seen Jason killed off so many times over the years, but it’s important to note that when he got a nice big ax to the head in Part 3-D, that was the first time in the series that Jason was actually “killed off.” In the very first movie, it was Jason’s mother swinging a rusty machete at teenagers who remind her not only of her baby boy, but of the body she used to have. Jason didn’t appear in that one until the very end when he gave us one of the biggest jumps out of your seat moments in movie history. Jason wasn’t even killed off in Part II. Sure, he got his ass kicked, but it was not a fatal blow for he was slowly grabbing his machete while our virginal heroes walked away. When Part III came along, it was assumed that Jason finally met his maker. That is, until Paramount saw that they made $36 million off a movie with a budget of $2.5 million.
When Part IV starts, the police have arrived at the scene of the crime and Jason (wearing the hockey mask that was first introduced to him in Part III) is being covered up and shipped off to to the morgue undergo an autopsy. When he arrives at the hospital, Jason is dropped off in the care of the biggest slob of a doctor/coroner, Axel (Bruce Mahler). Seeing slobber all over his burrito like a dog, watching women in skin tight spandex clothing doing aerobics (with the volume on mute no less), I wonder what would make this man think that he could be a god to women. Axel does ends up making out with Nurse Morgan (Lisa Freeman) regardless of the fact that she is utterly repulsed by him. Of course, if common sense was used by the characters in this movie, then this would be no longer than 30 minutes. Who wants to see a slasher film that short?! These two get murdered (big surprise), and Jason somehow makes it pass security with his hockey mask on, and he goes right back to Crystal Lake.
Well, he ends up going next door to Crystal Lake actually as he drops in on a mother and her two kids who have rented the adjacent house next door to a bunch of teens who are out and about to have a fun time. By that, I mean drinking lots of beer, smoking lots of pot, watching vintage porno movies, having as much premarital sex as humanly possible, and some mandatory skinny dipping. You know, your normal weekend in Los Angeles. You know what happens next; Jason comes in to do his Benihana act on everybody like a drunk with power landlord who never hesitates to evict tenants who haven’t paid in months.
The “Friday the 13th” movies have routinely featured actors who you never really hear from again after you see them in these cinematic spectaculars. However, Part IV features two actors who are still working today, Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover. We get to see Corey as a pre-teen with all those drug addiction years ahead of him (he’s clean now, good for him), and he plays the young Tommy Jarvis who has a passion for making masks of all kind. Crispin Glover plays Jimmy, a man who has had no real luck with women. Throughout the movie, he gets woman advice from Ted (Lawrence Monoson) who seems to know everything about them. Guess who gets laid first. No, it’s not who you think…or maybe it is.
Of course, the one thing we do look forward to in these movies are the kills. Jason definitely gets some nasty cuts in they were most likely even more nasty until the MPAA came in and said:
“Uh, no I don’t think so.”
One of the classic moments in this film features a guy getting it right in the groin. Oh to be in a theater when this scene was displayed on the silver screen. It’s one of the few times where you can see a whole audience of men grab their crotches, thankful that it was not them who suddenly got turned into falsetto singers. There is a nice shower scene as well which ends with Jason doing his Norman Bates routine. It’s not as suspenseful as the original “Psycho,” but it sure as hell is a lot bloodier!
Much has been said over the years of how sexist towards women these movies are. Granted, there are some women (with very toned bodies no less) who are treated like sex objects with magnificent bodies to display, and who are out to seduce whatever men who end up locked in their sights. But at the same time, most of these movies feature women as being the bravest and most heroic of the bunch. They’re the ones who find the courage (even after they compete with Jaime Lee Curtis for the “Scream Queen” title) to defeat Jason after all others have failed (because they were busy making out or doing drugs). Why do critics keep forgetting that it’s usually a lone woman who is left alive after all this bloody carnage has reached its inevitable end?
Actually, I wonder why men don’t get more offended than women do at these movies. Most men in these slasher flicks are lucky if they makes it out alive before the end credits, and it’s usually thanks to the women they team up with. Men in these movies are usually portrayed as sexually challenged or socially inept. They come off as being ever so desperate to get laid like most men are, and they come off as profoundly idiotic. Some of them think they are born Casanovas, but their egos are quickly crushed, and they are brought down to earth eventually to realize that they are more likely to be teased by the ladies and fall for it. You think women have it bad in these films? Look at how the men are treated. They are treated like they think more about Mr. Happy more than anything else. Now even while most men do, there is always that one man in the bunch who is so unlucky with women that he has better things to worry about, such as surviving and killing Mr. Voorhees with that one good shot.
