A New Beginning

Year: 2009

Director: Marcus Nispel

Cast: Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Derek Mears

Run Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Good lord, I done it.

Saturday's screening of the Friday the 13th remake in honor of Jason Voorhees' 69th birthday (a big'un, but he's still spry as a nubile teen, the old bastard) formed the very last entry in my long-running marathon of the extant Friday franchise. For the time being, we're at the very end. A moment of silence, please.

...

Moment over. Time for me to resume not shutting up. The fourth title to get the remake treatment from prolific horror copiers producers Platinum Dunes, Friday the 13th was put in the capable hands of Marcus Nispel, the director behind the surprisingly decent update of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The results were... surprisingly decent. 

Horror remakes get a lot of flack, and a lot of them deserve it. But among the pantheon of revisited horror classics (among which are numbered the Rob Zombie's evisceration of Halloween and the atrocious Jackie Earle Haley rendition of A Nightmare on Elm Street), Friday the 13th stands out as a film that is shockingly easy to like. Perhaps this stems from the fact that, unlike the aforementioned films, the original 1980 Friday the 13th is not a masterwork of cinema.

It's a terrific and historic slasher film for many reasons, but cinematography, acting, writing, and directing are not included among them. This is a film with room for improvement, and while I would balk to say I enjoy the remake better than the original film, it's not exactly a stain on a hallowed artistic masterpiece.

And come on, could any film possibly be worse than Jason X already was?

Friday the 13th has a fascinatingly wonky structure, loosely remaking the events of the first four films rather than just the original plot, for obvious reasons. Friday fans don't want to see Pamela traipsing about in the woods again. They want Jason Motherlovin' Voorhees, and that's what they got. After a brief and strikingly terrible recap of the final scene from the original film, where Mrs. Voorhees (Nana Visitor) gets beheaded by a camp counselor (Stephanie Rhodes, who looks far too much like an Abercrombie bag model to do justice to Adrienne King), we pick up in the modern day with a group of campers, two of whom are on the lookout for an illicit crop of weed rumored to be growing along the banks of mythic Crystal Lake.

[FIRST ACT SPOILERS] During a truncated 25-minute murder spree, the bag-headed Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears) tears through the campers with alarming alacrity, capturing one of their number - Whitney Miller (Amanda Righetti) - and dragging her back to his underground lair as his prisoner. Thus the false first act ends, in a halfway effective attempt at misleading the audience a la Janet Leigh in Psycho. At which point we jump six weeks into the future, where a new crop of revelers arrives at a lakeside property for a bit of R&R. By that I mean Rolling joints and Rcheating on their girlfriends.

Our Meat for the evening consists of Trent (Travis Van Winkle), the preppy dickwad whose father owns the house and whose supreme douchiness can only be contained by his two entire collared shirts; Jenna (Danielle Panabaker), Trent's girlfriend who kind of hates him; Nolan (Ryan Hansen), a surfer bro who looks like an Owen Wilson puppet; Chelsea (Willa Ford), his sexy blonde girlfriend - this is a Michael Bay production, after all; Lawrence (Arlen Escarpeta), a young black man who's trying to get his music label off the ground and makes racial jokes about 199% of the time; Chewie (Aaron Yoo), a kind of gross slob with the inhibitions of a brainless mollusk; and Bree (Julianna Guill), the blonde vixen at large who exists only to act slutty in the general direction of the camera.

The group has several run-ins with Clay (Jared Padalecki), who is puttering around the township on his motorcycle searching for Whitney, who is his estranged sister. Trent is the worst, so he ignores his plight and shouts at him, but Jenna has a heart so she accompanies him for a search of the nearby abandoned camp. Somewhere along the way, Jason finds himself a hockey mask and picks up where he left off, plowing through the partiers like they're made of tissue paper.

He's very territorial. Like a dog. Or me, when I have gelato.

As you can probably tell from the capture and enchainment of Whitney, Platinum Dunes hadn't entirely grown out of the dreary, torture porn-esque phase of Chainsaw and its prequel. Several of the deaths are a bit more prolonged than they might have been, and Jason's new MO involves a variety of traps laid around the forest, waiting to ensnare some brittle bones. These scenes can be a bit dreary and become especially unwatchable when we have to spend any amount of time with the vulgar redneck denizens of Crystal Lake, who seem transported directly from Nispel's nightmare vision of backwater Texas.

However, the film largely sloughs off these scenes after the first act and, excepting a necessary return to the underground tunnels in the finale, manages to sustain its focus on what the franchise does best: bloody death and ridiculously unnecessary sex. And you know what? It's fun, damn it.

The acting, as per usual, finds its closest peer in the talky parts of porn (clearly the women were cast for assets other than Juilliard training, and the men are hardly better - unfortunately including Padalecki, who gruffly barks his lines like he's choking on licorice). But the characters all have remarkable chemistry, fueled by a set of 80's inspired barbs and banter provided by screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, improving monumentally on their work for Freddy vs. Jason. 

Though with equally questionable haircuts.

