Friday The 13th film poll

Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood (1988)

I gave up on it at about the ten minute point many years ago. This time I finished it and thought it was all right. The change of film stock since Part 5 (I saw that one the day before) helps a lot – now it looks realistic and gritty instead of like a bad 70s TV soap. The Carrie vs. Jason plot is daft, but this isn't clever art so I was okay with it being silly. I accepted the silliness without much complaint. They didn't do much with it though, as about all it amounts to is throwing some furniture around. The kills were monumentally uncreative. They were mostly simply knife attacks. They were filmed with no suspense or tension. They weren't very bloody, but I didn't feel like it cut around them too much due to censorship or good taste. I don't think any deaths happen off screen. It was solid enough and was very, very mildly entertaining. The acting was acceptable and the script and dialogue was okay. It was competent, which is about all you can ask for from a film like this. The ending should have been the house exploding. It was ambiguous and satisfying. The father jumping out of the water was very silly and hurt the movie.

Below average

 

Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

It was very bad. The lead actress feels curiously missing and disconnected from large chunks of the movie. She makes little impact. Her 'visions' are very cheesy looking and full of clichéd horror imagery that the previous Friday films never traded in. The major problem is the change of setting makes it not feel like a Friday film. Without the rural setting it's just a trashy late-80s slasher. The setting on the boat is bland, but it's better than the New York setting which is just not right for Jason at all. Also we see too much of Jason which is counterproductive as he's no longer an intriguing shadowy presence. The music is terrible – the music literally has an evil laugh. The film is trapped in the worst excesses of 80s fashion which makes it laughable. It's not a well-written movie and it's directed very poorly as a horror. There is no tension and no scares. The kills aren't particularly bloody but I don't get the impression there was any censorship. Jason has developed remarkable powers of teleportation. A character is being chased by Jason from behind in a street – he enters a door, goes up the stairs and is punched out a first story window by Jason. All in one shot that remains out on the street. Even allowing for the elastic logic of a film like this, that doesn't even make sense within the film's own world logic. It was boring long before the end. The ending is baffling in what they were going for. Who knows what they were planning to do at the start of Part 9 to get them out of this corner they had painted themselves into. The worst film in the series. At least Part 5 has an element of unintentional self-parody going for it. It doesn't even have opening credits like the others in the series. They mucked around with the formula to the extent that it was generic and bad in ways that weren't even keeping within the style of its own generic and bad franchise.

Very bad

 

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

It's abundantly clear that this was originally written as a standalone B-movie that was later retrofitted to become a Friday the 13th film by simply replacing the original serial killer with Jason. They have made no effort to make it fit with the established mythology of what went before as it introduces a lot of new stuff. The ability to jump from body to body as a demon creature is just so not Friday the 13th at all. The film does not belong in the series, but if you can get over how disconnected it is then it's an all right enough movie in its own right. It's very B-movie with trashy ideas. It's not scary although I did jump at one point (the cop who turns up when the mother is using the ice box machine behind the diner). The direction is more suited to an action movie than a horror with fast editing on action (someone is thrown through a window and we get about ten angles on it, cut together very, very fast) and extended slow motion sequences to make things look cool. The violence is quite strong with a fair amount of blood and guts on screen without cutting away from it too soon. My guess is that the censorship climate of the time no longer cared about these movies and let them get away with pretty much anything. The best kill was the girl having sex in the tent as we see half her body get torn away. The music was terrible. It sounded like cheap synths and was too in the background and gentle. The film wasn't too bad and it has some good moments. It also has lots of silly moments (the knife that magically transforms into a bigger gothic one, the giant hands pulling Jason into the ground). If you can stop moaning about the whole concept of the demon creature that can jump bodies, and just go with it for what it is, then it's not terrible. It's below average. If it wasn't for the tacked on Friday connection it would be a long ago forgotten movie. Jason's brief appearance is the only reason why it's remembered, as otherwise it was very unremarkable.

NOTE: Shockingly according to the book Crystal Lake Memories the script was written as Friday the 13th Part 9. This unconnected thing was actually always designed to be part of the series, and yet they introduced all these new concepts from out of nowhere?!

Below average

 

Yes, it was noted upon its release as being a notch above the usual Friday the 13th dross. Director Tom McLoughlin clearly cared about the material, with a fun script, an entertaining cast and a strong visual approach. The opening resurrection scene is great, and is a nice nod back to the classic monster movies of the 1930s.

