Census Bloodbath: This Is The Part Where The Supposedly Dead Franchise Comes Back To Life

Year: 1985

Director: Danny Steinmann

Cast: John Shepherd, Melanie Kinnaman, Shavar Ross

Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

The year was 1984. After increasing moral outrage and MPAA sterilization, Paramount decided that a stake was going to be put in the Friday the 13th franchise's heart with Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. That promise of pulling out all the stops for the last ever Jason movie caused that little film to bring in a box office 13 times larger than its budget. Whoops.

What was a savvy studio to do, having sent one of their biggest cash cows out to pasture? Well, a mere 11 months later Friday the 13th: A New Beginning plopped into theaters, so it's easy to guess what decision they made.

This is the least permanent setpiece in all of cinema.

For the record, in a review like this, with a movie this old and of this quality, spoilers don't exist. So if you truly and deeply care about not knowing the ending of a much maligned slasher sequel, please go watch it immediately so you can come back and see how remarkably astute and sharp-witted I am in my analysis. 

Luckily for Paramount, The Final Chapter afforded them a quick and dirty entry point into a sequel: the character of Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman), who went a little bonkers in the end of the last entry and got machete happy on the hockey masked serial killer that murdered his mother. Unfortunately Corey Feldman was in the middle of shooting a little-known adventure movie called The Goonies and was unavailable for most of the infinitely brief shooting schedule.

In response to this, director Danny Steinmann (of the 1980 proto-slasher The Unseen) stuck Feldman in a brief dream sequence in the film's opening, then launched the film into the future as teenage Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd, who would later become a born again Christian, denounce the franchise, and take a bit part in The Hunt for Red October) is being taken to Pinehurst, a rehabilitation center for troubled youths located in the Crystal Lake township.

A place where he can acid wash his hair in peace.

Tommy is a skittish, untalkative boy who has a tendency to Kung Fu Grip the hell out of anybody who tries to sneak up on him. In short, somebody who actually needs psychological treatment and help from a halfway home like this.

Although he clearly doesn't need a personal trainer.

The other kids, though? Aside from Vic (Mark Venturini), who has some pretty deep-set rage issues, and Joey (Dominick Brascia, who would complete a Census Bloodbath hat trick with 1984's They're Playing With Fire and 1986's Evil Laugh in which he played Evil Laugher) who has some sort of coded form of Asperger's, all the teens in the home are just as sane as any other character in the Friday the 13th franchise. Which isn't saying a lot, I suppose, because they all suffer from sex addiction, Ill-Advised 80's Hair Disorder, and Temporary Deafness when there's a killer shanking someone with a railroad spike in the next room, but there's certainly no indication that they need to be in a treatment facility like this.

But for whatever reason, this teen Meat exists and for that we gotta Meet them. There's Tina (Debisue Voorhees, also of Innocent Prey and Appointment with Fear, who was almost certainly cast for her surname, although her willingness to go topless probably helped), the resident sex fiend; Eddie (John Robert Dixon), Tina's other half and wearer of hilariously low cut shirts, one of which goes almost all the way to his belt; Jake (Jerry Pavlon), who has a stutter; Violet (Tiffany Helm), who is the movie's appointed 80's Ambassador and looks like the love child of Madonna and a keytar; and Robin (Juliette Cummins, who went on to become a veritable Scream Queen in Psycho III, Deadly Dreams, and Slumber Party Massacre II), who is a human female, an empty shell who exists only to be punctured by machete.

As if that wasn't enough to swallow, there's also Dr. Letter (Richard Young), the director of Pinehurst; Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman), the assistant director; Reggie (Shavar Ross, later a recurring actor on Diff'rent Strokes), the hilariously overwritten minority and grandson of the caretaker; and Ethel (Carol Locatell) and Junior (Ron Sloan), the hillbilly garbage mom and son that live next door and arrive every now and then to provide their own very special (read: absolutely noxious) brand of comic relief.

You can practically smell them through the screen.

So that's quite the impressive cast (in terms of size and nothing else). And we're not even through with it, although I will stop the laundry listing. You see, this is the film that began the Friday the 13th bad habit of introducing side characters that are totally unconnected to the plot so they can perform one scene and then get bumped off. It's the worst kind of body count padding, because it's hard to care about the fate of some random hick who washed up onscreen during the middle of the second act.

Because of the sheer number of these types of scenes, it's nigh on impossible for A New Beginning to maintain a cohesive plot with any means of propulsion whatsoever. But, for what it's worth (not a lot), there is in fact a story buried in here.