Some scenes even manage the campy, ineffable fun of the original franchise, almost rivaling the early days in terms of sheer gaudiness. One moment in particular (a raunchy sex scene between Trent and Friendly Neighborhood Vixen, Bree) is sustained, laugh-out-loud hilarity for two indelible minutes. Many of the kills are likewise a major return to form, full of splashy gore and improper use of household garden tools.

Two more strengths mark the film: The cinematography (by Daniel C. Pearl of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre) is extremely capable, capturing the darkness of the forest at night while still giving the frame plenty of depth and full visibility, allowing shafts of light to delicately arc across with unexpected beauty. And last but not least, Derek Mears is a terrific killer. He doesn't have the personality of a Kane Hodder, but his Jason is full of vigor and rage; a terrifically solid presence that absolutely justifies the fear and shock that the characters feel.

It also helps that he's just uncomfortably large.

That said, the film obviously isn't perfect. The production design in Jason's lair is fabulously overwrought (Water pipes! Clinking chains! Creepy dolls? An overturned school bus!), turning what was already a pretty bad idea into a dime store spook show, and the film can't sustain Jason as a character based on the mythology present, which absurdly lacks the ability to stand on its own. Honestly, there is hardly any point in calling this film a remake, considering that a good half of the sequels that came before it were more self-sustained (and shamelessly plagiaristic). It's merely a particularly well-made dumb sequel that brings nothing new to the table save an utterly strange structure that bursts across the screen in fits and starts.

The tension stalls in the underground caves, which eradicate any sense of urgency with scenes that seem to take place in an entirely separate dimension where time doesn't work in quite the same way as our own. Like Narnia, but with more inexplicable plumbing grates.

But we take the bad with the good. Or, in the case of slasher films, we take the worse with the bad. And at the end of the day, against all odds Friday the 13th is a good time at the movies. Hardcore retro fans will have you believing it besmirches the good name of Mr. Voorhees, but some people try their hardest not to have fun. Turn your brain off, have a blast, watch some axe impalements. I don't see nothing wrong with that.

Killer: Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears)

Final Girl: Whitney Miller (Amanda Righetti) feat. Clay Miller (Jared Padalecki)

Best Kill: While hiding under a dock, Chelsea is stabbed through the top of the head with a machete. When Jason pulls it back up, this drags her above the surface of the water, revealing her breasts. It's basically a perfect encapsulation of the entire series in one shot.

Sign of the Times: Let's just say that Whitney would not be chained up in an underground cavern if Jigsaw hadn't come to town five years earlier.

Scariest Moment: Clay and Jenna hide under a pile of canoes while Jason furiously searches for them.

Weirdest Moment: Lawrence decides to masturbate in the living room. To a winter catalogue.

Champion Dialogue: "Your tits are so juicy, dude."

Body Count: 14

1. Mrs. Voorhees is decapitated.
2. Wade is slashed with a machete.
3. Amanda is roasted over a campfire in her sleeping bag.
4. Mike is stabbed through the floor with a machete.
5. Richie has his skull split with a machete.
6. Donnie has his throat slit.
7. Nolan is shot in the head with an arrow.
8. Chelsea is stabbed in the skull with a machete.
9. Chewie is stabbed in the throat with a screwdriver.
10. Lawrence has an axe thrown into his back.
11. Bree is impaled on antlers.
12. Officer Bracke is stabbed in the face with a fireplace poker. 
13. Trent is stabbed through the back and impaled on the back of a truck.
14. Jenna is stabbed through the back with a machete. 

TL;DR: Friday the 13th is a grim, but surprisingly decent remake of a slasher classic with room to grow.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1675
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)

Houston, We Have A Sequel

Year: 2001

Director: James Isaac

Cast: Kane Hodder, Lexa Doig, Lisa Ryder

Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

So here we are, the end of Jason Voorhees. No, not the last film in the franchise. That cash cow's udder might be drawing blood, but Hollywood will keep squeezing it until it snaps off. The tenth Friday the 13th sequel, Jason X, is the final film in the continuity of the original series. 

Granted, that's not saying much.

Consider this fun fact, which I read on a F13 trivia post last week: Jason has died in 6 Friday the 13th films. He has been resurrected in 3 of them. And that's all you need to know about the franchise. Narrative consistency is the redheaded stepchild of Crystal Lake. Nevertheless, Jason X is the tenth and final film of a series dimly recognizable as a whole. The 2003 followup Freddy vs. Jason was a crossover picking up loosely after part nine, and the 2009 remake scraps everything and fills in the cracks with pretty people.

They might as well have renamed Crystal Lake to "Michael Bay."

Now that we're revisiting the de facto swan song for Friday the 13th, let's take a moment to reflect on the franchise as a whole. After young zombie/ghost boy Jason was introduced in Sean S. Cunningham's indie fright flick Friday the 13th, he was taken on by Paramount, who gave him human form in Friday the 13th Part 2 and his iconic hockey mask in Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D. He was summarily offed in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, palely imitated in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, and desperately resurrected in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives at the behest of axe-sharpening fans.

In Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, Kane Hodder donned the hockey mask to battle a bargain basement Carrie, then took a cruise to Vancouver, briefly stopped over in Times Square, and was destroyed by toxic waste in the Day-Glo nightmare sewers of the Big Apple in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. For some inexplicable reason, audiences didn't respond well to that classic entry, so Paramount upped sticks and sold off their cash cow for some magic beans. 

New Line took on the burden, stripping the franchise of its name and putting the villain front and center, at least in the title. They then burned the whole affair at the stake in an attempt to Nightmare it up with the Lovecraftian body-hopping demon worm fiasco Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. When that film also inexplicably failed to resurrect a cult following, the franchise lay dormant in the New Line basement for over half a decade. While the planned Freddy vs. Jason crossover was being turned over hot coals in Production Hell, New Line decided to renew audience interest with a new installment to the long defunct Jason saga by sending him to space and tossing an acid-trippingly massive $14,000,000 budget at him.

Really, it's a miracle that Jason X even made it into theaters, let alone with that kind of money at its disposal. Naturally, the filmmakers, acknowledging the massive respect involved in being trusted with such a (relatively) gargantuan coffer, made the worst film in the franchise. Seriously, Jason X is the butts.

Not even the good kind.

Jason X begins by immediately retconning JGTH, which isn't the worst decision. It opens with Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder for the fourth and final time) totally alive and evidently fished out of Hell, restrained in the futuristically chrome Crystal Lake Research Facility, which is the worst decision. Sexy researcher Rowan (Lexa Doig of Andromeda) is the leader of a team that has tried executing the mass murderer via every method under the sun, including firing squad, which seems like more of a formality than anything. However, his psycho/zombie/plot device body keeps regenerating itself to full health like the world's least adorable Pokémon.

Her team wants to put Jason into cryogenic sleep until they can figure out what the hell to do with him, but some Evil Capitalists, led by David Cronenberg, want to exploit his regenerative abilities for monetary gain. When they enter Jason's holding cell, obviously their team is eviscerated within seconds, and Rowan uses herself as bait to lure Jason into the freezing chamber. After Jason punctures the chamber with the sturdiest machete in the known universe, they are both frozen until they are discovered by an exploratory team of students four and a half centuries later in the arbitrarily chosen year of 2455.

The crew brings the two bodies onto their spaceship, where they resurrect Rowan and leave Jason to thaw, believing him to be dead like so many Paramount executives back in the day. As the Space Teens scatter to get it on in their bunks, the filthy magic of premarital sex goes to work and Jason rises from his stasis, good as new. He grabs a standard-issue Space Machete off the doctor's table and goes to work.

This sounds like the setup to an awesomely cheesy "psycho killer in space" movie. Don't be fooled, my child. Once upon a time, putting Vanilla Ice in a movie sounded like a great idea too, and look where that got us.

Although I think we can agree that necking next to a serial killer's corpse is NEVER a good plan.

There's far too many useless characters floating around the movie to provide for its record-breaking body count, but let's Meet a selection of the Meat, shall we?

Joining us today is the crew of the good ship Grendel, including Azrael (Dov Tiefenbach), the annoying Space Stoner who proves that history is doomed to repeat itself; Janessa (Melyssa Ade), who is apparently a skilled recombinant DNA researcher, but is more important to the story as a Space Slut - the patriarchy will never die; Professor Lowe (Jonathan Potts), who will sacrifice any number of his young students for his own financial gain; Sgt. Brodski (Peter Mensah), who is the leader of the ship's security squadron and Jason's biggest opponent; Tsunaron (Chuck Campbell of Stargate: Atlantis), who is an expert robotics designer and whom I called "Matt" in my notes because not only are these future names confusing, they are also mumbled; and Kay-Em 14 (Lisa Ryder), Tsunaron's female android/love interest with a Corey Feldman haircut.

It's like Her, but with more gratuitous nudity.

There's about 8,000 more characters bouncing around the Grendel, but these are the only ones who make any sort of impression. The rest are mere fodder for the gore sequences, which are generally quick, fumbled, and in the dark, like all of James Franco's sexual encounters. The one thing I can say about Jason X is that, what with all the faces, places, and kills whirling past the screen, it's over before you know it. Its episodic scene structure pushes and shoves you through what would have otherwise been a supremely boring slasher flick.

There is no aspect of the film that isn't riddled with leaden incompetence. Sometimes a moment or a line of dialogue will shine through the gloom like a beam of sunlight in the eye of a storm, but then the maelstrom sweeps everything away again.

Perhaps the most waterlogged area of Jason X is its special effects. Although three of the kill sequences are instantly memorable classics, the rest are indistinct and brief, relying on state-of-the-art  early 2000's CGI technology that has aged about as well as The Baha Men. The computer imagery (and the astoundingly varied sets) sucked the budget dry, so the moments that are practical hit with all the force of a wet tissue. A spaceship crash looks more like the opening theme song to Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the bionically enhanced Über-Jason of the third act (which, yes, is a thing that exists) wouldn't look out of place in a Mattel catalogue.

Jason Voorhees, now with triple-action kung fu grip.