The MPAA hated the 13th films, and Jason Lives was no exception. There were significant cuts made (as per usual) to obtain an 'R' rating, but I assume McLoughlin anticipated trouble from the outset and shot various scenes with that in mind - thus minimising the typical MPAA scissor effect in the final edit. That said, he's openly stated that he was pursuing something different with Jason Lives, avoiding as best possible the plodding stalk & slash approach of previous entries and attempting instead to inject some pacing and movement into the formula. I think he definitely succeeded, and it's a real shame he went on to work mostly in TV movies. (Interesting note: apparently McLoughlin made writing contributions to the Friday the 13th video game released this year.)

The IMDB provides a list of the cuts made to Jason Lives:

The following scenes were cut to avoid an "X" rating:

• Allen's insides were ripped out of his body by Jason. He dragged the guts and heart out; he dropped them on the ground where his heart lay steaming.
• The triple decapitation of the three paintball players. The first print showed their bodies and heads dropping to the ground.
• The two camp counsellors in the car's deaths were also trimmed: The part where the woman is speared in the water originally showed a close-up shot of blood coming to the surface of the water with the air bubbles. The man was speared, lifted into the air, and then slid down the spear, leaving his insides on it.
• Jason shoved the broken bottle into the caretaker's neck and he falls to the ground as the camera gets a close-up of the blood coming out of the bottle.
• Cort's death originally was not as quick-cut and you could actually see the knife going into his head before he falls over.
• The wall-to-wall blood cabin originally had a lot more blood and guts in it. There were shots of livers and hearts running down the walls, but it was all thought too graphic to have in the film.
• The backbreaking sheriff's scene had more to it. There were more screams, more bone crushing, and his legs began to kick.
• Sissy's death was toned down. Originally, you could see her head torn off and dropped.

 

I've always been annoyed at the way this whole series has been snubbed by the Academy.

 

MTV heard you!

 

Wow - I thought "Lives" was arguably the worst "Friday"!

Friday The 13th, Part 6: Jason Lives - The Complete Collection [Blu-Ray] (1986)

 

I have two reviews of Jason X, written several years apart.

Review 1:

Jason X (2002)

Why is Friday the 13th Part 10 better than say Part 3 or 5 or 7 or 8? Because the makers recognise the previous films are generally crap, and they have an idea as to why, and how to fix it. They point it out during the first ten minutes of the commentary track on the DVD.

It's because the victims are pro-active.

In Parts 1 to 8 (Part 9 is different, and I can't be bothered going into why) the victims are spread out and isolated from each other. Jason picks them off one by one and no one even knows they are in danger. This does not make for good DRAMA. People need to know what's going on in order to react to it.

In Part 10 the victims are up to speed on the situation almost from the get go. They run and hide, and they fight back. They do stuff. This makes for much better entertainment. And it allows it to have more of a definable plot beyond eighty minutes of random murder followed by ten minutes of someone finally fighting back. It's not heavy on proper complicated plotting with subplots and twists, but at least it's more eventful than usual.

The film plays at a quick pace which I like. Though it could be argued that it kills the movie as an actual horror film. As not much time is devoted to building up the stalk and slash sequences, they just aren't scary. I doubt anyone would jump in fright at this film. Personally I don't care, others might?

It looks and feels like a cheesy low budget B-movie anyway. The sets are very set looking (I doubt there is a single image shot on a real location, indoors or outdoors). The computer effects depicting the external ships look very much like mediocre computer effects. Visually it looks more like TV Star Trek than it does like Alien.

Most of the acting is deliberately hammy, which works well as the story has plenty of daft moments and there's more than a few genuinely amusing lines throughout. Inevitably there are also a few weak or bad performances, but they are in the minority.

Basically it works well on a cheap and cheerful B-movie level. None of those things listed above are conductive to making the audience feel scared. Treat it as goofy B-movie trash and you should enjoy it.

The music is very poor. It sounds like stock video game music that hasn't been tailored to the specific cues within the scenes. I noticed the score a few times and it does the atmosphere no favours at all. Maybe it was too low in the mix, which makes it sound weedier and less imposingly scary than it should.

It has a few good kills, the victims are different enough from each other to easily tell them apart, they are pro-active in fighting against Jason and the film moves at a quick pace. It's no masterpiece but it's possibly the best movie in the series, which is an odd thing to say about a Part 10. Only Part 6 rivals it in my opinion.

A flawed movie, but moderately entertaining and better than it could have been. It's not the purest Friday the 13th film, but it's the one that is most audience friendly for a general audience that wouldn't normally watch a slasher film.

I would recommend it to non-Friday the 13th fans (previous knowledge of the other films is not needed).