After the angry Vic kills the supremely annoying Joey - one could say he's the Olaf of slasher characters - with an axe while he's chopping wood (the one and only moment in a later Friday the 13th sequel to truly surprise me, so kudos), Tommy is on edge and sees visions of Jason around every corner. When people around the center end up missing or dead, Tommy wonders if the man he hacked to death with a machete so many years ago could possibly have returned to exact his revenge.

Unfortunately Tommy just isn't nearly as interesting this time around as he was in The Final Chapter and would be again in Jason Lives. This is partially due to a bland performance from Mr. Shepherd, who can't even find the joy in getting to do cool karate moves (which he promptly forgets once it comes time to battle Jason - another bad habit of the franchise is people forgetting or not utilizing learned skills when it's crunch time.) and partially due to the fact that his character just straight-up vanishes for the bulk of the third act in support of a half-assed "is Tommy the killer?" mystery plotline.

Spoiler #1: Tommy is not the killer. Spoiler #2: His maskmaking skills also have no applicable use in this film.

The time has come. Do you want to know who the killer is? DO YOU?! WHO IS WEARING JASON'S MASK?! It's Jason, right? ...right?

Naw, it's Roy.

Who? Exactly.

Go ahead and control-F to search for any mention of Roy before this paragraph. Did you find anything? That's because Roy is an inconsequential minor character. A paramedic with two brief scenes. It turns out that he's the father of Joey, the boy who was killed by Vic in the beginning, and seeing his son's dead body sent him into a rage spiral and he decided to copycat Jason Voorhees in order to exact bloody vengeance.

Oops, there goes the can of worms.

First of all, audiences hated that it wasn't Jason behind the mask. There was a general outrage the likes of which had never been seen before in the horror community. It was like if George Lucas had put Hello Kitty stickers on Darth Vader's helmet in The Empire Strikes Back. Let me be the first to say that I personally have no qualms with Jason not being the killer. He wasn't the killer in the original movie, so it's not like there's no precedent. And it's still a fun bad movie about a guy in a hockey mask killing promiscuous teens, so it doesn't really matter what the dude's name is.

What does matter, however, is narrative logic, of which this film has not one iota. There's the fact that the killer is such a random side character, only the most sharp-eyed viewers will actually be able to remember his face when it's time for the big reveal. There's the fact that his revenge motive is utter hogwash because many of his numerous victims had nothing to do with Pinehurst at all and were in fact miles away from the property when they were murdered. There's the fact that he gets so in character as Jason, he apparently remembers Tommy Jarvis' attack and responds to him like an old enemy. There's the fact that Vic, the boy who killed his son, is never even killed.

And why the Jason thing in the first place? I mean, obviously they wanted to make another Friday the 13th movie, so that's why. But seriously. The filmmakers try to get around the bait-and-switch by making the mask's markings powder blue instead of the traditional red (which can be seen in Tommy's fantasy version of Jason), but there's only so far I'm willing to follow that idea down the rabbit hole.

See for yourself - Roy Jason

"Real" Jason

I am impressed that the film managed the internal continuity to separate the fake and real Jason, especially considering this is also the movie in which Jason tightens a strap by turning it both clockwise and counter-clockwise and a dead body appears in a bed in the space of a cut. But, moving on.

I don't ask a lot from these movies in terms of realistic psychology, but is that really the best copycat motive anyone could come up with? I know you had a month, but come on! I'd rather have Tommy Jarvis be the killer. I'd rather have it be Violet, turned to violence by her sinful rock n' roll music. Heck, I'd rather have it be Pamela Anderson, tired of being viewed as a sex object and ready to embark upon a new career path.

I would watch the hell out of that movie.

So while I'm totally fine with a non-Jason killer, this movie could have used a couple hundred more rewrites before its release, and it is certainly not helped by the deficit of decent gore effects. The film was too thrown together and cheap to afford the lovely designs of a master like Tom Savini and was one of the most neutered by the MPAA in the series thus far. The final nail in the coffin is Pam, the de facto Final Girl, one of the most ineffectual female characters to ever grace the silver screen, tripping her way across the flat forest floor, and generally turning into a useless, quivering heap whenever "Jason" is around.

So without a solid killer, a memorable heroine, or great grue, A New Beginning shouldn't have a leg to stand on. However, the film is so terrible and so firmly entrenched in the 80's that it's fabulously ripe to be mocked.

Every outfit and song comes from a time where the insides of people's closets could sear a cornea if you weren't wearing the proper eyewear. One of the early false scares involves a cat falling onto somebody from the ceiling of a restaurant. 

