Friday the 13th part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

Overall rating 1/10

I made up a rule very early in this project: don’t question Friday the 13^th films. That way lays madness. Every time something completely stupid or nonsensical would happen in one of these movies I would start to say, “Why did. . .” and then stop myself and say, “Never mind, I forgot the rule.” I mention this now because stopping myself from questioning the plot holes and complete ridiculousness of Friday the 13^th part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan nearly caused me to have a seizure. Seriously, this is one of those movies that is so stupid that while watching it you can actually feel yourself getting dumber. Like, because I watched this movie I can no longer remember the presidents of the 1840’s. (I’m obviously exaggerating – I could never forget you, James K. Polk.)

The majority of this movie takes place on a boat. I guess the boat is leaving Crystal Lake. I don’t know. The point – in as much as there is a point – is that Jason Voorhees gets on a boat full of teenagers that is bound for New York City. The boat is insane. It has a huge boiler room, a boxing ring, a disco, a sauna, skeet shooting, a room of weapons, and an admiral. After about an hour and a dozen deaths the survivors, two teachers and three students, make it to Manhattan with Jason right behind them (somehow).

This movie has a super negative, and fairly comical, view of New York City. Even Time Square in the late 1980’s wasn’t this bad. And where the hell are all these trash strewn allies they are constantly running down? One, maybe even two, I would be willing to believe but as far as I can tell Friday the 13^th’s Manhattan is a maze of allies full of garbage, abandoned docks, sewers, and Time Square.

There is a point when a movie is so bad that it becomes good again, that laughing at it makes it enjoyable. There were points when I thought Jason Takes Manhattan might cross that line but in the end it was really just an hour and half, and 18 deaths, worth of horrible. This film has a lot of blood but its all splatter and no gore and there aren’t a lot of special effects. There are a few minority characters, one Asian girl, a black guy who lives almost to the end, and a few really awful racial stereotype gang bangers in New York who try to gang rape the final girl. Oh, they also forcibly inject her with heroin. Because junkie rapist kidnapping robbers like to share their drugs with their victims.

And that brings us the worst ending in the history of slasher films. The final girl and boy end up (somehow) running from Jason in the sewers. They are warned that every night at a certain time the sewers of New York are flooded with toxic waste (just go with it). They, of course get trapped down there by Jason. They manage to avoid it but he gets caught in the deluge which turns him back into a little boy. They leave him there. The end. Queue the seizure.

Continue reading for a list of victims and final girl.

Friday the 13th part VII: the New Blood (1988)

Overall rating: 5.5/10

Let me be clear, Friday the 13^th, part VII: The New Blood is not a good movie. That said I think we’ve reached a point where standard slashers with tons of anonymous teenage victims, even with a lame gimmicky psychic whinny final girl, is still better than average.

The bad things about this film are the usual complaints about Friday the 13^th movies, no character development and the fact that plot really only exists in the loosest sense of the word. On the other hand I’ve watched so many of these movies that any film I don’t fast forward through large non-murder related portions of (I’m looking at you Nightmare on Elm Street 6)might as well be Citizen Kane. It’s not just that there are loads more deaths in this film, 16 people die, but there is also a nice variety in the methods used to dispatch “characters” that I am forced to differentiate by hair color because they are so interchangeable. Sure, Jason Voorhees is quite fond of his machete but he’s a modern adaptable reanimated serial killing indestructible zombie guy. He’s not afraid to mix it up, pick up a weed whacker, crush a head with his hands, or tie someone up in a sleeping bag and smash them against a tree.

At the same time this film seemed slightly less extreme than others of the series. There was not a lot of blood in this installment. While there is never much in the way of gore in this series, part seven seemed to have even less blood than usual. And while just about all the teenagers had sex with each other we only saw one set of boobs. In terms of non-whites there were two black teens in this film, which puts it ahead of most of its brethren.

The best part of the movie was when we realized that the shady psychiatrist who popped the color on his tweed jacket was Bernie from Weekend at Bernies. That realization added a little something extra to an otherwise mediocre addition to the franchise.

Continue reading for a list of victims and the final girl.

Friday the 13th, part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

Overall rating 4.5/10

If you can’t tell from the title, Friday the 13^th part VI: Jason Lives, marks the return of Jason Voorhees to the franchise. His resurrection is almost as good as Freddy’s from Nightmare on Elm Street 4. Tommy Jarvis, Corey Feldman from IV, also played by random dude in V, is back and played by yet another random dude. He is still plagued by flashbacks and visions of Jason, so he and a weasely sidekick dig up Jason. They manage to accidentally revive him when he’s struck by lightning. The resulting zombie Jason then does what he does best: kill a bunch of people. There is nothing like the classics.

There are an average amount of deaths for a Friday the 13^th film, 17, and a surprising amount of adults die in this film. This is also the first time there are actual children at the camp that Jason attacks, though no kids are killed.

