horrorfan_1986

The Story

Opening up sometime in the past, a female counselor is alone with a crazed killer. With one chop, the killer's head is cut off and the survivor runs off to safety. A Young boy walks through and takes the necklace off of the woman and the machete. Cut to several years in the future and we join a group of friends looking for some pot planted in the woods. With not having any luck, the group of five decides to camp out before trying to find it some the next morning. Whitney and boyfriend, Mike, heads off to be alone. Meanwhile, geek, Wade, upon fixing his GPS, continues to look for the ever mysterious pot. This leaves Richie and Amanda to bring on the first sex scene. Wade eventually finds the pot, but finds a killer as well. Jason lives. Jason continues his murderous ways by killing Amanda, Richie and Mike. We fade to black with Whitney's status unknown.

Cut to the future again. We meet up with Trent, Jenna and their friends heading up to Trent's family's cottage for some weekend fun. At a gas station, we're introduced to Clay, the brother of Whitney. Trent, being a douche bag is a jerk to him before finally leaving. Once the friends get to the cottage, couple Chelsea and Nolan heads over to Trent's boat for a little ride against Trent's wishes. This turns out to be exactly what Jason wants as he quickly kills off the pair. While this is going on, Clay continues his search for his sister by going around Crystal Lake trying to talk to everyone. One lady tells him that Whitney is dead, that no one just "Disappears". Upon meeting the creepy Donnie, Clay finds out that someone has been stealing kerosene from Donnie. Hmm. Clay eventually heads to Trent's cottage and reunites with Jenna. With Trent being an ass still, Jenna offers to help Clay look around the other side of Crystal Lake.

Clay and Jenna makes their way to Camp Crystal Lake, the scene of where Whitney and Mike first met up with Jason. Once night falls, Jason carrying a body comes back to the camp. Jenna and Clay realizes that they are in the stomping grounds of a killer and must hurry to try and help out Jenna's friends. Poor Donnie meets his doom shortly before this. With Jason's makeshift mask pulled off by Donnie, Jason finds a new one - a hockey mask. With Jenna gone, Trent's unable to keep this thing in his pants and has some fun with the ultra hot Bree. In mid sex, Clay and Jenna returns back to the cottage. Clay's able to call the police before the power is cut. Jason kills off a couple of the more meaningless friends before the cop arrives. Once the cop does show up, he proves to be so helpful by being killed within moments. With only Trent, Clay and Jenna left, Trent runs off in one direction while the other two runs the other. After being an asshole for the entire film, Trent is brutally killed and dragged away on the back of a truck. Elsewhere, Jenna and Clay finds the underground tunnels that Jason uses. It's in those tunnels that an alive Whitney is kept.

With Clay freeing his sister, Jason jumps down into the tunnel and quickly kills off Jenna much to my surprise. Running to Donnie's barn, we have the final showdown. Whitney shows Jason the necklace that belonged to his mother, giving Clay enough time to wrap a steel chain around his neck. The chain is then thrown into a wood chipper that slowly cuts away at Jason's head. Surviving, the brother and sister drags Jason's body to be dumped back into Crystal Lake. Finally feeling safe, Jason bursts through the dock and grabs Whitney which brings us into the credits.

The Characters

Clay Miller - Brother of Whitney. Clay is a likable version of Rob Dier from part 4. One of the few realistic characters of the movie and is an enjoyable hero.

Whitney Miller - Sister of Clay. After caring for her sick mother, she at the advice of her mother heads off to have some fun with her friends at Crystal Lake. Imprisoned for most of the movie, she ends up being the heroine.

Trent - Boyfriend of Jenna who's perhaps the biggest asshole in Friday history. Cheats on Jenna with Bree. It's his family's cottage that is the scene of some of the movie.

Jenna - Girlfriend of Trent. The assumed heroine of the movie. Perhaps a romantic connection with Clay?

Bree - The slut of the group who turns into a highly emotional and annoying character. Participates in one of the best sex scenes in Friday history.

Jason Voorhees - Upon seeing his mother killed, Jason goes on a killing spree whenever anyone enters his woods. Don't fuck with his pot.

The Verdict

As I discussed before, Freddy vs Jason turned out to be the first true hit from the Friday series in years. Instead of going the sequel approach they decided to try remaking the series hoping that that would keep the interest up for a few more films. However, while one of their films was successful, New Line had had a problem with quality. Let's get this out of the way right now. This movie is easily the best Friday since Part 6.