And the acting is the worst in the series - not exactly one known for Oscar-caliber talent in the first place. Mark Venturini approaches his character with all the delicacy, grace, and misplaced venom of Chris R from The Room, one of the greaser characters is played by a timid and effete man who exudes the awkwardness of a fifth grader in a turkey costume, and Melanie Kinnaman, our very own Final Girl, overacts like the worst of the silent film actresses of yesteryear, over-extending every limb like she's about to be tied to a railroad track.

Pictured: Pam in a more low key moment.

Luckily, one of the hallmarks that keeps the slasher-exploitation genre totally engaging is present in full force - awkwardly shoved in topless scenes. One, a teen sex scene, fits in perfectly with the genre and the franchise. The one where a waitress flashes herself in the bathroom proclaiming "It's showtime"? Not so much. And the scene where a bare-breasted Robin gets in bed, carefully positioning her blanket so as to not cover her nipples? Classic. Even Pam gets in on the fun, running around in a soaking wet see-through top for a solid ten minutes toward the end. 

A New Beginning takes place in a universe where bras have never been invented, possibly having been sucked into the wormhole created when it was announced that The Final Chapter would have a sequel. It's so misguidedly sleazy that it's impossible not to laugh.

Throw in the tacked on "Tommy is the bad guy" shock ending that would immediately be forgotten and you've got yourself a prime cocktail of awful. It's no good as a sequel to the beloved Part IV and it's just plum dumb, but at least it's got a lock on being one of the best bad pictures around.

Killer: Roy (Dick Wieand) as Jason Voorhees (Tom Morga)

Final Girl: Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd) feat. Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman)

Best Kill: Violet is killed while doing the robot in her room to this song.

Sign of the Times: Literally anything Violet ever says, wears, or does.

Scariest Moment: Corey Feldman's "scared" face in the dream sequence looks uncomfortably pleasure-filled.

Weirdest Moment: Demon and Anita flirt through the wall of an outhouse while he poops out his enchilada.

Champion Dialogue: "Crap, my ass!"

Body Count: 21; including the killer, 2 in a dream, and one person killed by somebody other than "Jason." Any way you slice it, it's the highest body count in the series so far.

1. Neil is stabbed in the gut with a machete in a dream.
2. Les gets a spike to the neck in a dream.
3. Joey is axed to death by Vic.
4. Vinnie gets a flare in the mouth.
5. Pete gets his throat slashed.
6. Billy gets axed in the head. 
7. Lana is axed in the tummy.
8. Raymond the Drifter is stabbed in the stomach.
9. Tina gets her eyes clipped with garden shears.
10. Eddie's head is crushed against a tree with a leather strap. 
11. Anita's throat is slit.
12. Demon is speared through an outhouse wall.
13. Junior is decapitated on his motorcycle.
14. Ethel is cleavered in the face and drowned in her stew.
15. Jake is cleavered in the face.
16. Robin is macheted in the chest through her bed.
17. Violet is macheted in the stomach. 
18. Duke the paramedic has his throat slit.
19. Matt gets a railroad spike through the head, pinning him to a tree.
20. George aka Gramps has his eyes gouged out.
21. Roy falls onto a bed of spikes. 

TL;DR: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning is hilariously awful, no two ways about it.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 2494

Reviews In This Series
Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980)
Friday the 13th Part 2 (Miner, 1981)
Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D (Miner, 1982)
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Zito, 1984)
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (Steinmann, 1985)
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (McLoughlin, 1986)
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (Buechler, 1988)
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (Hedden, 1989)
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (Marcus, 1993)
Jason X (Isaac, 2001)
Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003)
Friday the 13th (Nispel, 2009)

Here's The Kickoff

Happy Super Bowl, everybody! Although it would be uncouth of me to reveal my psychic powers on such an important day in sporting history, your jaw is gonna drop when the Seahawks win and you realize you read it here first.

For those of you (like me) who are merely impartial commercial observers who couldn't care less what the outcome of the game is, here's a couple mini reviews to help you pass the time.

The Lost Boys

Year: 1987

Director: Joel Schumacher

Cast: Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland

Run Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

The Lost Boys is less successful as a vampire film than a snapshot of the excessively fabulous, mildly homoerotic, glittery electronic culture and fashion of 1987. Directed by Joel Schumacher of Bat Nipples fame, who could expect anything different?

Brothers Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim) have just moved into the seaside city of Santa Carla (played with great distinction by Santa Cruz) with their mother (Dianne Wiest). Michael falls in with a biker punk crowd led by David (Kiefer Sutherland) and it's a legitimately tough question as to which aspect of his personality is more terrifying - the fact that he's an undead creature with a thirst for human blood or his bleached blonde mullet.

