Friday The 13th film poll

Nice to see some love for ol' sack head.

 

Oops, I realize I messed up. It should have been “Jason vs. Michael Myers”.

 

I’ve looked out some reviews I wrote a few years ago. I reviewed all of the Friday films except Freddy Vs Jason as it was so unwatchable I couldn’t get beyond the first ten minutes (I’d seen it before and loathed it). I’ll post one review at a time because it’s more annoying that way. Also note that I watched them out of strict order to that might affect the consistency of the reviews.


Friday the 13th (1980)

A very plodding, subdued, restrained little movie. It's not scary and the kills have little brutality or gore. There is no feeling that the censors interfered with the violence. There's a decent amount of dialogue in it but when I think about it no one says a single interesting thing – whole conversations amount to nothing. It's directed without any style in a very matter of fact way. It's a simple, fairly competently staged little film that never kicks up a gear to be compelling. The acclaimed end battle went on too long. I became disengaged and found myself losing my concentration on it. The jump scare at the end remains effective as the timing of the attack is very sudden and abrupt. I knew exactly what was coming and yet it still got me to jump. It was watchable and has a fairly proper story by the nuts and bolts standards of the genre. The film was just about okay.

Average


Also I wrote this for something else, which is relevant.

‘Favourite horror franchise?

Friday the 13th. The quality goes up (Parts 6 and 10) and down (Parts 5 and 8) but at least I can say I’ve seen them all and I’ve read books about the making of them. It’s a franchise I pay attention to and I can work up some excitement over the films. Also as the first movie wasn’t brilliant and the later sequels weren’t total dogs there’s no major tailing off that ruins what could have been a good franchise.’

 

I've seen them all. I watched them all over a few days a few years back. The first one is the best and the only one that has any replay value for me. At least the first one had a creepy atmosphere. I've often wondered how the series became so iconic given that none of the films are really all that good. They're the kind of movies where you know they suck in terms of acting, writing, production values, etc. but they're kind of fun so you watch them anyways. But of all the early 80s slashers flicks many of which were just as good, why did Friday take off and become a cultural phenomena? Must be the cool name, that's all I can think of.

 

The franchise took everything that made Carpenter's Halloween work with Michael Myers and amped everything up to 10 on the dial. More blood, more gore, more nudity, and more moments with the iconic killer. It's very easy to see why F13 became a major success. That is why Jason fans wanted him to meet Michael Myers.

Many people like seeing annoying teenagers hacked to death.

 

Looking over my reviews I’m seeing a lot of spoilers in them. So be warned. Also my reviews contradict my remembered off the top of my head opinions expressed in the opening post.


Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

There probably is no such thing as a properly good slasher movie. So for its crappy genre this is probably one of the stronger examples. It didn't feel bloated with stretched out scenes and content. It felt to the point with no meandering. The pace was a bit draggy, but I never felt it was too slow. It wasn't scary but there were one or two effective jumps. The kills are weak and edited around the gore to the point they don't come across very well (I assume this is a result of censorship). Only one death occurs off screen (I hate off screen deaths in slashers as it's the only reason to watch them) but the ending is weird and ambiguous. It's not an arty movie so I'm puzzled why it ends on such a cryptic note with two kids attacked, but we don't find out what happens and if one of the kids survived. Also another kid stays in town so avoids death, which is just strange. Odd decisions considering it's not an art movie. Jason with the bag over his head was okay as the bad guy. The film was watchable and not a massive waste of time. The fact I finished it and I didn't yawn with boredom is a very good sign that it's one of the stronger slasher movies.

Below average

 

Original

 

Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982)

It was sort of all right and competently done, but I can't say I enjoyed it. I didn't pick up on much sense that the censors did any damage. The kills are fairly brutal and bloody with not much cutting around them to minimise the impact. I wouldn't go as far as to call the kills creative, but they were generally good and kind of amusing such as the harpoon to the eye. Not every kill is literally on screen but I don't feel short-changed with people being murdered off screen. The story is very nuts and bolts to the extent that this one is almost the generic model of what you think of as a Friday the 13th film. The dream jump scare at the end was obvious and rather silly. The picture quality is soft due to the 3D camera technology they used which is unfortunate. The copious shots of pointing objects at the camera are so unsubtle you can't help but snigger. It was more or less competent in a workmanlike way.


Below average

 

Two for me

 

On You Tube there are a lot of channels that rank all the films and many of them agree that Part IV is the best or one of the best. I need to watch it again as I don't think I have seen it since it first came to the premium cables stations.

 

That's a good point about off-screen deaths in slasher movies, what is the point? Your core audience is there for the kills.