Why don’t men protest these movies the way women do? I tell ya, it’s bad enough having to go through puberty when you are also dealing with a mass murderer wearing a hockey mask. It’s not only the hormones that are jumping up all over the place, there’s also body parts of all kinds flying about in the air, not to mention all the blood that makes a mess of everything. Think of all the house painting and new wallpaper the homeowners will need to get once they get ready to rent out the house again!
It’s a kick to see such a young Corey Feldman here. To see him before he sadly felt into a nasty drug addiction (which he has since overcome) and before he did “The Goonies” and “The Lost Boys” does feel a little strange as we are so used to him as an older guy, and he does show promise in this sequel. Seeing him jumping up and down in his bed when he sees one of the women next door undress brings back a lot of memories. Just don’t ask me to tell you which ones, ha, ha, ha! Corey is actually pretty good here as he goes from innocent naïve young boy to a seriously disturbed boy as a result of witnessing Jason’s rampage. I also admired how fast he was in shaving off his hair so he could look like Jason as a boy, and he managed to do all this in record time while Jason was waving that rusty machete at his big sister. Give me another actor who could have made that seem somewhat believable, I dare ya!
Crispin Glover is also a big kick to watch in this movie, and I’m not sure he’s changed all that much since. We get to see him here before he hit it big as George McFly in “Back To The Future,” and before he got all those bizarre panic attacks about doing the sequels which he ended up dropping out of. Hopefully I’m not giving too much away, but he does score with the women in this one, and this had one audience member yelling out:
“YOU GO MCFLY!!”
You also gotta dig Glover’s nice spastic dance which more or less predated the break dancing era. No one dances like Crispin does, and no one else dies like he does in this movie. Could he be as strange as the characters he plays? Maybe so, but these days he seems to be using it to good effect. That voice of his never changes, but he has come a long way since his infamous David Letterman interview.
This “Friday The 13th” sequel is also notable as it is the last one Tom Savini did the makeup effects for. Having worked on many different horror films of the immensely gory kind like “Dawn Of The Dead” (the original) and “Maniac” among others, his work has a realism to it that is as uncomfortable as it is brutally effective. This is even more so when you look at the rest of the sequels in this series where the kills look utterly fake and are played for laughs more than anything else. Apparently, Savini based a lot of makeup work on what he saw as a combat photographer and soldier in Vietnam, so there is an authenticity to his work that many have to give him credit for. Whatever you think about Savini’s work, there’s no doubt that he is brilliant at what he does, and that other makeup artists have to work twice as hard to even come close to outdoing his bloody accomplishments.
The director for this particular sequel was Joseph Zito, and he has also directed such amazing B-movie classics like “Missing In Action,” “Invasion U.S.A.,” and “Red Scorpion.” Zito is one of those workmen like directors who gets the job done and gives the audience what they want. Other than that, his style of directing doesn’t really have any distinguishing characteristics to it. It takes a lot of movies produced by Cannon Pictures to keep a director like this working because he sure hasn’t done anything else outside of that. One of the last movies he directed was “Delta Force One: The Lost Patrol.” But if Zito really enjoys what he does, then I guess it shouldn’t matter too much what other people think of him.
Playing the immortal (whether you like it or not) Jason Voorhees in “The Final Chapter” is Ted White, but you almost wouldn’t know it since he had his name taken off the credits. Ted was selected for the role because he is a big guy (6’ 4” were talking), and he said that only did this movie because he needed the money. I’m sure that a “Friday The 13th” movie is not something you want to put at the top of your resume, especially when you’re playing a character whose face is hidden behind a hockey mask. But Ted, for what it’s worth, your Jason was one of the best and certainly one of the most threatening in this never ending series. From what I heard, you were not at all happy about working on this one, but please don’t think that this movie was a waste of your time. Remember, you could have been in “Jason X.”
And of course, you have Harry Manfredini’s music score which involves the endless wailing of woodwind instruments with the occasional trumpets and tubas blasting away at the climax of this endeavor. I wonder if there is any video of Harry conducting these scores with his orchestra. That would be a kick to see how he goes about conducting, let alone writing the score. I can see him telling the violinists to play all over the place, and that it won’t matter if it sounds off key as long as its really creepy sounding.