Because Michael is a dude who doesn't even unpack his suitcase before he starts lifting weights (As a matter of fact he doesn't even go upstairs. He just walks in and starts pumping iron in the living room.), he is irresistibly drawn to this buff and charismatic leader. Ostensibly he wants to join the group due to his attraction to Star (Jami Gertz), the sole female member, but it's quite obvious that he can't resist a man with a mane.

Also the tossed off love scene between Michael and Star reeks of post-production reshoots to give the character even a tiny glimmer of heteronormativity. This is a boy who drinks some of another man's bodily fluid (blood, you sicko) and becomes an uncontrollable thirst monster as evidenced by his newly pierced ear and leather jacket.

And though there is a plot in there somewhere, it mostly takes the backseat in favor of a sparkly explosion of 80's signifiers. With most horror films of this decade, there are some laughable pop culture moments or outfits, but The Lost Boys is literally comprised of them. We're talking Dynasty and Flying Nun references. We're talking Rob Lowe posters in a young boy's bedroom. We're talking a pre-insane Corey Feldman playing a young vampire hunter. We're talking a soundtrack that sounds like Cyndi Lauper after eating a bad burrito.

We're talking severe homoerotic tension between literally every single set of actors, even the ones who play brothers. Michael and Sam can only talk with their faces two inches apart, practically shouting into each other's mouths.

I rate it lower because the vampire action is lacking somewhat (although anyone who has seen the film's finale might beg to differ), but as a campy 1987 time capsule of the absurd, this film is number one.

Rating: 7/10

The Help

Year: 2011

Director: Tate Taylor

Cast: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer

Run Time: 2 hours 26 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

As much as I may resist it, I have to thank Sergio for making me watch Powerful Drama films. Without him, I'd certainly never have seen August: Osage County, Lee Daniels' The Butler, Mildred Pierce, and countless other esteemed pictures. I also thank him for his infinite patience when I turn into a whiny six-year-old after being forced to sit through a movie for longer than 100 minutes.

And although I don't have much to add to the discussion about the already three-year old period drama film The Help, I did enjoy it for what it was. Also I enjoyed riding down the sloped aisle of the classroom on my roll chair. Seriously though. I may get restless by the two-hour mark but the film wasn't a waste of time.

Emma Stone plays Skeeter, a young journalist who was raised by a black nanny during the time of segregation. As racial tensions begin to rise, she goes behind the backs of her hoity toity friends and interviews their maids (Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer) to get true life testimonials for the book she's writing. You get a shiny nickel if you can guess the name of that book.

Although The Help can't escape a lot of the pitfalls of the genre (White People Solve Racism, the Wise Old Black Character, an undeservedly bloated run time), it makes up for it where it counts. Bryce Dallas Howard shines in an enormously nuanced performance as a being of pure domestic evil, Davis and Spencer pick up most of the weight with their capable hands, the romantic B-plot about pretty white people is shunted to one side (exactly where it should be in a movie with this subject matter), and also Jessica Chastain owning a role that almost went to Katy Perry.

Although I would have loved to see that movie, this casting impacts the film undoubtedly for the better. For an Important film, it's never as dull as its brethren, but the story it tells is a thematically unraveled bastardization of what I hear is a vastly superior novel so as such it gets less points than perhaps it should have.

Rating: 6/10
Word Count: 900

Census Bloodbath: Dead Teenagers

If you're new to Census Bloodbath, click here.

Year: 1984

Director: Joseph Zito

Cast: Kimberly Beck, Corey Feldman, Crispin Glover

Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Here we are at the end. The MPAA had just about had enough of Jason and his exploits and the parental dissent turned from a grumbling to a roar. Theaters began to close their doors to slasher films and the great splatter tentpole of the decade, Friday the 13th, made the announcement that this next film would be their last.

Of course we all know that's a crock of sh!t now, but it was a big deal, I'm telling you.

In a grand explosion of effort, the forces of slasherdom pulled together to produce the quintessential Crystal Lake film to say goodbye to the now beloved hockey masked antihero. Tom Savini returned, reportedly so he could kill his the monster of his creation. He hated the sequels and wanted to be there personally to oversee the death of Jason. Regardless, the presence of Savini and the filmmakers' desperate awareness that this was going to be their last chance to make a splash in the horror genre combined to form the most exploitative, goriest, and most fun entry yet.

Again, this obviously wasn't the end, but nobody knew this wouldn't the final film of the series. And in a way, it kind of is. After this, the sequels become considerably less airtight in regards to continuity (which is shocking for such a continuity anorexic franchise) and many consider the first four films to be the "real" essence of Friday the 13th. 