However, first the bad. The whole tunnels was too unrealistic. I can see Jason building some cheap shack like in part 2, but a whole huge tunnel system?! This ties into the other thing I didn't really like - Jason appearing and disappearing so much. I've heard one of the reasons why there are tunnels so that it explains how Jason can appear all over the place. Personally, I find it to be a cheap excuse. This is a common problem with slashers though. However, this was a big time movie that shouldn't have fell into the pitfalls of cheap slashers such as the early films.

I feel like a broken record, but when it comes to these movies, you can't expect great acting. However, I'm so sick of these cute little lines the characters gives whether in danger or right before they hurt Jason. It's not as bad as Jason X, but I know if I was about to be killed, the last thing that would be on my mind would to think of a clever line to bring on the lol's. All of these cutesy lines just ruin the moment for me.

One fun thing that I rather enjoyed was all of the nods towards the other movies. While most viewers realized it was a remake of one-three, it shows a lot more than that:

One - The beginning of the movie with Mrs. Voorhees being killed
Two - Jason as the killer and Whitney using the necklace to distract Jason
Three - Finding the hockey mask and Jason begin hung
Four - Brother looking for what really happened to sister
Six - Cops not liking the idea that main guy continues to come to Crystal Lake
Seven - Group of friends with an outsider becoming friends with some and homage to sleeping bag kill
Jason Goes to Hell - Seeing the Voorhees house

Perhaps my favorite moment is one of the most unexpected deaths in Friday history. By all means, I assumed that Jenna would survive. Yet the moment Whitney is brought back, Jenna is killed off. Changing things up in a slasher is always a good thing to at least attempt.

Now, even though I did enjoy the movie and thought that Jason was finally scary again, it's also something I disliked. Jason is more serious, scary and grungy. While that is great, it's a problem since so many movies is doing that now. Leatherface, Michael Myers and now Jason has all been more serious in their remakes. With the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street coming out next year, I can only assume he will be more serious as well. So basically, these writers are taking these four unique characters and turning them into the same exact killer.

Overall, the Friday the 13th remake took the series back to it's core. There was tons of gore, which after seeing part 5, that movie feels like Rated G. Plenty of nudity flopping around and a decent enough movie to reboot the series. Friday the 13th took over twenty years, but they're finally seeing success with quality.

I presume that there will be a sequel to this. For fans of Jason, I hope that they continue to go for this type of film (Fun mixed with Friday classics) rather than trying too hard like they did with Freddy vs Jason. If there's one thing that this series has proven, it's when you just try to make a fun movie, that you get some good quality.

The Extras

Death Count: 14
(Not as high as some of the recent ones, but still very respectable without going overboard.)

Boob Count: 5
(While it may not seem like a huge number, the nudity is shown longer than any other Friday.)

Best Kill: Chelsea


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Grade: 5
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The Brain

I definitely agree about the new versions of horror movie villains. Jason in this movie might as well have been the new Myers with a hockey mask. Or the new Leather Face with a hockey mask. Also, it's probably because I'm such a fan of the series, but the end was just waaaay too predictable. I was pretty much anticipating it since the start of the end sequence. As soon as they were on the dock, I was thinking, "Here he comes... wait for it... yep". Since they added so many extras for fans of the originals, it seems like they could have added a twist to this element, especially since they added a twist to the usual heroine formula.

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horrorfan_1986

That's one of the biggest problems of the film. They added so many homages that they forgot to add anything new. It's almost as if this film was just to restart the series and the sequel is there to really add new material.

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Brandon

I really liked it. I probably wrote about it on this site already, but I thought they did the franchise some justice. A lot of people were expecting this to be super cheesy but it wasn't at all.. it was a fun slasher with a ruthless killer.

I think I like that they humanized Jason a little bit more and fleshed out his character. Unlike Michael Myers who is a born killer for no rhyme or reason (until Zombie went a different direction with it), Jason has always had some reasoning for what he was doing. Here they layed groundwork for Jason to be more of a survivalist and I think it makes him a lot more dangerous in those woods.

horrorfan_1986

Well, technically Michael had the Thorn. I think they went the wrong way with Jason though. In the first sequel, his reasoning was perfect. He saw a counselor kill his mother, so he was going to kill all other counselors. In this movie, it's more like he's pissed off that people are after his weed. There wasn't a real connection as to why he was killing people. Instead, Jason was made to look like a guy who was just fucked up and thus super pissed off all the time that caused him to kill. They essentially missed the whole reasoning for the Jason kills.