Look, no one is ever gonna mistake any of the “Friday the 13th” movies for great cinema, but nobody goes in expecting that either. “The Final Chapter” certainly wasn’t that, especially when you look into Tommy Jarvis’ eyes in the final moment (“The Omen,” eat your heart out). While this sequel is certainly dated stylistically, it actually holds up better than many of the others. This really was the last of this series that set out to be truly scary, and the series (for better and for worse) went downhill into comedy and pathetically ridiculous storylines. Even if it got a lot of the predictable hatred from film critics when it came out, it is nowhere as bad as some of the later entries, let alone many of the even cheaper knock offs it inspired in its path of success. It even looks much better when you compare to any movie over Part VI. I don’t really love these movies, but I do love watching them whenever they are on, especially when you’re watching it with an audience or a group of friends just so you can analyze how stupid the characters are.
“Friday The 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter” is a movie people will enjoy more than they ever care to admit. Call it a guilty pleasure if you will, but it is an entertaining one even if it “rots your brain” like others love to say. Any guy who tells you they hate these movies has got to be lying to a certain extent, especially when they are just going out the door to see the new “Saw” sequel. They’ll say it’s different, but c’mon! Who is you trying to fool?
**½ out of ****
Phil Blankenship of Amoeba Records continues to bring his brand of fun to various showings at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. This past Friday (June 5th, 2009), he presented a triple feature for horror fans with “Friday the 13th Parts IV, V, & VI.” The fourth film is known as “The Final Chapter,” and seeing that title on the screen induced uncontrollable laughter in every member of the audience including myself. “A New Beginning” remains the most pathetic of all the sequels in the franchise, and rightfully so. “Jason Lives,” on the other hand, is one of the series’ best films thanks in large part to the great sense of humor the filmmakers brought to it. Everything after that turned out to be completely stupid and unintentionally hilarious with a few exceptions. Indeed, these three movies represented the franchise at its peak as well as its eventual downward slope. None of the “Friday the 13th” movies have ever been great, so to say that they went on a downward spiral seems somewhat redundant.
Interestingly enough, these three sequels are now known as the Tommy Jarvis trilogy in this endless franchise. We first meet young Tommy Jarvis in Part IV, played by a very young Corey Feldman. Tommy spends his time playing on his computer, or indulging in his real hobby of making masks. Part IV ends with Tommy butchering Jason Voorhees to death over and over again. In Part V, we see an older Tommy (now played by John Shepherd) having to deal with the psychological damage that his attack on Jason brought on his fragile psyche. In Part VI, Tommy (played in this one by Thom Matthews) ends up accidentally bringing Jason back to life and has to take him down once again. Does he? Stupid question.
Phil Blankenship ended up giving the crowd an additional treat by bringing the writer-director of “Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives,” Tom McLoughlin, out to talk with the audience about the making of it. Before he started taking questions from the audience, Tom started off by saying how glad he was to be here at New Beverly Cinema as he got all of his film education here. Tom also said that he still had the most fun as a filmmaker shooting this movie, and that he has actually not seen a print of it since it was originally released back in 1986.
When he first got hired to direct Part VI, Tom admitted that the only “Friday the 13th” movie he had seen previously was Part I. As a result, the powers that be at Paramount forced him to watch the other four films that came after it. With “Jason Lives,” Tom said that he chose to completely ignore the events of Part V as that movie “really pissed me off.” The fans that made it out that night agreed with him and applauded him loudly at his mention of this.
In the movie, McLoughlin said that he had originally planned to introduce Jason’s father, Elias Voorhees, into the franchise to give the iconic slasher more of a back story. We all know about his crazy mother who was the killer in the first movie, but nothing really was ever said about Jason’s poppa. But Paramount Pictures was not all that hyped on this plot element because they weren’t sure what direction the franchise would end up taking, so they ended up saying no to it (this actually happened very early on). “Jason Lives” is about to be reissued soon on DVD, and it is going to have the film’s original ending with Jason’s father in the form of storyboards. This will be interesting to witness having now heard about this.
One of the fans asked Tom how he managed to get Alice Cooper to contribute some songs for this movie. As it turns out, Alice is actually a big fan of the “Friday the 13th” movies, so he was more than happy to participate, and he even allowed Tom to use any of his other songs for “Jason Lives.” Cooper gave the movie its end title song of “The Man Behind The Mask,” but Tom said that the original version of that song was much faster.
Phil Blakenship ended up asking Tom the inevitable question of how he dealt with the MPAA in regards to getting the movie its inevitable R rating. As it turns out, the MPAA wanted him to cut not scenes from the movie, but frames. Tom said that these frames did not have blood or gore in them, but the MPAA found them to be just too intense. Even back then, the MPAA was a hypocritical bunch. Heck, when weren’t they? With this movie, Tom made no secret that he wanted to make it into a “huge bloodbath.”