So. The fourth and last of the core Friday films. Here we are at the end.

As represented by the 80's, in which it wasn't considered a movie if something didn't explode.

The film opens with a much more competent recap than the stock footage unceremoniously thrust into the beginnings of the previous two entries. With clips from the previous three films set to Paul's campfire story from Part 2, this sort of "previously on Friday the 13th" segment is a relative masterpiece of coherence simply by not being immensely tedious (Especially at a marathon where you're forced to watch the films back to back).

This film opens the morning after the climactic events of Part 3 (which took place a day after the climactic events of Part 2, meaning this film takes place on Sunday the 15th, which I think is worth noting) as Jason is carted into the local morgue. Seeing as he's got a huge axe wound in his head, this would be a reasonable mistake.

Slimy autopsy technician Axel (Bruce Mahler) flirts with sexy Nurse Rose (Lisa Freeman) and thus begins a verbal ballet of epic proportions transcribed in dutiful detail in the Champion Dialogue section. Despite her initial objections, Nurse Rose hops on Axel the first chance she gets - when he's watching a steamy aerobics video next to the covered corpse of one Mr. Voorhees.

The combination of inexplicably porny workout videos and the imminent threat of premarital sex prove too much for the poor corpse and Jason leaps back to life, performing a brief showcase of Tom Savini's work as he hacks Axel's neck with a surgical saw and twists his head around before stabbing Nurse Rose with a scalpel.

That Jason. What a pain in the neck!

With those two out of the way, he makes his merry way back home to the shores of Camp Crystal Lake which by this point is more like a sea considering the amount of property that lies upon it. This time we arrive at the Jarvis household, a secluded woodland hideaway inhabited by Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman), a doting mother; her teenage daughter Trish (Kimberly Beck); and her young son Tommy (Corey Feldman), who is an expert maskmaker, a skilled handyman, and also is Corey Feldman.

See?

Obviously that's not enough people for Jason's fourth and final outing, but there's a huge tray of Meat being delivered to the house next door. Although the film doesn't bother to name them until about half an hour in, I (being extraordinarily committed to y'all) have compiled them here.

There's Paul (Alan Hayes) and Sam (Judie Aronson), the requisite couple who seem even less necessary than usual because they're one of the few pairs of teens who don't actually bone (this film is notorious for containing the most nudity in a film franchise notorious for gratuitous nudity); Sara (Barbara Howard), Sam's best friend and Grade A virgin who'd be a shoo-in for Final Girl if it weren't for those pesky Jarvises; Doug (Peter Barton, who got to play opposite Linda Blair in the future Census Bloodbath entry Hell Night), the object of Sara's affections who has no objections to being such; Ted (Lawrence Monoson), the prankster and they couldn't even try to hide the fact that he's transparently named after the prankster from Part 2 (Whose name is stolen from Ned in the original. It's all very incestuous.); and Jimmy (Crispin Glover, proving that it's impossible for this movie to get any more 80's), the lovable and lonely (read: horny) nerd.

So that's 3 Jarvises, 6 randy teens, and to top things off we get two sexy twins (Camilla and Carey More) and Rob Dyer (Erich Anderson), the brother of Sandra from Part 2 (about whom I remember nothing) who's on a Jason hunt in the woods.

Now that's a party!

Come party with us.. Forever and ever and ever...

Basically the teens get freaky, go skinny dipping (legs and boobs akimbo), and swap partners faster than a square dancer on crack.

Although the teens can be hard to get track of, they're bumped off at a pretty steady pace that makes things much easier as time goes on. Between the mercurial teen relationships, Crispin Glover's rock steady and immensely sweet performance as the bumbling Jimmy (his death is the most heartbreaking - and don't pipe up about spoilers, this is Friday the 13th), and the most vibrant and fun character moments in the entire franchise, this does seem rather like what would happen if John Hughes decided to write a slasher film (seeing as this one seems to have been swept under the rug).

Really I have nothing groundbreaking to say about these sections because for once the disparate elements work in perfect harmony. The teen drama is alternately cheesy and sweet and outrageously raunchy in the best possible way and meshes weirdly perfectly with the darker register of some beautifully realized gore sequences. Tom Savini really pulled out the stops here and ironically, his massive success in this movie perpetuated the studio churning out more Jason vehicles than ever (the next film would follow this one by less than a year).

