D.N.
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Location: "I'm in Outland. I'll do anything."
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 Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:45 am Post subject: PHOENIX franchise review #3: The Friday the 13th Series |
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Written by PHOENIX in 2004
The Films :
Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th Part 2
Friday the 13th Part 3
Friday the 13th : The Final Chapter
Friday the 13th : A New Beginning
Friday the 13th Part VI : Jason Lives
Friday the 13th Part VII : The New Blood
Friday the 13th Part VIII : Jason Takes Manhattan
Jason Goes to Hell : The Final Friday
Jason X
Freddy vs Jason
Over the past 25 years or so the term 'Slasher' has entered the film vocabulary. The Slasher film is a showpiece for the systematic killing of a group of people (usually teenagers) one by one, usually in a graphic and violent way. Not surprisingly it is considered by many to be one of the more trashy genres. That's both fair and unfair.
It's fair in that a huge majority of these films are constructed the same way pornography is these days. While a porn movie exists solely for the sex, these movies tend to exist solely for witnessing violent death. Any dialogue, characterisation or action is written with the only view being to put a character in a situation where they are murdered. When the depiction of violent death is the reason people see a film, it could be considered worrying.
It's unfair in that there is more to it than that. Much has been written about the way they espouse high moral values. The kids that die in these films are usually guilty of some moral digression (premarital sex and drug use are the two most popular) where the hero of the piece, almost always a young lady, is chaste and mature. Like some kind of variation on the seven deadly sins, those who don't make a successful leap from childhood to maturity are in dire peril. The monster/psychopath of the piece can almost be seen as representing the harsh world which will consume those who don't live wisely.
It's like looking at the colours of a killing rainbow. We go from mundane to formulaic to silly to bizarre. The whole thing is actually hard to fathom. What exactly is it that makes this series of films stand out so starkly in pop culture? There's only one thing I can think of : a hockey mask.
If you look at the posters for the films, or video covers, lined up together one thing will strike you immediately. Hockey mask. Why is it that the main focus and icon of a murderous series of films is a piece of sporting equipment? Lets go from film to film and try and find out, for when it all started there was no hockey mask. In fact, there wasn't much at all.
The original Friday the 13th is a rather mundane affair. Part whodunnit/thriller, part horror it follows the exploits of a group of camp counsellors who are murdered one at a time by someone we don't know the identity of. It turns out it was the mother of a boy who drowned years ago at the camp. Still seething over the negligence shown by the young people entrusted with his care she becomes a psychopath who views all young people as immoral targets for her vengeance. This, the actual crux of the film only takes up a small portion. The rest is rather dull padding and offers nothing but casual conversation and immature tomfoolery.
There was a reason this film stood out though. The killing was portrayed in a shockingly graphic way. The aim was to try and jolt audiences by using modern special effects makeup to make the violence as realistic as possible. The end results are very real depictions of cut throats, split heads and decapitations. Effects artist Tom Savani went on to make a real name for himself due to his efforts on this and other films.
At the film's conclusion our heroine (Alice I think her name is) decapitates the villain (Mrs Voorhees) and drifts out onto the lake in a canoe, exhausted by her ordeal. The film isn't too proud to steal stuff from other movies. In something of a 'homage' to Carrie, which was released four years earlier, we get the shock nightmare ending where the child who drowned (Jason), terribly deformed, jumps out of the lake to drag Alice in with him. Alice wakes up in a hospital insisting that the child is 'still out there'.
Censors in Australia weren't on the ball when these films took off. There are a whole glut of films from this time period that sneaked through completely uncensored. It makes for quite the curiosity. Adding to the curiosity factor is the appearance of Kevin Bacon in one of his early film roles. Overall though it wasn't a truly bad film, it's fairly competent. The only problem is that it's not really good either, and there is no doubt if what followed hadn't followed it would have been forgotten.
Friday the 13th Part 2, I frankly believe, is the worst the series has to offer. A lot of people rate this as the best of the series, due to some good direction and effective suspense. I prefer parts 3, 5, 6, 8 and Jason in Space...the stupid ones. But that's just me, I want my movies either brilliant or absolutely inept.
By now the censors were on the ball. The censor's ideas and the creative team behind this movie collided in this case to make something very nearly unwatchable.