And before that atrocity is unveiled, Jason's costume is the laziest bit of design in a series for which the high-water mark is denim short-shorts. Honestly, it looks like they literally just jammed a hockey mask on Kane Hodder's face with no touch-up work at all, not even attempting to disguise his terrible late-90's mullet.

In those eyes, you can see the forlorn weariness of a man who has been on the set of Jason Goes to Hell and lived to tell the tale.

Typically Hodder is the best actor on any Friday the 13th set, but he is sleepwalking here, surrounded by the worst cast in a series made famous by poor acting. Perhaps it's the expectation created by the distinctly sci-fi setting that causes the performances to seem so hyperbolically shrill and unbalanced, but the Teen Meat has never been more aggravating. The fact that very few of them seem to die at all is even more frustrating.

Only Jonathan Potts' obsequious professor and Lisa Ryder's cheerfully badass android rise above the muck. And considering the fact that Ryder brings a human warmth and nuance to a role intended to be robotic, maybe it doesn't even count after all.

The Final Girl is vaguely badass but empty, the frequent attempts at comedy fall flat save for one scene set in a virtual reality Camp Crystal Lake, and the action sequences mostly comprise the floor shaking and knocking the cast down like bowling pins over and over and over. It'd be a great pinball game, but it doesn't make for a memorable film.

At least Harry Manfredini's music isn't too self-indulgently spacey. It's nowhere near the frenetic charm of his best franchise work and it scarcely includes the iconic CH-CH-CH motif, but it doesn't sound like Space Mountain, and I'm going to have to put that in the plus column.

At the end of the day, it's still Jason and he's still killing horny teens so it's not the worst horror flick ever invented, but sometimes that just isn't enough. Jason X is without a doubt the nadir of the franchise, and one I would only recommend to the most hardcore Jason fanatics. 

I've seen it three times.

Pray for me.

Killer: Jason Voorhees/Über-Jason (Kane Hodder)

Final Girl: Rowan (Lexa Doig)

Best Kill: Adrienne has her face frozen by liquid nitrogen and slammed on the counter. It shatters into a million bloody pieces and is the only truly memorable gore effect in the film. But it's still one of Jason's career best kills.

Sign of the Times: Apparently in the future, the hot new retro fashion is to dress like you're about to be kicked out of Lollapalooza.

Maybe I should start including fashion victims in the body count.

Scariest Moment: As the crew investigates a rattling door, Jason bursts through a glass window behind them.

Weirdest Moment: Janessa sleeps with Professor Lowe to improve her midterm grades. Future Sex apparently involves having your steel nipple rings twisted by a comically giant clamp. "You pass!"

Champion Dialogue: "I couldn't be with a girl whose balls are bigger than mine."

Body Count: 25; not including the entire population of the space station Solaris, three virtual reality aliens, or Über Jason, who, let's face it, is probably fine.

1. Private Johnson is choked with a chain.
2. Guard #1 is smashed in the head with a machine gun.
3. Guard #2 choked and tossed into gunfire.
4. Guard #3 has his face bashed in with a noose pole. 
5. Guard #4 is choked with a chain.
6. Dr. Wimmer is impaled by a noose pole.
7. Sgt. Marcus is thrown through a steel door.
8. Adrienne has her face frozen in liquid nitrogen and smashed on the counter.
9. Stoney is stabbed in the gut.
10. Azrael is snapped in half.
11. Dallas has his head crushed against a wall.
12. Sven has his neck broken.
13. Condor is impaled on a mining drill.
14. Geko has her throat slit.
15. Briggs is impaled on a large hook.
16. Kicker is sliced in half.
17. Fat Lou is dismembered offscreen.
18. Professor Lowe is decapitated offscreen.
19. Kinsa dies in a shuttle explosion.
20. Crutch is smashed into a control box and electrocuted.
21. Waylander dies in an explosion.
22. Janessa is sucked through a metal grate.
23. Virtual Camper and
24. Virtual Camper #2 are smashed together in their sleeping bags.
25. Sgt. Brodski dies falling into Earth 2's atmosphere. 

TL;DR: Jason X is a tiring, shallow mess unworthy of the Friday the 13th name.
Rating: 4/10
Word Count: 2085
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 (McLouglin, 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)

This Franchise Has Gone Straight To Hell

WARNING: This film is batsh*t insane and this review contains spoilers for many key WTF moments. If you are the one person in the world who has genuine interest in watching the ninth Friday the 13th film sight unseen, leave now or forever hold your peace.

Year: 1993

Director: Adam Marcus

Cast: John D. LeMay, Kari Keegan, Kane Hodder

Run Time: 1 hour 27 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

It's the early 90's. You are a New Line Entertainment executive. After Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan flopped miserably in 1989, Paramount decided to up sticks and sell you the rights to the franchise. The Friday the 13th title has been sucked dry by one too many trips to the well, but you think you can squeeze one last droplet of box office gold out of the Voorhees name. What do you do?

Was your answer "stick a stake in the franchise by turning Jason into a Lovecraftian hell demon, keeping Kane Hodder offscreen for as long as possible, claiming it's the final film, then sending Jason to space a decade later"? If not, congratulations. You are not a New Line Entertainment executive in the early 90's. Though maybe you should have been.