You have to be a special kind of awful to really be able to enjoy this photo but it's enough to bring tears to one's eyes to watch a master at work.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is the quintessential slasher movie. Teen partying. Future stars slumming it. Copious nudity (spread across two skinny dipping scenes, two shower scenes, a changing scene, various sex scenes, and we're just getting started). And plenty of Karo syrup, just for good measure (and to give a hearty middle finger to the MPAA).

Now the things that go into making it a great slasher don't necessarily make it a great movie, which by no means this is. But as a slasher connoisseur it's hard not to expect a certain level of outlandishly exploitative cheese. Slashers being what they were (namely, cheap ripoffs and quickie cash grabs) and the MPAA being what they were (terrible, deeply unhappy people), this is ultimately hard to come by (especially in the post-VHS Hell we now live in) so to find a movie that meets and exceeds expectations is a dream come true.

Allow me to linger on the death scenes for two more paragraphs, because these are what set the movie apart. Forget what I said about the characters, delightful though they are, because they clearly only exist so we can watch them be brutally murdered. Friday the 13th had that figured out by this point so they weren't even trying to give them any sort of depth beyond the basic archetypical characterizations already established within the confines of the franchise.

The creative deficit of Part 3 seems like a distant memory as we see a hitchhiker stabbed through the back of the throat while eating a banana, Paul gets a harpoon gun in the crotch, Jimmy gets a corkscrew in the hand and a machete in the face, one of the twins is thrown through a freaking window, and now this is just a laundry list but it's really just the best sort of gleefully gory mayhem. And Doug's death (his face is crushed against the shower wall) holds up tremendously well both as a shocking gore moment and as a tiny miracle of sound design.

Also an instant classic line. This movie's full of those.

The teens get inevitably whittled down as Trish and Tommy hole up in their home. Jason bursts through the window, but they fight back with the force of a thousand hurricanes. For you see, this is the first film where Jason really and truly dies. And boy does he die. Savini makes good on his promise to destroy his creation and the final sequence is just one long gore setpiece and magnum opus for the massively talented maestro of violence.

Oh, also Corey Feldman shaves his head so he can remind Jason of what he was like as a child or something and that doesn't make sense but it's still alright because everything about the scene is freaking awesome. I can only describe it in fanboy terms because this movie is impossible not to love if you're in any way a Jason enthusiast.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter honestly would have been a great note to close on, but boy am I happy to carry on with the rest of this journey.

We'll follow Jason through Manhattan, into the bowels of Hell, and up into the vast reaches of Outer Space.

And Tommy Jarvis?

You ain't seen the last of him.

Killer: Jason Voorhees (Ted White)

Final Girl: Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) feat. Trish Jarvis (Kimberly Beck)

Best Kill: Jason himself. He gets a hammer in the shoulder, a TV in the kisser, his hand is split in half, he gets a blade to the chest, and there's a sickening sequence of his face sliding down his own machete. Then he gets ruthlessly machete punched by Corey Feldman. What a way to go.

Sign of the Times: I have it on good authority (my notes) that Sara's shirt is very 80's. Unfortunately I remember exactly zero things about what it looked like. And this is the only picture I can find. 

I'll just have to trust Past Me on that one.

Scariest Moment: I'm gonna stick with Doug's death on this one.

Weirdest Moment: THIS

Champion Dialogue: The entire exchange between Axel and Nurse Rose. Ranked in order from least to most hilarious:

4. "For you I always have a headache."

3. "You are the Super Bowl of self abuse."

2. "Axel, I'm not going to fake any more orgasms for you."

1. "Holy Jesus jumping Christmas shit!"

Body Count: 14; for once including Jason himself.

1. Axel gets a bone saw to the throat and his head twisted around.
2. Nurse Rose is scalpeled in the abdomen.
3. Hitchhiker gets a knife through the back of her neck while eating a banana.
4. Samantha is knifed through the torso while laying in a raft.
5. Paul is speared in the groin.
6. Terri gets a spear in the back.
7. Mrs. Jarvis is killed offscreen.
8. Jimmy gets a corkscrew in the hand and a meat cleaver in the face.
9. Tina is thrown out of a window.
10. Ted gets a knife in the back of his head through a movie screen.
11. Doug's head is crushed against the shower wall.
12. Sara gets an axe thrown through her chest.
13. Rob is stabbed in the throat with a garden harrow.
14. Jason Voorhees is macheted in the face, among other things. 

TL;DR: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is the most perfect iteration of what the Jason saga could be.