Above average


Review 2:


Jason X (2002)

The sci-fi genre isn't as natural a fit for the horror genre as it perhaps seems. At least not without the budget and the visual brilliance of the Alien series. There is something wrong about techno-babble and fake looking spaceship interiors that doesn't gel with the more earthy, more gothic sensibility of the blood and guts slasher film. Sending Jason into space is an odd, contrived idea that isn't really keeping within the spirit of the previous films. It works well enough if you just say what the heck and go with it anyway. After the first half hour the techno-babble stops and things get more basic in a stalk and slash way. The kills are inventive and sometimes highly amusing (the frozen smashed head, the drill that 'screws' someone who falls onto it and the knife that is pulled out through the other side of a body). There are no obvious signs of the censors tampering with the kills. It's not a scary movie but at least it's fairly bloody. The one-liners are sometimes authentically amusing as well. The sets are very fake so the whole thing looks like a cheap TV movie. It's probably comparable to the visual style of the early-80s seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The CGI isn't too brilliant either. The music is very weak. I enjoyed it for about an hour, but the ending becomes rather laborious and over extended – did they really need to have so much difficulty opening an airlock? The last third had some of the best bits in it (the stupid but effective android battle, the uber-Jason and the recreation of the summer camp) but it was all just a bit much and I was keen for it to end. It's a silly movie and very trashy. Some people walked in on me watching it, and seeing it through their eyes made it look like a really bad straight to rental piece of crap that I was embarrassed to be caught watching. At least the film has proper drama to it since the characters know about Jason from the start and fight back and defend themselves in a proactive way instead of just being picked off one by one in blissful ignorance. Overall I would say it was one of the best in the series, and is only topped by Part 6 as the pinnacle. Not a great movie but above average.

Above average

 

From Beyond (1986) was chopped up by the censors but they recently found the censored footage in very bad quality. They remastered it and cut it back into the film. The picture quality is exactly the same (in my opinion) on my Blu-Ray copy. Some of these are unbroken takes so the footage changes source within the one shot without a cut (the dolly in towards the eye in the hospital attack on the nurse played by the director’s wife). My understanding is that the cut Friday footage was included in an American box set as an extra. If From Beyond could be corrected from crap looking footage then I don’t see why Friday can’t get the same treatment. Assuming the footage does exist and I’m not imagining they found some of it.

I disagree massively with your review. It’s much better than all the others with only 10 being nearly as good. I think the comic tone didn’t work for you while I welcomed it. Schlock over grim is my preference, I guess.

 

New episode of How Did This Get Made? on Jason X!
Jason X: LIVE!, episode #174 of How Did This Get Made? on Earwolf

 

Friday the 13th (2009 Remake)

The problem with this film is that it has the horror aesthetics of its 00s era. That means glossy visuals, careful production design, shaky handheld camerawork, rapid editing, unpleasant jock characters and an almost complete lack of authentic atmosphere. The more prosaically nuts and bolts 80s aesthetic just works so much better for these types of films. 00s stuff just has no weight or impact – it's too carefully composed and staged feeling to have any grubby documentary style discomfort to it. The kills were all without expectation boring and strangely bloodless. The plot is indifferent and everything feels rather half-arsed and uninspired (Jason getting his mask is a particularly wasted moment). The whole thing feels tired. The increased budget and better technology has not helped the film be any better than what has gone before. It was watchable enough. Also the whole thing with Jason kidnapping someone is totally out of character.

Below average

 

All those NEW friday the 13th movies are utter trash......

 

"All those"? Wasn't there just the one - the reboot from 2009?

 

Yup. There were plans for a sequel to that but they were axed (pun intended).

 

For any Friday IV "The Final Chapter" fans, it was re-recently releases as a standalone blu-ray. Previously it was only available as part of the complete box set or as a 2-fer with part III and that disc was long out of print and going for $60+ on the secondary market. But not too long ago part IV was put out by itself, and is available for about $8-10.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter Widescreen, Digital Theater System, Mono Sound on DeepDiscount

 

Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (2012 book) by Peter M. Bracke

NOTE: This is a review of the ebook edition. The hardback version is a different enough book for this to be an important distinction.

This long, long book of interviews is pretty much the definitive history of the Friday the 13th movies. It feels like everyone was interviewed (producers, writers, lead and supporting actors, the stuntmen who played Jason, special effects and make-up people, cinematographers, 3D process specialists etc). If anyone has been missed then it's no great shame. Probably most importantly all the directors have been interviewed - they arguably have the best overview of each film.

It's not a love-in. People are frank in their opinions on the movies, and of the sometimes difficult productions. There is real dirt here.

I really enjoyed it as a reading experience, and I learned probably everything I ever wanted to know and more about these movies. It's a very complete and satisfying book. The only complaint I can level at the book is that the 2009 remake is not covered.