In this scenario, Jason represents the F13 series and the other guy represents what New Line did to it.

Wanting to bring a little bit of that New Line charm by injecting some Nightmare into a cut-and-dry franchise, they completely lost sight of why anybody wanted to watch the damn things in the first place. Jason Goes to Hell is insane enough to be worth spending some time with, but it's about as far away from a Friday the 13th film that a flick with a double digit body count can be.

The film opens reasonably enough. A young woman drives up to a cabin on the edge of Crystal Lake, fixes a broken light bulb, then steps into the shower. Considering when last we left our dear Jason (Kane Hodder), he was a nuclear waste-infected dead child in the Manhattan sewer system, one might reasonably expect some incredibly bizarre Rube Goldbergian chain of events to bring him back to life. One is about to experience the first of many disappointments as Jason shows up alive and well for no apparent reason, other than the fact that he really really hates it when a woman commits the cardinal sin of owning breasts.

He chases her through a laundry list of slasher clichés, teleports in front of her in the woods, and... she dives into the bushes, whereupon the hockey-masked behemoth is promptly blown up by the FBI.

This is but a taste test of the weirdness yet to come.

I think it's interesting that the FBI realizes the only way to lure Jason is to send a lithe female agent to a cabin to open and close a medicine cabinet a couple times, but the rest of the film ignores this kind of genre-savvy quality. Anyway, during Jason's autopsy his heart begins beating again, possibly because he finally learned the true meaning of Christmas. Falling into an age-old slasher trope, the coroner picks up the heart and takes a huge bite out of it - wait what? I think that violates the Hippocratic oath.

What all this boils down to is that Jason is a body-hopping demon worm who needs to find a member of the Voorhees bloodline to be reborn, temporarily occupying other bodies on his quest for resurrection. If he gets to slice up some horny campers along the way, all the better. Life is about little detours. 

All of this insane exposition is handily explained to us by Creighton Duke (Steven Williams), a bounty hunter with an open mind who has been following Jason for years. A sleazy TV shock jock named Robert Campbell (Steven Culp) offers Duke a hefty sum to bring down Voorhees once and for all. Or at least until the sequel gets greenlit.

Action converges onto the town of Crystal Lake, where "Jason Is Dead" celebrations are ramping up at the local diner, courtesy of local business owner Joey (Rusty Schwimmer) and her totally straight husband Shelby (Leslie Jordan, who is basically the gay equivalent of Danny DeVito). When Jason (in the body of the sheriff, his hockey-masked self only revealed in reflections) murders a waitress named Diana (Erin Gray), her daughter Jessica (Kari Keegan) rushes to town, bringing her boyfriend Robert and new baby in tow. 

When will my reflection show who I am inside?

Jessica's baby daddy Steven (John D. LeMay, the only person to appear in the Friday the 13th TV show and one of the films, ring a ding ding) is accused of Diana's murder, but I'm more concerned with his sense of style. His glasses, voice, chin, and hair paint him as a stereotypical high school nerd, but he seems to be about 30 and wears a letterman jacket so I honestly have no clue what's going on with him. I know I shouldn't be concerned with Steven's hypothetical archetype when the townspeople are being murdered by a Lovecraftian worm demon, but just look at this.

Nerd.

Jock.

Nerd.

Jock.

Muppet Baby Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It's like all the male characters of The Breakfast Club were in a horrific automobile accident and the doctors combined all the surviving parts into one dead-eyed monstrosity.

Regardless of Steven's classification, the film lumbers along its loopy way, weaving through three entirely separate genres: along with the Clive Barker-esque supernatural shenanigans, the writers also see fit to toss in a traditional Friday the 13th replete with naked campers (and ample male ass - progressive!), as well as a small town family soap drama. This is not a storytelling format the ceaselessly formulaic franchise is equipped to handle. Jason Goes to Hell is hardly good enough to tackle one of these genres with full steam, but with so many disparate threads to keep track of, it lolls drunkenly back and forth with a plodding monotony.

There is a large cast to provide a suitable body count, but most of the deaths are cheap and general (if I see one more body smeared with blood but lacking a discernible slash wound, I might just grab a machete myself), and the film can't even keep track of its protagonists, let alone the minor characters. The baby subplot is an enormous waste of time with no impact on the narrative in any way (in fact, the central couple walks away from the rubble after the climactic showdown, having apparently forgotten that there was a small human accompanying them before), and random characters fulfill requirements of the plot with absolutely no motivation or agency. This occurs most execrably in a scene where Joey's teen son provides Steven with a getaway car out of the blue, a moment so unfounded that it accidentally shoots the script off into the avant-garde. 

And I'm beyond questioning why Jason performs his killing on the people he does, but way too many victims are outside of his range of focus. It's just distracting.

There are only two genuinely good moments in the entire film. The first operates on a cinematic level, in which Jason is lit by a car's blinker lights. The second operates with humor, during an exchange between Steven and his cop friend on the side of the road. Other than that, Jason Goes to Hell is a downright mess at a fundamental level.