Rating: 10/10

Word Count: 2067

Reviews In This Series

Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980)

Friday the 13th Part 2 (Miner, 1981)

Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D (Miner, 1982)

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Zito, 1984)

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (Steinmann, 1985)

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

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (Buechler, 1988)

Friday the 13th: Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (Hedden, 1989)

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (Marcus, 1993)

Jason X (Isaac, 2001)

Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003)

Friday the 13th (Nispel, 2009)

His Name Was Jason... And Today Is His Birthday

Today is Thursday, June 13th and that can only mean two things.

1) It is Jason Voorhees' 65th birthday! He's getting up there but he's managed to stay in shape.

Still eviscerating teenagers like a 20-year-old.

2) Considering it's a Thursday, we can breathe easy knowing that we're safe to live another day. We're only in danger when it's a...

Well, sh*t.

At any rate, we've got a year left. Make the most of it.

In honor of this Day of Days, as I do every year, I've planned a Friday the 13th event. Now, I won't get around to reviewing the series just about yet, that's a task for my all day marathon next year. But in honor of the day, I have prepared this list for y'all.

Warning: This article contains photos of gore scenes which I generally consider cheesy, but if you're squeamish just be prepared.

The Top 12 Friday the 13th Movies: Ranked Worst to Best

12. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

Year: 1993

Jason: Kane Hodder

Final Girl: Jessica Kimble (Kari Keegan)

Best Kill: A girl gets vertically SPLIT IN HALF mid-coitus.

Although the patent absurdity of Jason getting blown up by the FBI and becoming a body-controlling demon worm makes this film absolutely worth watching, the fabulous Kane Hodder is underused in one of only four turns as Jason Voorhees and the film ultimately gets bogged down in its own mythology.

11. Friday the 13th (2009)

Year: 2009

Jason: Derek Mears

Final Girl: Whitney Miller (Amanda Righetti) [Also, weirdly enough, Jared Padalecki]

Best Death: A girl hiding under a dock gets stabbed from above through the wood - and her skull.

Although this film wasn't a terrible terrible remake like some movies we know (coughcoughNightmareonElmStreetcough), it still didn't quite manage to recapture the glory days of Jason in his prime.

10. Friday the 13th Part 3D

Year: 1982

Jason: Richard Brooker

Final Girl: Chris Higgins (Dana Kimmell)

Best Kill: A man's skull gets crushed in eye-popping 3D. Literally.

This movie is historic, because it is the first film in which Jason dons his iconic hockey mask (yes, it took him this long). However, he steals it from an annoying Jew Fro Prankster named Shelly whom most of us would rather forget. Also featured: Female Michael Jackson, Much Too Old For Their Friends Hippy Couple, and Pregnant Girl Who Dies Anyway.

9. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Year: 1989

Jason: Kane Hodder

Final Girl: Rennie Wickham (Jensen Daggett)

Best Kill: A boxer gets his head punched off.

That title alone won me over. This is the first F13 movie I ever owned, and I currently have the poster hanging in my room, so I have a deep, abiding love for this film. But let's face it, this entry was kind of weak. Jason spends most his time on a cruise ship on the way to Manhattan (which, in a bold casting choice, is played by Vancouver) not really doing much of anything. Although he gets bonus points for sinking an entire ship.

8. Jason X

Year: 2002

Jason: Kane Hodder

Final Girl: Rowan LaFontaine (Lexa Doig)

Best Kill: A doctor's head is frozen in liquid nitrogen and smashed on a countertop.

Jason in space! Come on! Get pumped! I also proudly display this poster on my bedroom wall. Jason is taken to the hypermodern Crystal Lake Research Facility, cryogenically frozen, and unearthed by space teens who take him aboard their ship! Jason gets turned into a cyborg and fights a leather clad android! A naughty professor wears giant nipple clamps! Two topless holographic campers proclaim their love for premarital sex and wriggle around in sleeping bags to distract Jason! OK, I love this movie. The only reason it's not higher up is because it really doesn't have the DNA of the down-and-dirty Paramount original franchise. By this point, Jason had been sold off to New Line after Part VIII tanked and things got... a little weird.

7. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

Year: 1986

Jason: C. J. Graham

Final Girl: Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews), and because a girl always does have to survive, Megan Garris (Jennifer Cooke)

Best Kill: Just... this.

This is the point where the franchise began losing its sh*t. After the Jasonless Part V bombed, producers were desperate to regain audience goodwill (hence the title). Jason went from being cremated to buried in a coffin to struck by lightning and zombified. The butt-kicking Tommy Jarvis is played by the third actor in as many movies and (this had to come up at some point), the movie is a horror comedy. While some reviewers retch in disgust, I have already committed myself to loving this series and also have come to terms with the fact that, intentional or not, the other films in this franchise are already comedies. Also there's a triple decapitation. Mother always says "When three heads come off, you can't go wrong."