Thom Matthews ended up getting cast as Tommy Jarvis in “Jason Lives,” as McLoughlin wanted someone who would come across as more heroic. Plus, John Shepherd who played Tommy in “A New Beginning” didn’t want to do it because he, as McLoughlin put it, “got all religious.” Shepherd ended up becoming a born again Christian, and his church didn’t feel like a slasher movie would be the best thing for him to do at that point. Matthews does give the character a different look that is much stronger than how he was portrayed in the previous film. In comparison, Shepherd’s Jarvis was a wuss even if he could beat the crap out of those who made fun of them.
With this particular “Friday The 13th” sequel, Tom McLoughlin admitted that he tried to have a sense of humor about it. This becomes apparent almost immediately when you see that the opening title shot is a clever homage to the openings of the James Bond movies. Indeed, you come out of this sequel feeling like McLoughlin actually took the time to work on the script instead of just throwing it all together at the last minute. I especially liked some of the interplay with the kids (this is one of few movies in this franchise that actually had little kids in it) as they have to hide under the beds, leading one boy to ask another:
“So, what were you going to be when you grew up?”
Ron Palillo, who plays Allen Hawes in this movie, is best known for playing Arnold Horshack on “Welcome Back, Kotter.” This got Tom talking about how just about everyone in the city kept calling Ron “Horshack” wherever he went. Looking back, Tom said this made him realize how hard it is for actors to get past a character they played that was so popular. Not all actors can get past those roles which made them so famous to begin with.
Another fan in the audience asked Tom if he had any favorite on-set stories from the making of the movie. This got Tom to talk about a stunt man who came on to the set dressed like he was Evel Knievel, and of how he came up to him and said:
“I’m here to crash something, so what do you want me to do?”
The stunt this man was about to perform a dangerous stunt that required him to drive a big RV (is there any other kind?) over a ramp at 90 miles an hour. Tom recalled this as being the most scared he was on a film set, and he worried endlessly that he this guy would end up getting killed. That is an understandable fear. I mean, who wants to do a movie that ends up becoming known as the one so-and-so died on? No one wants to be remembered that way. Fortunately, the stunt ended up coming out perfectly with the RV crashing on its side the way it was supposed to, and the stuntman dressed like Evel Knievel pulled himself out of the wreckage saying:
“Did I do alright?”
It turns out that there were actually many different endings thought of for “Jason Lives,” but Tom said he had always intended for Jason Voorhees to end up back in Crystal Lake. Some of those endings included the possibility of introducing us to Jason’s father, Elias Voorhees, and he was at one point intended to bring Jason back to life with voodoo magic. In the end, McLoughlin decided to keep it simple and used the image of Jason’s good eye suddenly opening up wide to show the audience that (surprise, surprise, surprise!) implied that he will be back like the Terminator.
C.J. Graham plays Jason Voorhees in this installment of this endless series, and one audience member asked Tom how he got cast in the role. It turns out that there were actually two Jasons in this sequel. The first one was played by Dan Bradley, and he has since become known as the premier stunt coordinator for Hollywood movies, his best work so far has been for the Jason Bourne movies with Matt Damon. The powers that be at Paramount Pictures however, after watching some dailies from the shoot, decided that he should be replaced because they felt that he didn’t have the character’s build. Enter C.J. Graham who had just finished a stint as a United States Marine, and who had no previous acting experience. Tom said that he came onto the set answering all of his questions with “yes sir!” Today, C.J. is a casino manager at the Flamingo in Las Vegas.
When asked what his favorite death in “Jason Lives,” Tom replied that it was when Sheriff Michael Garris got folded in half. I remember this scene from when I watched it years ago on television (yes, when all the good bits were cut out), and I also remember feeling physically uncomfortable witnessing it. Imagining a spinal cord snapping like that is not a pleasant thought. With “Jason Lives,” Tom said he wanted Jason to kill in ways that were “superhuman.” The fact that Jason starts off the movie being struck by lightning makes it seem all the more logical that he would kill people this way. It certainly made for some memorably gruesome moments!
The last question from the audience that evening for Tom was if Paramount asked him to direct another installment of the series, and why that didn’t happen. Tom said that he was actually approached by Frank Mancuso to do the next sequel, and he asked Tom:
“How about Jason vs. Freddy?”
Tom replied to this by saying:
“How about Cheech & Chong vs. Jason?”
It turns out that Tom was later offered the chance to direct “Freddy vs. Jason.” However, Tom said that he didn’t like the script that was given to him. New Line Cinema, which at that point owned the rights to Jason Voorhees, invited him for a meeting to talk about it. In the end, that meeting lasted only ten minutes after which he walked out. Tom has not been involved with the series since then.