You see, they were making this sequel because the first caused a stir. What they did was make it very much like a porno - they didn't care about the characters or story at all this time (they kinda half-cared in the first). So all the attention was paid to particularly gruesome and realistic murder scenes. The rest was real basic padding. Competent padding to be sure, but still padding. There is a fairly good cat-and-mouse chase near the end, coupled with some Jason/Mother psychology, but you have to get through the first hour or so to get to it.
The censors cut this film heavily. Most of all of the murders have been cut, and this shows. You'll see something leading up to a murder, and then a few quick and confusing cuts later it's all over. Sometimes we're in the dark over just what happened at all.
What we're left with is about 80 minutes of padding. It's not enjoyable to watch. That's not to say watching teens being brutally tortured and killed is enjoyable to watch, but when a film's whole purpose is left out and audiences are left to enjoy the padding...it seems totally meaningless to even release the film.
The story is fairly simple. Jason takes his revenge on Alice by killing her (You see! He WAS out there!) and then goes on to kill a bunch of kids near the campground. That's it! That's your story.
Even the driving force behind these films is absent. Instead of a hockey mask, our villain (or hero?) wears a cloth sack over his head. In one of the only interesting pieces in the film, he keeps his decayed mother's head on a shrine in the old shack he lives in. He uses this head to surprise Alice at the start of the film. How he managed to get hold of this head is never mentioned. The reasons for him taking the kettle off the boil after he kills Alice has had people scratching their heads for 23 years.
Part 3 is notable for two reasons. The first is the acquisition of the hockey mask from one of Jason's victims. The second is still chuckled at whenever someone watches it. You see, Part 3 was in....you guess it....3D!!
How many yo-yo's flung at the screen or broom handles held out in a non-too-subtle way you can take varies from person to person. One thing for certain is that every 3 minutes or so you will be subjected to an obvious contrived 3D effect which doesn't work anymore. This all hits it's peak near the end where one character's head is squeezed until an eyeball pops out towards the screen.
The only other thing worth mentioning here is that this film contains the most talked about death scene in the series. An annoying character who insists on doing a handstand every so often is struck with a machete between the legs, just about cutting him in half. The scene may be mostly cut, but it's still grim all the same.
So by the fourth, what with all the gore, controversy, popularity and lack of ideas, they decided to shut up shop. The Final Chapter (which was still followed by an amazing 7 sequels anyway) features Corey Feldman in an early role as a character that would become Jason's nemesis, Tommy. It's Tommy (seeming to be something of a homage to Tom Savani as a child) who finally kills Jason, but not before the usual cutting, spearing, garroting and smashing.
But by now this series had built something of a fan-base. There was cash to be made, but they'd killed their main character dammit! Being on A New Beginning, every series has their black sheep, and this one is Friday's.
The people behind the franchise had the idea of turning this series of films into a bunch of murder-mystery type fare. Each film would feature a killer pretending to be Jason, up against Tommy. At the end the killer would be unmasked...and shown to be not Jason. Cause Jason's dead and all.
This fifth movie was savagely violent and incredibly stupid. Mix that in with the fact that the fans were (disturbingly) fans of Jason, not the series...Well, with no Jason the stupidity seemed more obvious, the violence more unnecessary and cruel. Watching retarded boys being chopped to pieces might be some people's idea of fun. But if it's anyone other than Jason doing it, then there will be angry letters!
Not only was the violence upped, but so was the swearing, images of people taking a shit, the sex...it goes on and on. The sixth film shows us that the people behind the scenes quickly keyed into just what the fans wanted. A big evil zombie wearing a hockey mask.
Now we're entering bizarre territory. Tommy makes his last appearance. Through his neurosis and psychosis he's the one who unleashes the monster on the world and spends the rest of the film trying to finish it. Way to go Tommy.
Viewers should be in no doubt as to what to expect from the very beginning. A spoof of the James Bond opening segment where Jason walks in step to a circle moving across the screen, he turns and slashes at it, and blood flows down. I still haven't figured out whether they wanted to adopt this in future films or whether they were saying to us "Look...this is gonna be stupid, so prepare yourselves."
Tommy and a very special surprise from Welcome Back Kotter travel to Jason's grave where they commence to dig it up. Tommy opens it and starts stabbing the dry desiccated corpse of Jason with a spear (after giving him back his hockey mask of course). Oh that wacky Tommy. I guess his psychiatrist recommended this as some kind of therapy.