Did you think I'd let you escape without seeing the gross demon worm?

The film is only saved (and slightly, at that) by its pure commitment to the inexplicable. Some gore gags surrounding Jason's body-swapping are truly unbelievable moments that need to be seen to be believed. And every new plot point, homoerotic shaving scene, diner shootout, or musical kazoo sting slathered onto the complicated screenplay like too much barbecue sauce furthers the tremendous, indecent weirdness of the entire thing. It's not quite bizarre enough to reach a truly bad-good register, and it inexcusably wastes Kane Hodder, who is the best thing to ever happen to the godforsaken franchise. But it's at the very least watchable, and for a film this unequivocally broken, that's a very very good thing.

Killer: Jason Voorhees, the Body Hopping Demon Worm (Kane Hodder)

Final Girl: Jessica Kimble (Kari Keegan)

Best Kill: As Deborah has sex with her boyfriend, she is impaled with a spike and split in half. That's what you get for not using a condom.

Sign of the Times: The wordless, copyright-free "rock" music that Steven listens to in the car uses actual guitars.

Scariest Moment: After Jason abandons Josh's body, it disintegrates into a gooey puddle of nightmares.

Weirdest Moment: A police officer checks someone's wrist pulse and announces "He's breathing!"

Champion Dialogue: "That makes me think of a little girl in a pink dress sticking a hot dog through a donut."

Body Count: 23; not including five more Jason-style murders that were reported on American Case File.

1. Coroner is possessed and disposed of.
2. Coroner's Assistant is pushed into a metal grate and stabbed with a probe. 
3. Security Guard is killed offscreen.
4. Mullet Security Guard is killed offscreen.
5. Alexis is slashed with a straight razor.
6. Deborah is stabbed in the back with a barbed wire spike and ripped in half.
7. Luke is killed offscreen.
8. Edna gets her head slammed in a car door.
9. Josh is possessed by Jason and messily disposed of.
10. Diana has a knife thrown into her back.
11. Robert is possessed and impaled on a barbecue skewer.
12. Officer Ryan has her head bashed against a locker.
13. Officer Mark and
14. Officer Brian have their heads smashed together.
15. Ward's arm is broken and he dies because he's a loser.
16. Diner Patron #1 is crushed against the counter.
17. Diner Patron #2 is shot with a shotgun.
18.  Shelby has his face cooked in a deep fryer.
19. Joey gets her face bashed in.
20. Vicki is impaled on a barbecue skewer and has her head crushed.
21. Randy is possessed, then gets his neck sliced with a machete.
22. Creighton Duke is hugged to death.
23. Jason Voorhees is stabbed with a ceremonial dagger and finally dragged to Hell. 

TL;DR: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is tremendously weird, which is the irrevocably broken film's saving grace.

Rating: 5/10

Word Count: 1719

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)

Fang Time

I am stupendously excited because tonight I am volunteering at the Fangoria booth at the Days of the Dead horror convention in Los Angeles. The magazine has been a centerpiece of the fright community since its inception in 1979, featuring top notch articles about hundreds and (I haven't counted but probably) thousands of horror films and filmmakers. I'm truly honored to be able to participate in even a small slice of this legacy so today's article is

The Ten Best Fangoria Cover Films

Over the years, Fangoria has featured dozens of genre-changing films on its covers, but the beauty of the thing is that it is inextricably caught up in the time it was produced. Due to the nature of shifting trends, some films featured on the cover never achieved infamy outside of a certain year, while others have long-lasting legacies even today. It's nearly impossible to predict, especially with such left-fielder (at the time) hits like Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street, neither of which graced the covers of the magazine during their initial runs.

But more often than not, this leading rag hit the nail right on the head and I've selected ten of my personal favorite films that have appeared on Fangoria covers through the ages.

#10 Pan's Labyrinth (Issue #259 Jan/Feb 2007)

Struggling to find words that adequately imply the enormity and scope of Guillermo del Toro's violent fantasy masterpiece would challenge even the greatest of humanity's writers. Fitzgerald would head for the hills. Dickens would disguise himself as a beggar and escape out the chimney. Kafka would- Well, maybe Kafka would get it.

Pan's Labyrinth is set in the Spanish Civil War, detailing the journey of a girl trapped in circumstances beyond her control as she explores the dark supernatural world hiding in the corners of everyday life. The special effects are exquisite, the story is heartfelt and powerful, and the gore is nightmarishly visceral. Although it's not even explicitly a horror film, Pan's Labyrinth is more likely to give you nightmares than any film on this list.

Unfortunately, I have no full review of this film up on my blog yet, but I have reviewed one of the
Cover Articles: The terrific meta slasher Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.

#9 Little Shop of Horrors (Issue #60 Jan 1987)

I've watched the original Corman picture, the movie musical, and even performed it onstage five nights a week, yet I will never tire of Little Shop of Horrors. For a movie with so little reason to exist (the movie is based on a musical based on another movie), it's just so terrific. With songs by the unstoppable duo of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman and a wall-shattering performance by original Broadway cast member Ellen Greene, Little Shop has a relentless doo-wop energy that can brighten even the darkest days.