In terms of non-whites there is one black female councilor – who we named fake Lisa Turtle due to a vague resemblance to the character from Saved by the Bell. There is also a hilariously contentious sheriff, whose daughter is the final girl. The final girl is immediately, and nonsensically, attached to Tommy – who the sheriff is convinced is delusional because he keeps insisting that Jason is back. This film, like most Friday movies, makes very little sense (seriously are there 24 hour hardware stores?) but it has lots of death and blood. There is a distinct and puzzling lack of nudity in this movie, it just doesn’t seem like a Friday the 13^th movie without any boobs.

Continue reading for a list of victims and final girl.

Friday the 13th part 5: A New Beginning (1985)

Overall rating: 6/10

I think that Friday the 13^th part V: A New Beginning gets a bad rap. People dislike it because the end reveals that Jason isn’t the killer but I think that actually makes it more interesting. I wish they had stuck to the new beginning that they claimed in the title and restarted the franchise with Tommy as the new killer. Alas, they revive Jason in part six and part five, like part one, is merely a novelty in the larger scheme of Friday the 13^th films.

This movie picks up ten years or so after the previous installment. It would be interesting to try and figure out what year these movies are supposed to take place because while years are supposed to pass in the film universe they pretty much made one a year in real life and the hilarious clothes pretty clearly identifies the mid-1980s. We met now teenage Tommy Jarvis, Corey Feldmen’s characters from the last movie, who is sent to a teenager mental institution rehab halfway house farm (yeah, that part wasn’t very clear). The good news is that fake Corey Feldman grew up to be way more attractive than real Corey Feldman. Plus, he busts out with some hilarious surprise karate moves. There are also some really funny surprise boobs. It was like they realized they didn’t have enough nudity and so had a waitress flash herself in the bathroom mirror. Awesome.

There is a pretty insane number of deaths in this film (22) which I think makes it our highest death count yet. There are also four black characters; a sassy pre-teen, his grandfather, his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend. The kid even survives. The older brother has a brilliant death scene that takes place in an outhouse. It is one of the most stupidest and funniest things I’ve seen since this project started.

This movie is a mess, but it’s a kind of enjoyable mess. There is this ridiculous hick mother and son, a new wave girl who does an amazing solo dance number, and tons of random victims. We’ve left Crystal Lake and while most of the victims here are still teenagers we get more variety than just the standard parcel of camp councilors. I think there is the usual amount of blood for a Friday the 13^th movie but some more inventive death methods than we’ve seen previously from this series.

Continue reading for list of victims and final girl.

Friday the 13th 4: The Final Chapter (1984)

Overall rating 4/10

We’re only on Friday the 13^th, part IV and they are already using the same cliché plot devices at the end of the movies. This is not to be confused with the generally interchangeable characters and overall “storylines”. (Seriously at what point do teenagers just say no to a trip to Crystal Lake?) At the climax of this film a young boy dresses and pretends to be Jason to elicit sympathy from him and save his older sister (final girl). In the second Friday the final girl/psych major pretends to be Jason’s mom to save herself. I guess I shouldn’t really be looking for originality in this series but these installments were only made two years apart. Plus, if they’ve already run out of new ideas by part four what the hell is going to happen in the next six. This really doesn’t bode well.

There are really only two reasons to watch this film and their names are Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover. Corey Feldman is super young in this movie, pre-Goonies, and he has a hilarious bowl haircut. Crispin Glover, pre-Back to the Future, is gawky and awkward and the highlight of the movie is when he dances. Seriously, watch it; it’ll change your life.

The rest of the film suffers from the usual problems of a Friday the 13^th film; no character development, no outstanding special effects, lack of originality, all white people. Seriously, there was only one non-white person in the whole film (a black female EMT at the very beginning who had no lines). Because this is a Friday the 13^th film there was a high body count, lots of boobies, and a fare amount of blood, though no real interesting death scenes.

I think by the end of this film I was rooting for people to die because that meant it was going to be over faster.

Continue reading for list of victims and final girl.

Friday the 13th, part III (1982)

Overall rating: 7/10

This film, like Friday the 13^th part II, begins with the final scene from the last installment. We are treated to the complete final scene of the previous final girl, Ginny, fighting Jason. It goes on for over five minutes and seems long and unnecessary, perhaps because I just watched it last week. After two throwaway deaths we are introduced to our new crop of “teens” though they seem like college age and some look well into their thirties.

Right away you can tell who is the new final girl. She’s the one who tells her friends not everything is about sex, she refuses to smoke pot, she has an androgynous name (Chris), and she’s the first one to notice that something scary is happening. The Friday the 13^th movies seem all about adhering to the slasher formula. We get a new harbinger of doom, since the guy who yelled “you’re all doomed” was killed in the last film, there is a new crazy old man who tries to warn the group away from the farm on Crystal Lake. There are some other awesome clichés in this movies, people say things like, “nobody’s going to get hurt,” and “stop messing around,” when they hear strange noises in the dark. They are usually killed soon after.