I would guess the main reason is budget/time issues, they just end up not having the money or time to finish the effects so they take the easy way out. There is at least one off-screen death in both 2 (Terri), 3 (Shelly) and 4 (Tommy's mom).

 

Don't forget MPAA cuts. And sometimes it's scarier to not see what''s happening.

 

There's an independently-made Friday the 13th "fan film" making the YouTube rounds that's been getting rave reviews from F13 fanboys. I haven't had time to watch this yet, but apparently "Never Hike Alone" is quite awesome.

 

I downloaded it to watch later. Jumped through it a bit to check it out. Looks really good with some surprises.

 

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

The first ten minutes are very strong. It really gave me high hopes for a good, enjoyable film. The mortuary kill was very well-staged and made me jump as it had great misdirection (I thought Jason was still in the drawer). Probably the best kill in the whole series. I get the impression it was laboured over and storyboarded etc in a level of detail that the rest of the scenes didn't get. After that it became the usual stuff. There are a few jumps in the first half, but I would credit that more to sudden loud music cues rather than any sophisticated filmmaking. Even by the poor standards of the series, these kids were anonymous. At least in the other films you could differentiate between them just by looking at them. In this one a lot of the kids look the same and have such indistinct dialogue, if they even get any lines, that I literally couldn't tell a bunch of them apart. They were seriously anonymous. So watching this herd get slaughtered was even more un-personal than usual. Some of the kills were bloody, and very few happened off screen. Unfortunately the direction was sometimes garbled. With so many close ups it was hard to tell what was going on. I'm really not sure what I was supposed to be seeing during some of the kills. The killing of the girl on the rubber boat was particularly poorly filmed as my attention was on her shoulder instead of on her back – it took me far too long to even notice there was a knife poking out of her back. The kill when one of the twins is pulled through a window introduces too many logistical questions concerning where Jason is (he's in the house, then he's outside climbing the walls, then he's back inside again in a short space of time). It kind of grinded on and was lacking in any charm or fun. The final running around fighting Jason sequence wasn't any good. It's a bad film, but the opening is very good.

Bad

My review of

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

When I was about 14 I saw the first five minutes of Halloween 4 and was so terrified I gave up within the first ten minutes (probably during the dream attack in the bedroom). My memory was that it was a very promising film. I had recently read a very detailed review which made it sound a bit more eventful and story based than is usual for the genre.

So I was authentically looking forward to it when it was screened again on TV. It started okay although not half as good as I remembered it. It remained just about all right if a little plodding until about half an hour in when Loomis, the lead good guy, gets to the police station. I felt it lost its momentum and became boring from that point on.

The film has two languors in it that I really disliked. And these two sequences are set back to back. Jamie, the niece Michael Myers is trying to kill, goes Trick Or Treating and meets up with some bullies from her school. Nothing comes of this set up. She and her sister end up wandering the streets for a bit, both lost looking for each other. I get the feeling it's supposed to be full of tension but I felt nothing. It was just this odd blank section that amounted to nothing.

Then the really long, evil languor set in when they hole up in the sheriff's house as they wait for Myers to strike. Nothing happens for about ten minutes. It really tried my patience as there was no tension, or no interesting characters with good dialogue to say. Nothing. A horrible sucking blackhole that killed an already limping film.

The film's main problem, if in fact the only problem that truly matters, is that the death scenes are rubbish. And frankly that is all a slasher film has going for it since they don't trade heavily in plot or characters. The film is violent but strangely bloodless and constantly cutting away from most of the carnage. And half the deaths even take place off screen! In a slasher film?! Off screen deaths deny the audience the very thing they are watching this type of film for. It isn't anywhere near arty enough to get away with withholding the deaths from the audience. If I can't watch Myers kill people then why am I watching this? For the acting? For the story?

After that very long and tensionless drawn out sequence in the sheriff's house it eventually pays off way too little, way too late with some murders. One of which again happens off screen.

Jamie runs to the school to hide but I was too bored to continue. Normally if I feel I must finish a film on DVD that I don't like I usually put it on x2 speed (with or without subtitles). Sure, it destroys the subtleties of the film but by this point I don't care as I just want the piece of crap to be over with. Unfortunately it was recorded onto my hard drive from the TV so I couldn't do that. Instead I watched the last fifteen or so minutes at x6 speed with no soundtrack. As it's not a film that had displayed any complexity or subtlety so far, I think I got the gist of the story from the images that flashed past. And I'm glad I saved myself the time as I don't get the impression the film got any better.