Telling the story of a poor Rick Moranis who has to feed blood to a hungry talking plant in order to make his dreams come true, this film harnesses all the B-movie energy of the 50's and synthesizes it into something totally modern and compelling, featuring Steve Martin in one of his best roles as a sadistic dentist and a gut-splitting cameo from Bill Murray.

Cover Articles: Re-Animator; From Beyond; And although I don't have a review of The Terminator, I wrote this article on it long ago.

#8 An American Werewolf in London (Issue #14 Aug 1981)

Hands down, An American Werewolf in London is my favorite lycanthropy movie of all time, although it's not like there's much competition in that department. John Landis' seminal horror film features state-of-the-art effects by make-up maestro Rick Baker that haven't aged a day (OK, maybe they've aged an hour, but they're still terrific) and a thorough sense of humor that The Howling briefly scrabbled at, but almost entirely failed to grasp.

In fact, the porno theater scene might just be one of the funniest moments in movie history. And all this in a horror film that is actually scary as well, along with providing ample thematic material (a stranger in a strange land, guilt over a friend's death, and all the mess that comes along with body transformation - take your pick). A must-see for anyone who's even remotely a fan of the genre.

Read my original review here.

#7 Hellraiser (Issue #67 Sept 1987)

Clive Barker is one of the most important modern voices of the macabre, one of the greatest horror writers alive (now that we've lost Poe, Lovecraft, and - more recently - Matheson), and his directorial debut was sure to be a whammy one way or another (it's a real gamble, as evidenced by Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive). But luckily he erred on the side of the truly fantastic.

Hellraiser is an unstoppable work of glistening cerebral horror, replete with dark sexual imagery and a tense family drama to boot. Pinhead and his Cenobites would soon become overworked stock franchise villains, but here they are representatives of something even more sinister than pure evil - the dark, secret desires of humanity.

Cover Articles: The Lost Boys; Evil Dead II.

#6 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later (Issues #223 Jun 2003 & #263 June 2007)

I really need to jump on reviewing these bad boys before I'm 28 months too late. But regardless of the fact that 28 Days Later and its sequel 28 Weeks Later do not appear on the pages of this blog, they are essential movies for any modern genre fan. They kick-started the zombie resurgence in the early 2000's, paving the way for my single favorite film of all time, [REC].

While 28 Days Later was an intense British political allegory, 28 Weeks Later was an expanded look at the aftermath of a large scale crisis. Both are fantastic in their own unique ways (the opening scene of 28 Weeks is among the scariest film moments of all time) and both have a sharp wit that keeps them fresh, but it's up to personal preference to pick a better of the two. I'd prefer not to, myself, letting them stand together as one of the most beautiful, brief horror franchises to ever grace cinema screens.

#5 Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Issue #36 July 1984)

Although there are definitely Friday the 13th films that I've watched more often, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is almost inarguably the best in the franchise, at least in terms of what a slasher movie is supposed to be. Tom Savini is at his finest here, pulling out all the stops to destroy Jason, the monster he accidentally created. This entry has the most nudity in the entire franchise (a plus for fans of cheesy exploitation and fans of breasts - pulling in all the demographics here) and an all-star class including a pre-fame Crispin Glover and Corey Feldman.

Of course, we all know by now that this wasn't really the final chapter, but it did end an important era in Jason's career - the Crystal Lake Saga, as I named it just now. With its blood and guts and boobs and butts, as well as the John Hughes-esque slate of teen Meat, it's the perfect capper for this Golden Age of slasher cinema.

Read my original review here.

#4 From Beyond (Issue #59 Dec 1986)

From Beyond is a very recent discovery of mine, and I am deeply ashamed that I wasted so much time watching any other movies besides this one. This film is Stuart Gordon's second H. P. Lovecraft adaptation following his smash hit Re-Animator and it pitches everything that cheery, gory, naughty film did all the way up to the rafters.

The film brings back genre superstars Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, adding a dash of Dawn of the Dead's Ken Foree, and tossing them into a pool of technicolor goo and Lovecraftian horror. Its stomach-turning charms (and high volume sexual overtones) aren't for everyone, but for fans of practical effects magic, colorful 80's horror, or lamprey basement monsters, this is a veritable Mecca.

Read my original review here.

Cover Articles: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.

#3 The Descent (Issue #254 July 2006)

There are only two films from this century that have chilled me to my bones. The first is [REC] but you don't need to hear me babble about that same old crap again. The second is The Descent, which pulls off the incredible horror movie task of having a first act that is just as scary, if not even more terrifying than the rest of the movie, shoving its characters into dark, claustrophobic, utterly real cave environments.

All the bloodshed and monsters are just a delicious afterthought in a wall-to-wall petrifying film. Those who say that horror movies just aren't made like they used to be clearly have blocked The Descent from their memory to prevent nightmares.

Read my original review here.