6. Freddy vs. Jason

Year: 2003

Jason: Ken Kirzinger

Final Girl: Lori Campbell (Monica Keena)

Best Kill: A kid in a folding bed gets bent backwards, then ruthlessly machete punched to death.

I would never insult this movie by pretending it needs an explanation as to why it is awesome. Moving on.

5. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning

Year: 1985

Jason*: Dick Wieand

Final Girl: Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd) feat. Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman)

Best Kill: A man with... intestinal problems sits in an outhouse, flirts with his girlfriend, and gets stabbed with a spear

Following The Final Chapter by only a year, this movie seemed a wee bit insincere. The way the filmmakers got around this was by putting another man behind the mask, which had fans foaming at the mouths. However, I am one of the few defenders of this movie if only for one scene that took me by surprise. I won't say what it is (not that any of you who haven't seen it really want to), but for a movie as routine as the fifth installment in the F13 franchise to surprise anyone even a little bit means that there must have been a creative spark somewhere in the process. Also Tommy Jarvis is a kung fu master and the costume design looks like the 80's had a long night and vomited over the entire set.

4. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

Year: 1984

Jason: Ted White

Final Girl: Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) feat. Trish Jarvis (Kimberly Beck)

Best Kill: Crispin Glover gets corkscrewed.

Now this is more like it. Mid-80's. Original franchise. Crispin Glover and Corey Feldman in a film together. The introduction of Tommy Jarvis, the only person to defeat Jason three times in a row. Skinny dipping! Hot twins! Nerd dancing! Teen parties! Tom Savini (the original makeup artist) is back! 1984 is having a party and you're all invited.

3. Friday the 13th Part 2

Year: 1981

Jason: Warrington Gillette

Final Girl: Ginny Field (Amy Steel)

Best Kill: The infamous sex kebab.

This film, directed by Steve Miner (who was the assistant director on the original), is the closest F13 film to actually being a good movie in its own right, or at least a competent one. This is the first film where Jason is the killer, and our Final Girl for the evening is a child psychologist played by Amy Steel who goes after Jason with all she has. Amy Steel later went on to star as the Final Girl in April Fool's Day which, even though it's only another slasher, is more of a career than any other final girl on this list. Also, the wheelchair kid gets a machete to the face and rolls down the stairs, proving once and for all that Jason is an equal opportunity killer.

2. Friday the 13th (1980)

Year: 1980

Jason: Ari Lehman

Final Girl: Alice Hardy (Adrienne King)

Best Kill: Kevin Bacon gets knifed in the back of the throat.

Where it all began... Directed by ex-softcore porn producer Sean S. Cunningham, Friday the 13th cashed in on the success of John Carpenter's Halloween and ignited the slasher boom of the early 80's. No slasher movie would be so influential until Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. It's one of the only films in the series where camp counselors are the victims (contrary to popular belief), Harry Manfredini's brilliant discordant CH-CH-CH-HA-HA-HA effect is introduced. Tom Savini, the make-up artist of Dawn of the Dead, produces beautiful European style gore scenes the likes of which had never before been seen in American cinemas. Also it retroactively has a twist ending because modern audiences assume Jason is the killer. I watched it with some twelve-year-olds once (don't ask) and it was hilarious to see their faces once the killer was revealed.

1. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Year: 1988

Jason: Kane Hodder

Final Girl: Tina Shepard (Lar Park-Lincoln)

Best Kill: Jason beats a girl in a sleeping bag against a tree - Kane Hodder's favorite kill.

Kane Hodder's first stint in the role of Jason is legendary. He is the fan consensus best actor to play Jason, but his other three times were in films of increasing inanity. Not that this film isn't inane. In fact, it very much is. But the inanity is of such a perfect late-80's desperate-for-cash paranormal slasher decibel that the film is a masterpiece of camp horror. Tina Shepard has telekinetic powers. You read that right. In attempting to resurrect her father who drowned in Crystal Lake when she was a child, she accidentally awakens Jason from the depths. The final girl sequence will go down in history as "the time Jason fought Carrie" and it is awesome. Finally, Jason has met his match, and it helps that this Jason is bigger, better, and more intimidating than any of his predecessors. The Final Girl sequence involves a long chase through the woods, Jason being attacked by plants, a house collapsing on his head, and so much more. Easily the most thoroughly weird and entertaining entry in this long-running (and my favorite) horror franchise.

With that said, I hope everybody has a happy (and safe) Jason day! I know I will.

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