While this film suffers from the normal problems of a Friday the 13^th movie, namely tons victims with no character development who were probably drawn from a hat full of well-worn stock clichés, the final girl almost makes up for it. She’s awesome. She’s kick-ass and puts up a hell of a fight. She tries to drive away and run Jason over with her van but that doesn’t works and she runs out of gas because a punk gang siphoned it. Then she tries hiding but that doesn’t work and she starts to fight back. She hits Jason with a shovel and a log, she stabs him in the hand and leg, she hangs him, and then finally hits him in the face with an axe “killing” him. Her final scenes were so awesome that they doubled the overall rating of the film. I love that she was gutsy and practical. She didn’t freak out or freeze – for example when she was trapped in an upstairs room she broke a window with a chair to escape.

This film is not as overwhelmingly white as the first installments. There are more minorities in this film than the previous two combined. There are two black badass punks, a Hispanic girl who is part of the teen group (we are also briefly introduced to her mother Mrs. Sanchez – they have an argument in Spanish) and we see a black cop at the very end of the movie.

Overall there are 12 deaths in this film, which puts it on par with the other two movies. It was originally released in 3D so it’s chock full of cheesy 3d gimmicks which seem really stupid when not watching the film in 3d – juggling, yo-yo’s, people throwing things, eye balls popping out, ect. The audience gets to see more special effects and more inventive death scenes. We are shown the deaths which are elaborate and have more blood and gore than the previous installments.

I read somewhere that this was supposed to be the final Friday the 13^th movie. Of course after this they made seven more so that didn’t really work out. Interestingly this installment is the first time we get to see Jason wear his iconic hockey mask.

Continue reading for list of victims and final girl.

Friday the 13th part 2 (1981)

Overall rating: 5/10

So far the Friday the 13th franchise has, by far, the largest body count. This series, more than any other, seems to be about blood and boobs. The characters are interchangeable and they have a lot of sex. This film is fairly stupid and would have probably been boring if not for this project. Like the first film this plays out like a series of death scenes without being particularly scary.

There are some changes between Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th part 2. The biggest difference is that Jason, the son of Mrs. Voorhees the killer in the first movie, has now taken up his mother’s grudge against camp councilors. They did away with the mystery and just embraced Jason as the killer. It is interesting that this early in the series he has yet to don his iconic hockey mask, instead he wears a scarecrow like bag on his head with only one eye-hole. He also only occasionally used a machete, which I always thought of as his signature weapon. Another big change in this film is that, because we know who is the killer, all the deaths are from the third person perspective, whereas most murders in the first film were from the killer’s point of view.

This movie has more blood and gore than its predecessor. You see the violence take place, rather than it happening off-screen and then revealed to the audience. It has good continuity with the previous film. Seven years have supposedly passed and a new camp is being opened, not Camp Crystal Lake but located adjacent, on the same lake. Jason has become an urban legend – a scary story the councilors tell each other around the campfire. The viewers, however, know that he’s back, we’ve already seen him kill the final girl from the first film, Alice. They also bought back the best part of the first film, the old guy who yells, “You’re all doomed,” at the new councilors. (I love that guy!)

There are nine deaths in this film, one less than the first Friday the 13th. There is one black guy in the movie – he’s a councilor. He doesn’t die but he’s also only shown once or twice and doesn’t have any lines. This movie is not as good as the first installment and I honestly don’t think that these films are going to get any better.

Continue on for list of victims and final girl.

Friday the 13th (1980)

Overall rating: 6/10

The basic problem with Friday the 13th is that there is absolutely no character development. The trope of a group of people getting picked off one by one can be very effective, suspenseful, and scary. In this film it just reads like a movie with no plot, set up like a series of death scenes strung together for an hour and a half. With the lack of character development it’s easy to root for the killer. Plus almost every death scene is shot from the killer’s point of view. This was to hide the identity of the murderer but really serves to allow the audience to identify with the unknown killer and cheer as they hack up their seemingly endless supply of teenage camp councilors. The victims in this film are so anonymous that we had a hard time identifying many of them by name.

At the same time the film can be sort of enjoyable for what it is. The high point for me was the music, which I really enjoyed. It’s very Psycho inspired and, I think, the best thing about the film. Though I did also really like the old guy who kept yelling “You’re all doomed!” at the teens. That’s gonna be my new catch phrase.

The best part about this movie is the twist at the end. It turns out that Mrs. Voorhees, a middle aged women, was the killer the whole time. Mrs. Voorhees has more personality than any other character in the film and I found myself rooting for her over the final girl, Alice, who might as well have been played by a water-balloon in a wig.

This movie has a high body count, 10 deaths, and a moderate amount of blood but no guts. I have a feeling this series gets a lot gorier as it continues. There are also no people of color anywhere in the film. I guess summer camp is only for white people. You can also check out super young Kevin Bacon in one of his first movies.

Continue reading for list of victims and final girl.