If Ever A Wiz There Was

Year: 2007

Director: Jeremy Kasten

Cast: Kip Pardue, Bijou Phillips, Crispin Glover

Run Time: 1 hour 34 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

If ever a 70's horror film deserved a remake, Herschell Gordon Lewis' The Wizard of Gore was it. A barely there story that merely served as a serving board for mass quantities of blood and guts, the repetitive original film was ripe for a re-imagining, even if it was only to punch up the quality of the gore with modern effects.

This 2007 Crispin Glover vehicle went above and beyond, serving up a halfway to film noir steampunk neo-hipster dark fantasy world in which the plot mechanics are actually given more screentime than the gore effects.

Like... what?

This absolutely works, and puts Wizard of Gore on the map as one of the best (and earliest) horror remakes I've ever seen. Now keep in mind we're grading these on a curve, so it's not The Exorcist or anything, but it's really pretty darn good. Much better than it has any any right to be.

Also it has about ten times the amount of suspenders, which is a plus in my book.

The opening shot (a man dressed as a 1920's newspaper man is arranging letters in an old fashioned printing press, dripping blood into the ink from his drenched outfit) establishes the tone of the film, which is something I never thought I'd be saying about a modern horror flick, but there you go. It's a loving throwback to the Olden Days but don't think for a second they're gonna be afraid to taint the waters with a nihilistic modern twist.

The art design is really tremendous here, establishing spaces and characters that are immensely tactile, grubby, and coarse yet completely surreal - rooms and people that almost certainly don't exist in the real world but you don't doubt for one second that they could.

Our protagonist for the evening is Edmund Bigelow (Kip Pardue), a young man with a penchant for wearing period clothing who was raised by a trust fund. He has devoted himself body and soul to the publication of his underground newspaper, and if that's not enough to clue you in on a certain subculture he belongs to, take a look around at his rabbit ear TV and his rotary phone.

When he takes his girlfriend Maggie (Bijou Phillips) to some sort of rave/mandatory sex party hybrid, they witness a magic performance unlike any other. Montag the Magnificent (Crispin Glover, who is... Crispin Glover for crying out loud!) seeks to strike fear into the hearts of the nihilistic and unempathetic youth culture he sees before him. He stages gory spectacles in an attempt to get them to feel something... anything.

Nevermind the unrelenting misogyny of his act, which involves getting a volunteer to strip down before getting violently mutilated. Although totally unjustifiable, it's just a sad reflection of his audience, a group of disillusioned rich kids who dress up as Nazis and go to bejeweled orgies with topless women on their arms because... why not?

Gender equality finds a voice in Maggie, who vehemently denounces the magician's patter, much to the consternation of her boyfriend, who drinks it in like a fine summer wine.

Interlude: It's nice to know that Crispin Glover's hair can still do the thing.

Ed has become unduly fascinated with Montag's exploits and drags Maggie back the next night. But not before he has a bizarre nightmare about last night's volunteer being mutilated while she gives him a lap dance.

(Boobs are a major theme in this movie, as you can probably tell. It's not quite as justified by Maggie's denouncements of misogyny as the film seems to think, but it at least feels like part of the atmosphere of the subculture its trying to depict than tawdry pandering.)

As Ed becomes more and more engrossed in the illusions, his violent nightmares get stronger and stronger (giving us one of the movie's scariest sequences) and when the girls start turning up dead under highly suspicious circumstances, he begins to investigate, interrogating the local drug dealer (Brad Dourif - aka the voice of Chucky from Child's Play) and Montag's assistant (Jeffrey Combs, none other than Herbert West, Re-Animator), a savage looking man with a predilection for biting the heads off rats.

The bodies keep piling up as his nightmares and realities collide and his carefully curated life begins to tear at the seams, fueled by dark fantasies, the resurgence of half faded memories, and rumors of the mind control drug tetrodotoxin changing hands.

As he gets closer and closer to unraveling the mystery of Montag's illusions, he finds himself in danger of completely unraveling mentally as well.

As evidenced by his neck tattoo.

As the film draws to a close, the entire construct of Ed's life comes flying apart and crashing down around him as he becomes more and more convinced that he's committing these murders himself under the influence of tetrodotoxin.

Is he killing these girls?

Is he who he thinks he is?

Is Maggie who he thinks she is?

What is real?

Does he feel... anything?

The Wizard of Gore is everything people imagined Inception to be: a mind-bending, surreal exploration of the line between dream and reality that never seeks to definitively resolve what is real or imagined. Now WoG didn't have a Christopher Nolan master plan behind it, so it's not quite as good as all that, but gee whillikers, this is a dark and twisted ride.

Unfortunately set in a world without Tide To Go pens.

Director Jeremy Kasten (whose entire pedigree seems to be Behind the Scenes documentaries) brings a great deal of atmosphere and fevered intensity to what by all means should have been just a gorified retread of ancient Grand Guignol style material.

Crispin Glover walks a tightrope between Vincent Pricey hamming and dapper menace with an over the top, precisely calculated performance that it's a real shame many people never got the chance to see. The other actors, most of them alumni from the Hostel franchise, do their best but Glover steals the show, even blowing original Montag Ray Sager out of the water.

Although the high amount of practical effects (as opposed to CGI, which still doesn't seem to have worked out how to properly render blood) were enough to win me over any day of the week, The Wizard of Gore won me over with tight control of tone and atmosphere, suitably mind-bending but not altogether implausible twists, and a sense of glee at getting to play with a classic story.