But we all know what happens when lightening strikes a dry desiccated corpse. If you answered anything other than 'zombification' then you obviously don't have a good grasp of science. As said before Tommy spends the rest of the film trying to kill the thing he brought to life as many kids and even adults get the treatment.
The censors had a field day with this one also. With a zombie Jason imaginations ran wild and there was plenty of guts being pulled out and heads ripped off. Zombie Jason was a good direction to take, he does look frightful and menacing. But a good monster does not a good movie make, the plot and direction borders on lunacy and there are many just plain stupid things to keep us on our toes. They don't even bother killing Jason in this one, they just have him pushed over a boat chained to a rock Mafia style - put in storage under the lake until the next inevitable sequel.
Part 7, The New Blood may well have done just as well with the title The Same Old Shit. A girl with the power of telekinesis is the only change to the scenery. She battles Jason and a guy who is out to profit from her powers. Of course Jason kills a whole lot of people and ends up back under the lake. Put in storage for number 8. This is probably the most forgettable of the series. It doesn't have the lunacy and pure awfulness of part 8 or the stupidity of part 6. If you're watching a Jason marathon this is the time to catch some Zs.
Part 8 is a real lowlight. This time you can tell by simply reading the title. Jason Takes Manhattan?? Excuse my French but...what the fuck? I had visions of Jason taking a song and dance act on the road, and really that would probably have made a better movie. Jason stows away on a boat bound for New York (this is so stupid I can hardly believe I'm typing it) killing people all the way.
Once in New York he stalks the rest of our heroes, at one stage taking on a boxer with just his fists. When he knocks the boxer's head clean off you'll probably want to return to the video shop and shove the tape up the store manager's ass. That is unless you like bad movies, if that's the case a loud "guffaw!" should suffice.
This time they finish him off for good. How you ask? I'm too ashamed to tell...ok I will. New York toxic waste. Yup, the good old New York toxic waste had to be good for something! It melts him good until there is nothing left but the glowing image of a child. Besides this film being criminally dumb, it also looks and feels cheap. I was sure they'd give it up, these films were straight to video fare now, at least over here. But years later they decided to continue...
Jason Goes to Hell : The Final Friday is the third time they convinced me that the last one had been filmed, and I was wrong every time. This time, for the first time in the franchises history, they didn't even bother trying to connect the story to the previous movie. They just threw their hands in the air and cried "Fuck it!", starting the film at Camp Crystal Lake again with a fully non-melted Jason.
It's only mere minutes into the film before Jason is blown to pieces by the...military? Monster police? I don't know. Basically a black worm comes out of Jason's heart at the coroners office and starts hopping from person to person, making those infected Jason-Like. There's the killing as per usual and magic.
What's that? I hear you ask. Magic? Well, somehow the hero of the piece brings Jason back to life through magic. He had to do it so he could dispatch of him through...some kind of magic. Mixed in there somewhere is the Book of the Dead from the Evil Dead series, and the last little kick, Freddy Krueger's gloved hand reaches out to snatch his hockey mask. Now they're just throwing anything in there and hoping for the best.
Jason Goes to Hell was produced by Sean Cunningham, the guy that directed the first. You can almost hear the cogs and wheels working away in some film executive's mind, filching strategies from other series like the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.
Oh God, there's still two to go. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse we get.....Oh I can hardly say it....Jason in Space.
JASON!
IN!
SPACE!
Again the makers threw their hands in the air and cried "Fuck it!". They brought Jason back to a holding pen on some kind of Monster-Research base where he kills about 100 people before being cryogenically frozen. Skip forward to the far future, a team lands on the now deserted planet Earth and discovers Jason and his new nemesis, both frozen.
Lets take some time to consider just how crazy things have become since the first film. Ok, now lets continue.
This film owes more to films like the Alien and Star Trek films than slasher films. The one good thing you can say about it is it's certainly odd. Near the end we get to see a newly created cyborg Jason when a pretty much ruined Jason gets reconstructed by nano-technology. Looking at it as a whole is somewhat akin to looking at Michael Jackson today and wondering, "What the hell happened?"
Now I have to see Freddy vs Jason just to witness what they've tried this time. I'll admit that this series of films is just odd enough to not at all be boring. From the sadistic to the idiotic to the bizarre Jason will always be there asking us all the question - Why oh Why won't you let me die? |
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