Since making “Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives,” Tom McLoughlin has gone on to make movies like “Date With An Angel,” which featured an irresistibly sexy Emmanuelle Béart, to episodes of the “Friday the 13th” television series. Tom later directed one of several Stephen King made for TV movies with “Sometimes They Come Back.” Outside of his contribution to the “Friday the 13th” series, it looks like he has made a good and comfortable career as a director. Having him speak to the fans attending the New Beverly Cinema was a great treat for us all, and he really seemed to enjoy the time he spent with us. Special thanks go out to Phil Blakenship for putting this all together. This particular sequel still remains one of the very best of this series, and Tom’s appearance made sitting through “Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning” all the more bearable.
The “Friday The 13th” movies are essentially the equivalent of a fast food meal. You know, the ones that have an obscene amount of cholesterol in them. You know it’s bad for you, but you keep coming back for more. It’s not just tapping into our deepest desires, but into our willingness to be bad and to rebel against what our parents didn’t like. Film critics never stopped attacking these movies and bashing them to pieces, yet they made so much damn money on such low budgets. It represented horror being taken to the next level for the children of the 80’s. Our parents hated the movies, and they made us all the more curious about seeing them. We came to know who Jason was as we knew who Santa Claus. I remember when “Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter” (ha, ha, ha) came out when I was in the 2nd grade, and none us had ever looked more forward to a movie that none of us would be able to see (nor had we any business to). Yes, these slasher flicks bring back a lot of nostalgia for me.
With the reboot of the franchise, it allowed me the opportunity to revisit the very first one as it was playing on demand on the FearNet channel. It was free to watch, and it was constantly interrupted by promos for the new adventures of Jason Voorhees which got increasingly annoying as it stopped the movie dead in its tracks for a moment. Now I see why these movies were being presented for free. I mean, it’s either watching the movie trailer or a Mitsubishi commercial instead. Anyway, let’s get back to the flick at hand.
The original “Friday The 13th”, in retrospect, actually seems much better in retrospect. This is especially the case when you compare them to all the sequels (let alone all the endless knockoffs) that came right after it. There is a rawness and intensity to this rough exploitation flick that the recently released reboot could not capture in all its slickness and higher production values. What surprised me is that some of the murders that occur in this movie actually occur off screen. We have no idea that they have occurred until we see the carnage put on display right in front of our eyes. It’s pretty vicious what is perpetrated in the film, and this was back when an arrow through an eye was actually shocking. For the most part, this film and a couple of sequels felt very real and didn’t always feel stagey. You have to give the filmmakers credit because none of these movies made today can even touch that feeling of reality. We all know we’re watching a movie when we see one of the later sequels, but the original of the bunch was experienced more than it was watched.
I’m sure we all know now what Drew Barrymore should have known at the beginning of “Scream;” Jason was not actually the killer in this one. It was his mother, played in a ridiculously over the top performance by Betsy Palmer. Betsy’s character of Mrs. Voorhees is basically what Norman Bates’ mother would have looked like, had he not have killed her off. Those moments where she is clearly schizophrenic, and acting as if her son is actually telling her to kill people, is both chilling and hilarious at the same time. This is far from a convincing performance, but Betsy is so much fun to watch in her deranged state that it doesn’t really matter in a movie like this.
Jason, of course, makes a grand entrance towards the end of the movie that would rival the jump out of your seat moment from “Carrie.” From there on out, it’s Jason’s show and no one else’s. How many other characters do you know of that have held a grudge against others as long as Jason Voorhees has?
The cast of actors here are basically cast not so much for their acting talent, but because they resemble (as director Sean S. Cunningham put it) those kids who came out of a Pepsi commercial in those days. In many ways, this casting choice really helped give the movie a stronger feeling of reality as they could have been people we knew from our own hometowns. They are not models who have enhanced themselves with god knows how many plastic surgeries (those would appear in the sequels). The ladies look very sweet and fetching, and the men look down to earth and definitely look like they have spent some time at the gym.
This was also the movie that started the cliché that if you have premarital sex with your boyfriend of girlfriend, then you would die. The last person left standing was always the virgin, or the one too shy to ask a boy for a date. As a result, many people think that there is this highly conservative Christian value system in place that one must follow in order to survive an experience with a masked maniac. Some will say that John Carpenter started this with the original “Halloween,” but he makes it clear in the DVD commentary that he was not trying to spread some religious dogma. John basically said that the characters got killed because they weren’t paying attention. But ever since “Friday The 13th,” it’s been open season on those kids who don’t practice safe sex.