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horrorfan_1986

The following can best be described as an overall review of the series while I also give my thoughts about random topics on the series. In other words, after two months, it's about damn time I wrap this thread up...

Knowing what works...and what doesn't

In 1980, no one really knew that this little film would go on to create nine sequels, a versus film and a remake. Mixed with a studio that was never fully behind them, it's understandable that the writers didn't really know what to do or what not to do. Declining profits starting with part 5 and 6 caused the writers to scramble to figure out a way to make the series exciting again. The result is what I call the Additional Era of the series. This was the time when they tried to add different elements in order to bring back the interest. Part 7 had telekinesis, Part 8 had a new location, Jason Goes to Hell had a whole new story, Jason X threw Jason into space and finally Freddy vs Jason brought one of the other most famous killers into a Friday film. However, all of this (Minus the last) proved to be unsuccessful. One could blame it on over saturation for the slasher market, problems with the MPAA ratings board or just a lack of interest in the series. However, ironically, the real route of the problem was the lack of Jason. All of the problems can be traced back to Part 5 and how Jason wasn't the killer. It's far easier to lose fans than to gain them. So even though they did it right with part 6, it just wasn't going to show it. This entire quest to find out what could make Jason popular again was a hopeless search since Jason is what's popular. All of these extra gimmicks that the writers gave the fans only took away from the one gimmick that everyone did care about - the killer.

Once you get past that, the other things that really drew the people in to see a Friday film was just how simple the plot was in most of the movies. You didn't have to bring your thinking cap to see a Friday. The basic plot for every one up until Jason Goes to Hell was a serial killer is killing young good looking teens at a lake. That's it. There was gore, inventive deaths and plenty of nudity. The filmmakers never really attempted to make a real quality film. Instead, they went the route of making a fun movie. For the most part, they always succeed in that department. As the old saying goes, there's always an exception to the rule. The best Friday film is part 6. Yet, there isn't much blood and there is zero nudity. Since they put so much effort into making it a fun ride, you don't even miss the nudity or mass of blood.

That damn Star Trek rule

Up until the remake of Star Trek, the movies had a very simple rule - the even films were good while the odd ones weren't. It seems as if someone was a Trekkie and decided to apply the same rule to this series. Looking at my grades, up until part 8 ruined it, there was a huge up and down roller coaster in the ratings. The best grade an odd film god was a 5. Meanwhile, even films only had one below 5 grade. The average odd film grade was a 3. The average even film grade was a 6. I think this really backs up my belief that the filmmakers had no clue what made the films good or bad. So even after a great sequel, they had no idea what they did right, so we didn't see back to back success.

Jason Voorhees is NOT a rip off of Michael Myers

This is one that you can hear a lot amongst fans of the Halloween series, especially casual. While there are some very basic similarities (Silent, mask and using knifes), they're otherwise two difference characters. Jason killed because he saw his mother beheaded by a camp counselor. As for Michael, he killed for A) No reason given B) Before the Thorn curse C) A bad childhood or D) A fucked up mind state. Especially in the early movies, Jason was very sympathetic. He's been all alone for years and has this weird relationship towards sex. It was sex that led to him drowning which caused his mother to snap. The only time that Jason really did steal from Michael was in Jason Goes to Hell when he suddenly wanted to kill his family. What made it worse was that the writers decided to randomly change the entire backstory to do this. However, even with that, the main addition to the plot was the body switching that went on with Jason's heart. Moving on, Michael Myers was a lot more strategic in his kills. Once he had a prey in mind, he would kill everyone around his prey in order to be alone with the real target without having to worry about anyone rescuing the prey. Granted, it rarely worked 100%, but that was the plan. Jason, on the other hand was more "Kill everyone in sight." He didn't really have any targets and instead just killed the victims one by one, whenever the moment presented itself. So really, this whole claim by some people that Jason is a rip off of Michael is unfounded.

What really happened?

Perhaps the biggest question in the entire series is what really happened to Jason as a child? Everyone believed that Jason drowned in Camp Crystal Lake as a child. He shows up as a child in Alice's dream at the end of Part 1. Yet, he's a full adult in part 2. Did he really drown? Was he a zombie long before part 6? If he didn't drown, why didn't he ever go back to his mother? The whole legend was that Jason was there to see his mother beheaded. So why didn't he just go back? He could have prevented everything. In every movie, they never addressed what really happened. This seems like a pretty big question to be left unanswered. This is perhaps the biggest plot hole in the history of horror cinema.