The ebook edition is apparently much longer in text than the hardback version. There isn't a single picture in it. This didn't bother me. I'll happily take more interviews over photographs. Though it is a very minor pity that the occasional pertinent image didn't make it into the digital edition. Also a lot of the actors/characters in these films are anonymous and forgettable so it's sometimes hard to keep track of who the actors are without pictures.

The book does not appear to have been fully proof read. There are many, many typos. The content is so good that I didn't care. It doesn't make it hard to read or anything. Just be aware that there are a lot of silly errors throughout the whole book.

Without the slightest reservation I would recommend it. You don't even have to like the Friday the 13th films to get a lot out of it. It's a film book that's as worthy of being read as say something like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-drugs-and Rock 'n' Roll Generation Changed Hollywood etc.

Exceptional

 

Crystal Lake Memories (2013)

Good, wide ranging documentary. Well worth watching. The problem for me is that I read the book of the same title first. It is superior. The extended eBook version has considerably more content due to its considerable length. Many more people were interviewed for the book than they could get to talk on camera. For example Steve Miner, the director of two and three, talks in the book but isn’t interviewed for the film. Also I assume they pulled quotes from old magazine articles so they could have more interviews. There are also maybe too many actors clogging up the screen time. No offence to actors, but really, what do they have to say that isn’t just a variation of what every other actor has to say? The technical behind the scenes people are more interesting to hear talk. Also the book is more critical. People in the doc say the odd negative thing about the quality of the movies, but not much. In the book they let rip more freely. For example Sean S Cunningham (director of Part 1 and producer on 9 and Freddy Vs Jason) doesn’t like the movies, including his own. In the film version he barely hints at his dissatisfaction with the films – although he does openly laugh at the idea of Jason in space. The doc did throw up a few titbits of information that were surprisingly missing from the book. There is information about Adrienne King’s stalker (he held a gun to her head!) and the reason why Part 9 onwards isn’t called Friday the 13th is because Paramount still owns the title. They only sold the characters to New Line Cinema. Also the film covers the 2009 remake, unlike the book. I would recommend the book over the film version. Even if you have seen the movie I still recommend picking up the book as there is a lot more content in it. If you’ve read the book then I consider the film to be entertainingly superfluous.

Good


That’s it, I’m finished. I have no more reviews to share. I see Part 1 won the poll by nearly half the votes at 41.1% at this time.

1. Friday The 13th – 1980
   44 vote(s)
   41.1%
2. 
   Friday The 13th Part Two – 1981
   27 vote(s)
   25.2%
3. 
   Friday The 13th Part III – 1982
   7 vote(s)
   6.5%
4. 
   Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter – 1984
   9 vote(s)
   8.4%
5. 
   Friday The 13th: A New Beginning – 1985
   2 vote(s)
   1.9%
6. *
   Jason Lives: Friday The 13th Part VI -1986
   12 vote(s)
   11.2%
7. 
   Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood -1988
   4 vote(s)
   3.7%
8. 
   Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan – 1989
   0 vote(s)
   0.0%
9. 
   Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday – 1993
   1 vote(s)
   0.9%
10. 
    Jason X – 2001
    1 vote(s)
    0.9%
11. 
    Freddy vs. Jason -2003
    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
12. 
    Friday The 13th -2009 Remake
    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
    

 

My Ranking the films
1.The Final chapter
2.Friday The 13th 1980
3.Part 3 3-D
4.Part 2
5.Jason Lives
6.A New Beginning
7.A New Blood
8.Jason Goes To Hell
9.Jason X
10.Jason Takes Manhattan
11.Freddy vs Jason
12.Friday The 13th 2009

 

Please tell me theirs a way to see these unedited deaths

 

Crystal Lake Memories made it out on Blu-ray.

Crystal Lake Memories Blu-ray Review - DoBlu.com

 

Part 2 is my all time fav

I really like part 3 for some reason too

 

Ever wonder what was in Alice's fridge in Part 2? Well I mean, besides the most memorable thing...

Let's raid Alice's fridge from Friday the 13th Part 2!

I like the cheesy 3-D effects in Part 3. They're fun.

 

I don't know if it's the worst, but the lack of gore and nudity certainly brings it down a few notches from some of the other entries. Getting rid of the two main things people watch slasher flicks for... what were they thinking?

And for the franchise as a whole... I'm a fan, but has there ever been a movie series with more continuity problems than this one? It's unreal.

 

He used all the tools in the tool shed and could run fast.

 

Picked part 3 as my favorite, it's such a fun movie with some great kills (well okay... considering the low budget, that is) and a wonderfully cheesy title theme, so nothing can go wrong! Plus, Jason gets his mask. And one of the cars has a 'SPRINGSTEEN: THE BOSS' sticker on it, which is a detail I never miss