There is also the crazy old man (Walt Gorney as Crazy Ralph) who warns everybody of how they “are all doomed.” Of course, it’s always some crazy guy that no one ever listens to. God forbid that it’s some seemingly normal person who people listen to. If President Barack Obama told you this, you would listen for sure. If it was George W. Bush, your annoyance over what he said would be justified, but that wouldn’t keep you from getting your slashed (in the end, your loss). Of course, if everyone were to believe this guy, then there would be no movie.
Of all the actors in this film (let alone the entire series), Kevin Bacon seems to be the one with the most successful career. This may not show off the best of his talents, but he does get to have one of the coolest death sequences when he gets a spear shoved right through his throat. We can all tell now that this was done with a fake body with Kevin’s head still poking out of it, but it still gets you just as bad as when the hand comes out from under the bed to grab him.
Kevin also gets to have one of the sweetest love making scenes any horror movie could ever hope to have. I mean it, his character and his girlfriend actually do make love. It’s not one of those humping and pumping moments that you can find in so many other movies where one person is doing all the work, and the other is having not enough pleasure. It makes their inevitable deaths actually kind of sad. Even if we wanted to see these two people get bumped off, we don’t entirely look forward to it.
Sooner or later, we were bound to see this movie because people couldn’t stop describing some of the more graphic moments in it. I remember my brother telling me about the scene where Kevin’s girlfriend does finally get it:
“You see her looking into the shower stalls and no one’s there. But while she is looking, you can see in the background the shadow of an ax being raised up. When she turns around, you can see the ax going into her face!”
My reply to this at the time was:
“Whoa! Cool!”
Sooner or later, I had to see it for myself. Now many of you out there may think that kids should not be exposed to this. They probably shouldn’t, but a lot of kids become wise beyond their years and have their ways of seeing what they shouldn’t see. Besides, with teachers reading to us from “The Black Cat” by Edgar Alan Poe, we are exposed to graphic material a lot sooner than you think. Seriously! That story by Poe had a moment where a husband ends up sinking an ax into his wife’s brain! They teach us about what Poe wrote in school! Moreover, the kids in my class totally dug it too! Aw, those were the days!
Then of course, you have the unforgettable Harry Manfredini music score which basically sounds like Bernard Herrmann’s “Psycho” score on speed. Never have woodwind instruments been as thoroughly pummeled as they have been in this movie’s soundtrack. This is not to mention the "chi chi chi, ha ha ha" (it’s actually "ki ki ki, ma ma ma") that is so clearly identified with this infinite franchise. When you hear it, you know that Jason is not far away with his rusty machete.
Sean S. Cunningham is no John Carpenter, and he is probably a better producer than he is a director. But he does keep the suspense quota of the movie up pretty high and does get some good scares in there. This one did not actually focus so much on the killings as much as it did the messy aftermath. While you did see some characters get it in some of the most painful places imaginable, there were a couple of others you kept wondering about until you see their bloodied corpses. The later sequels would get more creative with the kills as time went on.
There’s no doubt that there will be more of these movies, especially since they still make an obscene amount of money. In the end, maybe people see evil in the world as more of a reality than good. Or maybe they just see movies like these as an opportunity to face their fears in a healthy way. These days I prefer to believe the latter. Besides, watching how people react in the audience to these movies is so much damn fun!
*** out of ****
DIRECTED BYMarcus Nispel
STARRING
Jared Padalecki - Clay Miller
Danielle Panabaker - Jenna
Amanda Righetti - Whitney Miller
Travis Van Winkle - Trent
Aaron Yoo - Chewie
Derek Mears - Jason Voorhees
Julianna Guill - Bree
Arlen Escarpeta - Lawrence
Ryan Hansen - Nolan
Willa Ford - Chelsea
Genre - Horror/Slasher
Running Time - 96 Minutes
Score - 2 Howls Outta 4
I know a lot of horror fans are still having an uproar with the whole re-imagining of beloved horror flicks and I used to be one of them. But recently, I finally resigned and realized that it is what it is and there's nothing we can do about it. As a horror fan since I've been five-years-old [I turn 28 on the 25th of this month], it hurts me to watch my favorite films get turned into a shadow of their former selves just so teenagers can gush over how cool they are. But as a business standpoint, I totally understand it. Horror films can be cheap to make and create a huge profit for your studio. Believe or not, money does make the world go round.
I think the real issue with remakes [besides being pointless on many levels] is that most of them are horrible. Let's mention the good ones: THE THING (1982), THE FLY (1986), NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1990), DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004), THE RING (2002), THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003), THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005), HALLOWEEN (2007 - yes, I still like this film), and recently MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D (2009). I'm sure there are others but the point is that it's easier to list the DECENT horror remakes over the bad ones. That's the problem with this new era of horror.