Ranking the films

After every review, I gave the film a special Friday the 13th grade. Now, here is the list in three different levels. The lowest are the films that you flat out shouldn't bother checking out unless you're a die hard Friday fan. They don't offer you anything special enough to check it out. The next is the level where it's pass worthy, but you're not seeing Friday at it's best. Finally, there's the last level where it's the few films that are the best to watch and showcases Jason fuckin' Voorhees at his killing best.

(In ascending order)

Level One - Avoid

12. Friday the 13th Part 5 - A New Beginning
No Jason, heavily edited death scenes and missing any likable characters makes this the worst Friday.

11. Friday the 13th Part 8 - Jason Takes Manhattan
Poor characters, mostly lackluster deaths and lack of logic left this final Paramount sequel with a lot to be desired.

10. Friday the 13th Part 3-D
Sandwiched between two of the better films, the cast was unenjoyable and everything was highly repetitive. It may be a Friday film, but try mixing things up.

9. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
New Line tried something different with their first Friday and that's exactly what we got. It's a Friday film only in name.

8. Freddy vs. Jason
A movie a decade in the making should have been a classic, this was not. However, seeing Freddy and Jason battle may be enough to interest some.

Level Two - Watchable

7. Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood
A new approach to the series didn't bring on the quality, however; the best kill in the series is worth checking out.

6. Jason X
Overally cheesy, yet also a guilty pleasure. It at least offers Friday viewers something new without disrespecting the past.

5. Friday the 13th (2009)
Jason is rebooted with many nods towards the other movies. Sadly, there's very little new original material.

4. Friday the 13th (1980)
It's the movie that started it all. Part slasher and part mystery film. The acting may not be great, but the kills are.

Level Three - Must Watch

3. Friday the 13th Part 2
Jason's killing ways are born. Fun characters and exciting deaths makes this one a keeper.

2. Friday the 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter
THE film to watch Jason's murderous ways mixed with plenty of nudity.

1. Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives
Likable characters, fun deaths, plenty of good music and comedy makes this nudity free movie the single best Friday. THE film to watch to have fun.

The best kill

In all 12 movies, there is one death that stands out the most. It is after all the death that promoted not one, but two homages in future entries. Perhaps it's because of how different it was from all of the other kills that makes it special. Or maybe it's just because I love seeing someone killed in a fucking sleeping bag. In any case, here's to you Judy. Most people may not remember your name or what other movies you were in, but your death scene will live on forever in the best kills of all time for horror cinema.


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With that, this review thread is finally done. I apologize for the delay in getting in the final movie review, but I finally got it in. All that's left is to find out what you guys think. Did you enjoy my reviews? What parts of the review layout did you like and which do you not enjoy? Would it be worth it for me to do another thread on another horror series? I was thinking either A Nightmare on Elm Street (7 movies) or Halloween (10, soon to be 11 movies). Or is there a different series you'd like to see done if you did enjoy these reviews? The choice is all yours as I'm happy to do more of these threads, but only if there is an interest. Hopefully some did enjoy reading these as I had fun rewatching these movies, the good and the bad.

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The Brain

I'm glad you finished this up. I've enjoyed every single review and your analysis of the series pretty much hit dead fucking center. As for the layout, I can't think of a criticism. I liked the whole story/characters/verdict/extras breakdown, the ratings, and the best death gifs. If you decided to do this to the Nightmare series, I'd be a happy man.

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Brandon

Yeah, you did a tremendous job with this. With Halloween II coming out, I'd love to see you review that series and maybe A Nightmare on Elm Street at another time. Probably when it comes out.

One last note on the new film: I'm not sure he was pissed about the weed really, I think we found out from the older woman that Jason "just wants to be left alone".. that he doesn't want people on his land at all..especially stupid teenagers.

horrorfan_1986

The whole weed aspect is a nice little joke that some people have brought up. To be honest, I don't buy into the whole "He just wants to be left alone." part. It just makes him too generic of a killer since he does leave the woods to kill, as seen with Donnie. One of the things I really enjoyed about Jason is he had a very clear motive for his killing spree. The remake did away with that.

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horrorfan_1986

For the two that reads this, A Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween? Whichever you two choose, I'll start in the next few days.

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