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Jason vs. Jason: Surviving the Friday the 13th franchise-Part I
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I've had little experience with the Friday the 13th films in my life. In fact Jason Voorhees and myself have only met on two previous occasions, and both times he gift-wrapped my young ass in butcher paper and handed it back to me...
The first happened at a friends house when I was around nine years old. Friday the 13th Part II was on TV that night, and since my little buddy at the time was allowed to watch anything and everything with zero parental approvement we decided to watch it together.I made it about 25 minutes into the film before I wanted to call home and have the parents come and get me.
In the end I tried to stay the night at the kid's house but thoughts of a murdering maniac wearing a gunny sack over his head, (Jason wouldn't get his famous Hockey mask till the third 13th flick) kept me awake, far too frightened to sleep. I walked home in the dark that night. Too afraid to spend the night in a home that allowed Friday the 13th movies to be exhibited no questions asked, and too afraid to let the family I was staying with in on the fact that I was basically a nine year old wiener who desperately needed his mommy. So I walked home, in the dead-dark hours of night, freaked out of my nine-year-old mind that Jason was behind me, above me, ahead of me, all around me... And we even shared the same name...
It may say "Destroy Jason if you CAN!" but you really couldn't.
The second time we would meet would be in 1989 when I attempted to beat the LJN produced NES video game based on the Friday the 13th films. I still don't believe that this game had a market back then, but it's easily the most surreal children's home console game ever produced. It's also one bastard of a game to beat. Which I didn't do, or better yet couldn't do. Friday the 13th the game will go down in history as one of the ridiculously hard gaming experiences of my generation. So as of today, as I now take it upon myself to see all 11 available Friday the 13th movies in order, it's Jason Voorhees-2, Jason Roestel-0...
Of course since the last time we met the Friday the 13th franchise has become something beyond a traditional slasher film franchise. We'll speak more of that in a bit, but even the original films have lost whatever attempt they were making at terrorizing an audience and now have become much more entertaining, even comedic films to watch. Any time we revisit the 80's, especially the sun-filled brainless days of early 80's horror movies, like we do with the original 13th films, it's a time capsule as to what our species was thinking and creating at the time. Almost all of it corny and ludicrous.
This Pamela Voorhees action figure frightens me
So I've divided the 11 Friday the 13th movies up into three separate film blocks. The first block will be Friday the 13th-Friday the 13th The Final Chapter: Jason Voorhees the Formative Years. The first four films of the series where we see Jason go from deformed fish-boy to killer fabulous. We'll visit his mom in the original film, her head in the next few. We'll witness the moment Jason dons the Hockey mask for the first time. And we'll see the teen boys and girls he cut his teeth on getting himself prepared for his latter, life-after-death period of maximum murder spreeing.
This section will be Friday the 13th A New Beginning-Friday the 13th The New Blood: Jason Voorhees the Resurrection where Jason, (well Jason in the latter two films, his lackey in the first) returns from the grave, as a decaying zombie masked-murderer, to unleash hell on his favorite swimming hole, Camp Crystal Lake. The body count totals are much higher at this point in our journey, as all endeavors at scaring an audience are completely exhausted at this point, and savagery on an inhuman scale is what we're paying ticket prices to see during this middle block of the Friday canon.
Next up will be the final stretch of our contest, Friday the 13th Jason takes Manhattan-Freddy vs. Jason: Jason Voorhees World Traveler. Where Jason visits New York city, and also makes a tight little trek through hell here as well, neither of which being mutually exclusive. Our four film journey will take us to the stars and hopefully end in one of cinema's grandest mano a mano matches ever put to celluloid: Jason Voorhees vs. Freddy Kruger in a duel to the death. Well, at least one more death in a long history of repeated deaths...
I'm going to grade this franchise in each block with a few categories I've created for this series of columns:
1)Best Film- Self explanatory
2)Worst Film- Again with the self explanatory
3)Darwin Award- For the character that made that one mortal mistake...
4)Unecessary Roughness- For that moment where Jason Voorhees got a little too brutal with someone.
5)Smooth Move Ex-Lax- A popular saying from the 80's that we're resurrecting here for that really dumb thing someone really dumb did or said really dumbly.
6)Celebrity Sighting- Believe it or not a few celebrities did star in these films.
7)Thank You Mr. Voorhees, May I Have Another?- Reserved for that extremely annoying character that we were glad to see meet a bloody end.
8)There's Just Nooooo Way!- For that act that defies all sensible logic and reason. Where the laws that bind our universe together are flaunted.
9)Miss Crystal Lake- These movies didn't get famous on murder alone. There are more than a few nipple-bunnies bouncing around Crystal Lake. We'll elect three over the course of the film series.
10)Great Dialog- Of course writing wasn't a priority when designing these films. Let's call attention to some of those really dreadful lines and the people that spoke them.
And that's it. That's me versus him, Jason vs. Jason: The Final Showdown. I'm giving myself one week to watch each of the three movie blocks, and I'll be reporting back each Monday on my progress all through the month of October. I'm hoping this is bit more lighter and fun than my two evenings spent watching 2001 and Star Trek the Motion Picture in my Survival of the Snooziest column... Be sure to be here next week for Friday the 13th-Friday the 13th The Final Chapter: Jason Voorhees the Formative Years...
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