Now we have FRIDAY THE 13TH, the 2009 version, going on to become the most successful film in the franchise and obviously setting up more installments due to the huge profit both New Line Cinema and Paramount are gonna make out of this remake. While I like this franchise, it was never really my favorite [I prefer the HALLOWEEN and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET franchises more], but you can't deny how successful, simple, and all around fun the FRIDAY THE 13TH films are. I didn't think the original needed a remake [still don't] but it was inevitable and I would save my thoughts until I saw it. The previews were actually pretty cool and piqued my curiosity more than I had wanted it to. And yes, I paid for a full price ticket for this movie just like a lot of people this past weekend.
Now that I've seen the film, I feel a bit cheated out of my money. While not a horrible film, FRIDAY THE 13TH '09 isn't a good one either. When I leave a movie theater feeling LESS than how I came into it, that's not good. Let's see why FRIDAY THE 13TH isn't all that lucky.
PLOT
The film begins with the death of Pamela Voorhees (Nana Visitor), who is beheaded by a surviving camp counselor after Pamela butchered the rest of her friends [the ending of the original FRIDAY THE 13TH] back in 1980. We cut to present day and we watch a group of idiots camping out at the infamous Camp Crystal Lake, who are pretty much there to find some marijuana to sell for a profit. Like in PART 2, we have someone tell the story of Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears), who is claimed to still be alive, and having watched his mother getting killed, is out for revenge. Jason appears and kills them all but Whitney (Amanda Righetti), who kind of looks like Jason's mom and decides to keep her around a while.
A few weeks pass and some rich prick named Trent (Travis Van Winkle) and his friends vacation at his father's lake house, which just coincidentally happens to be on Camp Crystal Lake. On their way, they meet Whitney's brother Clay (Jared Padalecki), who is posting flyers and asking the townspeople about his missing sister [taken from FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE FINAL CHAPTER]. While Trent is a jerk to Clay about the whole situation, Trent's girlfriend Jenny (Danielle Panabaker) sticks up for Clay and ends up helping him. From here on, Travis and his friends end up partying up with sex, drugs, and naked water-skiing. That is, until Jason decides to crash the party and celebrate his birthday the only way he knows how - by murdering stereotypical teenagers and finding his trademark goalie mask [FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3-D]. Yep, it's FRIDAY THE 13TH alright.
REVIEW
Sigh. I wasn't expecting much out of this remake but I'm disappointed it wasn't better. When the trailer for the film is better than the actual film itself, something is definitely wron
g. FRIDAY THE 13TH '09 left me numb and cold. How does a horror film leave a person feeling numb? I wish this film was absolutely terrible so I could just bash the hell out of it. But it wasn't. Yet it wasn't good either so I can't praise it. I'm stuck in the middle with this film and I hate that feeling.The story, written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift [who also wrote the light years better FREDDY VS. JASON from 2003], is pretty average as far as I'm concerned. Let me get the good stuff out of the way first:
I like that the screenplay took elements from the first four FRIDAY films and didn't totally do them in a way that they were all that similar to the original source. It made the film familiar to older fans who appreciate this franchise while still bringing something new to them along with the modern audience. The remake never felt like a remake, thank God. Honestly, it felt like an installment of the franchise that was never told until now. In other words, a lost sequel. I was totally cool with that.
I also liked that the script played it like your regular FRIDAY THE 13TH film. We have stupid stereotypical characters who each have their own role to play in the movie before Jason chases them down and murders them one-by-one. That's all I look for in a FRIDAY THE 13TH flick. These films were never known for their character development to begin with - and Shannon and Swift continued the tradition. Much appreciated.
However, I felt the narrative was very disjointed. It felt like three movies in one for me and there were certain plot holes in the film that just made me scratch my head. Plus a lot of the dialogue was pretty bad and just made me roll my eyes most of the time. And what was up with all the pot activity in this film? Drugs are a big part of this franchise but it just seemed like the main focus of these characters most of the time. Look I know Michael Phelps looks cooler with a bong on his mouth, but one or two potheads in a horror flick should be the limit. It became redundant after a while.
The murder scenes written into the film were pretty weak too. I thought the deat
h scenes in the original were more violent than the ones in the remake. And that was 29 years ago! C'mon! Very generic stuff, although I did like some of them. The arrow death is always cool to see, plus I thought Willa Ford's death scene at the pier was pretty awesome just because I didn't expect it to happen like that. And the sleeping bag over the campfire was very nice and probably the most memorable one in the entire film. But it was disappointing to watch and I thought they weren't written well enough in the script.And I won't even mention the ending. How lame was that? Totally predictable and not even in a good way.