***SPOILER IN NEXT PARAGRAPH***
The ending with Jamie turning into a killer seemed like a tacked on twist that had no connection to the character we had been watching. She had displayed no signs of being mentally disturbed, or of becoming a killer (bare in mind I fast-forwarded the end so what do I know). I'm not at all surprised they didn't follow this storyline for Part 5, as was apparently originally intended. Who really wants to see her take over from Myers? "The Shape" killing is what people want to see, so I can't imagine why they even considered Part 5 without Michael Myers.

It was a very unsatisfying film for a slasher as the kills were restrained and often off screen. The plot and characters were the usual generic fodder for the genre. I felt the film outstayed its welcome after about half an hour and became boring. Once you're past the age of about sixteen, a string of poorly filmed deaths with minimal plot is very hard work to sit through.

I felt the scares were poorly timed and the use of physical space to be BS. Myers seemed capable of hiding in tiny spaces (Jamie's bedroom (admittedly that is a dream scene), hiding in the police car), disappearing (when Loomis shoots at him in the gas station) or getting around without being seen (the busy store where he gets his mask is a scene that wouldn't work if filmed in a wide shot).

Halloween Part 5 was on the next day. I didn't bother recording it as they say it's worse than Part 4.

Awful

NOTE: I’m not exaggerating when I say half the deaths take place off screen in Halloween 4. Half of them are not seen. For example I believe the ambulance crew are killed off screen.

 

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

BIG SPOILERS

Very bad. If someone told me it was a deliberate parody I would half believe them. The script is odd with strange dialogue, bizarre scenes and peculiar characters. The paramedic is obviously the killer from the start due to how clumsily his scenes are filmed with telegraphed extreme reaction shots. Some of the actors give big, exaggerated comic performances, others catatonic ones and others overact without the comedy. Visually it has been shot and edited like the blandest TV soap in the world – a seriously mundane looking movie with unhurried editing that kills all the possible excitement and tension. The kills are so bloodless and off camera (as in we see the kills but the camera angles and editing make sure we can see little to nothing) that they are all without exception disappointing. Either the censors chopped it to pieces or they actually filmed it this way to avoid censorship. Either way, all the kills are crap. Very poorly filmed. Also a fair number of deaths happen completely off screen (as in their bodies turn up and it's the first we know of them having been killed). I hate off screen deaths in slasher movies as the kills are the only reason why we're watching the thing in the first place. The end fight with 'Jason' is very weak and slow (plus people stand still for ages and allow themselves to be hit by sharp objects). Then the ending with Jarvis becoming Jason was so shoddily conceived and filmed it became comically inept. Jarvis is presented as the lead character but he barely has any screen time and doesn't do much. I recently watched Best Worst Movie Ever (2009) about a comically bad film called Troll 2 (1990). Its director was revealed to be incapable of seeing how bad his own film is – he actually thinks he made a quality, serious film even though he has sat in theatres with people pissing themselves laughing at his movie. I get that same vibe from this, as though the director thought he was doing good work and somehow couldn't see just how bad a job he was doing. He has no taste and can't distinguish between good and bad (at least while filming, maybe later he recognised how poor his work was). A very bad film and also fairly boring.

Very bad

 

3 because of that smokin hot brunette.

 

the first one...

AND...
I'm still curious why they made Halloween 3...I do love it.

 

Because John Carpenter wanted to make each movie its' own entity outside of the Michael Meyers storyline.

 

OK...

 

Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives (1986)

By far the strongest Friday film. It's hard to imagine how this was made a mere year after the terrible and amateurish fifth movie. It's much more sophisticated looking visually and the script is pretty decent. The dialogue isn't too bad, the characters aren't quite as shallow and the kills are a bit more inventive. The murders don't look like they've been censored much as you see pretty much everything you expect to see (the three beheaded paintball players are the only kills that look compromised). There is at least one character who knows about Jason from the start so there is a bit more of a push and pull dramatic shape to the story as there are opposing forces fighting each other to some extent. There are deliberate jokes that are amusing, and help give the characters a bit of personality. It was quite a good film. By far the best written and directed in the series, and the kills are good.

Good

 

All the same to me.

 

I watched this over the weekend. Lots of fun! Very cool, well made stuff.

 

Here’s the Angry Video Game Nerd’s Friday the 13th series review:



It’s a good watch if you have an hour to spare.

 

Probably the nod would go to with II with a close second to I. I also have a soft spot for III due to it being the first one I saw in the theatre as a kid and for the campy 3D effects ( the joint being passed in 3D, the guys eyeballs popping out in 3d after being crushed by Jason lol...)