This Wizard is a step above its predecessor, a noteworthy accomplishment in a decade that also saw Rob Zombie's Halloween. I'm just so proud. This is what remake culture is about. Creativity. I mean that unironically. To successfully tell the same story while making it something completely new and twisted while maintaining tonal similarities is no small accomplishment.

It's nothing less than magic.

TL;DR: The Wizard of Gore is something that every horror remake wishes they were - a creative and successful re-imagining that enhances the source material rather than detracting from it.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1198

Reviews In This Series
The Wizard of Gore (Gordon Lewis, 1970)
The Wizard of Gore (Kasten, 2007)

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.

Word Count: 1713

Archive: November 17, 2012

10 Famous Actors You Didn’t Know Were in Slasher Movies

Crispin Glover

Famous for: Back to the Future, River’s Edge, Charlie’s Angels

Skeleton in the Closet: Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984)

That’s right, Marty McFly’s father was a victim in Jason’s third (and definitely not final) bloodbath. Released but one year before Back to the Future, F13 4 featured Crispin Glover as Jimmy Mortimer, the virginal nerd who suffers from a relatively unique party foul - death by corkscrew.

Also check out this scene from the movie in which he proves firmly that this movie is set in the 80’s.

Corey Feldman 

Famous for: Stand By Me, The Goonies, The Lost Boys

Skeleton in the Closet: Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984)

This was one star-studded movie. Corey Feldman, one of the 80’s biggest child stars originated the role of Tommy Jarvis, the only character to defeat Jason three consecutive times - this kid’s a big deal. After witnessing Jason’s latest murder spree, Tommy pulls a Britney, shaving his head, and going after the big man with his own machete.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Famous for: (500) Days of Summer, Inception, Looper, The Dark Night Rises

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Filmed during the height of his 3rd Rock From the Sun fame, indie darling Joseph Gordon-Levitt had a stint as bad boy hockey player (I know, right?) Jimmy Howell in this sequel to Halloween II (nevermind the fact that there were four installments to the series in between the two films). I don’t want to post a picture and run the risk of causing this blog to become R-rated, but let’s just say he has an ice skate rather unceremoniously jammed into his face.

Kevin Bacon

Famous for: Mystic River, Apollo 13, Footloose, Animal House

Skeleton in the Closet: Friday the 13th (1980)

Kevin Bacon’s character, Jeff the horndog camp counselor was one of the first people to learn that the health insurance plan at Camp Crystal Lake doesn’t cover being impaled with an arrow.

Laurence Fishburne

Famous for: The Matrix Trilogy

Skeleton in the Closet: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors(1987)

Before Morpheus was committed to his quest to find The One who could defeat the Matrix, he was a sassy orderly at the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital in Springwood Ohio, caring for the last of the Elm Street children. It was a very challenging position that involved delivering medication, enforcing lights out policy, and trying to protect the kids from being carved up by a clownishly wisecracking Freddy Krueger.

Jason Alexander

Famous for: Seinfeld

Skeleton in the Closet: The Burning (1981)

HAIR. BASEBALL. In 1981’s little-known slasher gem, The Burning, our friend best know as George Costanza could be seen as the resident cool guy at Camp Stonewater before the teenage populace was hunted down one by one (and occasionally by the raftful) by the Cropsy killer.

Paul Rudd

Famous for: Clueless, The 40-Year Old Virgin, Role Models, I Love You, Man

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Oh, the things I would do for this man. Paul Rudd starred as a grown up Tommy Doyle, the babysittee from 1978’s Halloween. This was the last movie in the series before installments 3 to 6 were retconned by Halloween H20. Side note: Evidently the key to surviving a horror movie if you’re male is to be named Tommy. Take notes.

Johnny Depp

Famous for: 21 Jump Street, Pirates of the Caribbean, all Tim Burton movies, Sexiest Man Alive 2003 & 2009

Skeleton in the Closet: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Also starring: Glorious Depp Midriff. Before his fame began by wearing pale makeup and funny hats, Johnny Depp played the sexually frustrated jock boyfriend of the main character, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp). I bet she’s really regretting the fact that her character turned down his advances. Even though sex=death in these kind of movies, it’d probably be worth it.

Brad Pitt

Famous for: Thelma & Louise, Seven, Interview with the Vampire, Ocean’s 11, Fight Club, Sexiest Man Alive 1995 & 2000

Skeleton in the Closet: Cutting Class (1989)

Don’t watch this movie. Seriously, I tried. The light filtering is all off and it all looks grubby and terrible. However, it’s a fun slasher romp for any Brad Pitt completist.

George Clooney

Famous for: ER, Batman & Robin, Leatherheads, Up in the Air, The Descendants, Sexiest Man Alive 1997 & 2006

Skeleton in the Closet: Return to Horror High (1987)

It is probably worth noting that the only three men to have ever been voted People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive twice are all on this list.

Make of that what you will.

George has a small role as the actor hired for his looks who leaves the movie set, only to be brutally murdered in an abandoned classroom.

Bonus Actress: Vanna White

Famous for: Wheel of Fortune

Skeleton in the Closet: Graduation Day (1981)

Vanna White had a minor role in Troma’s slasher snoozefest Graduation Day. Although this movie has one of the more bizarre endings of any film of the time period, it drags due to an 8-minute long rockabilly/roller disco break, awkward pacing, and weak kill scenes. Not to mention that in nearly every shot she is seen in, Vanna White is facing AWAY from the camera.

The funniest part of the movie is actually the DVD intro on the anniversary edition in which Troma executive Lloyd Kaufman says that his hat probably fell off because “[his] head is too big from giving so much head.”

This actually happened.

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