I think the problem with the story was that the filmmakers INTENTIONALLY decided to cut out 25 minutes just to sell an Uncut and Extended Version of the film on DVD and Blu-Ray. Apparently they wanted the viewers to be confused in order to get the answers to their questions when the DVD is released. Nice business movie, but the filmmakers can still go fuck themselves. No wonder the pacing was off. Assholes.
Speaking of the death scenes, where was the gore? Did the MPAA cut some stuff or did the filmmakers do this just for the DVD? I mean, MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D pretty much gave it all to us and I appreciated it. But we just get a lot of stabbings and throats being sliced, which is nothing new. Even Mrs. Voorhee's beheading wasn't even shown in its entirety. It looked like she had her throat slit when she really had her head cut off. It was a bit too tame for a FRIDAY THE 13TH flick, as far as I'm concerned. Very disappointing.
The direction by Marcus Nipsel was bland. It was like watching THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake [which Nipsel directed back in 2003] but with a different cast and Jason replacing Leatherface. What's sad is that the TCM remake is better than this film is. Yeah, the film looks great and beautifully polished with its murky colors. The editing is good and some moments, like the Willa Ford scene where she's stabbed on top of her head and pulled up to reveal her beautiful breasts before dropping into the lake again, were actually well done. But I thought the pacing was off [The title card within 20 minutes of the film? I thought that was the funniest part of the movie!], the tension and suspense weren't effective enough, and the death sequences way too predictable [and repetitive] and almost similar to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake. And what was up with that loud music every time Jason would pop up to kill? Very distracting. How about this - why not SURPR
ISE us when Jason kills someone? Oh right...that might scare alot of people. Too logical, sorry. Nipsel has style and the visuals weren't horrible at all, but he doesn't bother trying to update or reinvent the series. Instead, he just follows and regurgitates what's been done before. The whole point of a remake is to bring something new to the table. In that case, Nipsel fails completely.The acting won't win awards but I didn't hate anybody's performances. Jared Padalecki had the strongest performance as Clay. Didn't know much about the character but I liked Padalecki alot. He made a good male lead and was definitely the bright spot acting-wise. Amanda Righetti and Danielle Panabaker were both hot and did nicely as the female leads. Travis Van Winkle played a good asshole character in Trent. I hated that character for the right reasons. Winkle did a good job. Aaron Yoo was funny as Chewie. He was the only character who got a reaction from the sold out audience I was sitting with. Pretty funny role and I could tell he improvised a lot of his stuff. Willa Ford had nice boobs. Thanks. And Derek Mears was decent as Jason Voorhees. I still prefer Kane Hodder, to be honest, but Mears wasn't so bad. I just didn't feel threatened by the guy though. But it was nice to see pre-Zombie Jason back on the screen again. I would have preferred unknown actors, like in the original franchise, but what can you do?
And before I finish up this review, where in the fuck was the "Ki Ki Ki Ma Ma Ma" sounds in this film? I heard them like twice in the entire movie! What's a FRIDAY THE 13TH film without that in the background? Nice move, guys.
THINGS I'VE LEARNED WHILE SUFFERING FROM A MEDIOCRE CASE OF TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA
- Don't ever listen to Night Ranger's "Sister Christian" while peeing in the woods. You'll wish you were motoring while you'll die to know what's the price for flight by some masked killer with mommy issues.
- Amanda was hung over a campfire while trapped inside a sleeping bag. I know Amanda was hot but that's being a bit too literal, don't you think?
- Chelsea actually placed herself in front of a motorboat, thinking her dead boyfriend would stop for her, causing Chelsea to have a headache from the impact. Do I have to tell you she was blonde? No? Okay then.
- Chelsea got stabbed through the top of her skull while she was hiding from Jason. That's what you get when you wanna be bad.
- Chewie is the Wood Wizard, but not for his masturbation skills. Yeah, because that title is already taken by me! Ha! Oh wait...uh...that's just a rumor! Yeah...
THE FINAL HOWL
FRIDAY THE 13TH '09 is one of those films that just happens to be "there". It's not good but it's not bad either. It just did nothing for me either way. It just didn't feel like a FRIDAY THE 13TH film for me. Hopefully the DVD Extended Version will be a more complete film and actually be an improvement on the theater version. Let's see if the next installment [and there will be one undoubtedly] will get back to what made these films so fun to watch to begin with. But this version just left me "blah". Color me unimpressed.