#2 A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors/New Nightmare (Issues #62 Apr 1987 & #137 Oct 1994)

Although my heart will always lie with Jason Voorhees, it's impossible to deny the sheer volume of good sequels that A Nightmare on Elm Street got. In fact, Wes Craven's New Nightmare is just plain one of the best horror movies in the history of cinema. I don't throw my hat in the ring for a lot of movies, but I'm willing to put it to fisticuffs if anybody disagrees on that one.

Wes Craven's influence over the horror genre is incomprehensibly vast and the intelligence he brings to everything he does created one of horror's most enduring phenomena. The mystique and allure of Freddy Krueger survives far beyond his tawdry comedies and that crappy remake because in everything Freddy does, there remains that spark of inspiration that makes Craven one of the most important filmmakers in the genre.

Read my original reviews here and here. Or read my essay on Craven here. Or read my essay on the Nightmare franchise here. I got you covered.

Cover Articles: Evil Dead II; The Lost Boys; Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Interview with the Vampire.

#1 The Evil Dead (Issue #23 Nov 1982)

Evil Dead II gets all the credit because it's funnier and consolidates Sam Raimi's style of storytelling into a more mature entity, but I love the rough and ready DIY aesthetic of the original Evil Dead. It's one of the most original horror films ever made, all hung on the most tried and true framework story in the history of the known universe populated with one-dimensional characters.

The beauty of Evil Dead is the simplicity of the story - Cabin. Woods. Zombie things. This allows Raimi room to stretch his creativity in a way that sent the craft of cinema soaring years ahead of its time. I'm too dazzled by the film to make much sense at the moment, but I daresay I've been more coherent on the topic before.

Read my original review here.


So that's that.

Thanks for trucking along on this historical, fangorical tour. If you happen to be at the convention tonight, stop by and say hi!

Word Count: 1860

Census Bloodbath: In A Vancouver Minute

Year: 1989

Director: Rob Hedden

Cast: Jensen Daggett, Kane Hodder, Peter Mark Richman

Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

We just hit the first anniversary of the Census Bloodbath project a couple days ago and I see no better way to celebrate that milestone than the last Jason Voorhees picture of the decade, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. 

Although it could be quite easily argued that the slasher genre had run out of steam long before the 80's gave way to the moist, grungy decade that followed, the franchise pictures of 1989 provide incontrovertible proof that the once teeming pond had been polluted beyond all hope. Jason Takes Manhattan was the first of these by a hair and though it is not the worst, it is a great example of the pictures that populated the slasher's long, drawn-out death rattle.

The MPAA had long since exerted its dominance but continued to bully the genre, slicing off more gore than poor Jason could have done in a thousand lifetimes. The well of good storylines was dry as a bone and only the threadbare enthusiasm of the franchise fans kept the corpses of Freddy, Jason, and Michael shambling along.

In fact, after Part VIII tanked, Paramount took Friday the 13th out back and shot it in the head, selling it to Paramount, who wouldn't do anything with the property for years to come until they decided to lay it to rest with the Lovecraftian oddity Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.

Needless to say, things were looking bleak.

And the actors' hair was beginning to dwarf the profits.

Here's another, in case you needed more proof.

The eighth Friday movie was never going to be good, let's get that out of the way right now. But the ways in which this movie is completely mind-bogglingly terrible provide much more entertainment value than the milquetoast splatter pictures of the late decade, robbed of their splat by the moral majority. That's not exactly a recommendation, but Manhattan can be a fun watch under the right circumstances (bring friends - your life depends on the quality of their wisecracks).

Let's begin at the beginning. Jason is back in the watery grave where he belongs, rotting under the wreckage of a Crystal Lake pier. That is, until horny couple Jim (Todd Caldecott) and Suzi (Tiffany Paulsen) dredge things up again with their pelvic sorcery. When the anchor of their houseboat/portable sex dungeon drags along the lake floor (I'm pretty sure anchors aren't supposed to float aimlessly, but then again I'm not a maritime expert. We'll just have to trust writer/director Rob Hedden, whose qualifications include the screenplay for Clockstoppers, so he definitely knows all about this whole "science" thing.), it snags on an electrical cable and tears it, shocking our boy Jason (Kane Hodder for the second time) to life.

But two measly teens can't quench the thirst of a fan favorite serial killer, now can they? Luckily enough, Jim and Suzi are but two minnows in the school that is Lakeview High, whose senior class is celebrating their graduation with a cruise to New York on the good ship Lazarus.

It makes you long for the good old days when kids could be kids and New Jersey lakes connected to the Pacific Ocean via a serenely beautiful mountain range.

This ample collection of Meat includes J. J. (Saffron Henderson), an electric guitar enthusiast who decides that a sea vessel is the best place to bring her amps; Wayne (Martin Cummins), J. J.'s friend and an avid filmmaker, although he would rather be filming Tamara (Sharlene Martin), a coked out hottie whose idea of a good time is knocking the nerdy shy girl into the ocean; Eva (Kelly Hu aka Lady Deathstrike from X2), Tamara's best friend and reluctant drug buddy; Julius (V. C. Dupree), a spunky boxer who wears a hilarious track suit for nearly the entire run of the film; and Miles (Gordon Currie), a blonde human that exists solely as a foil for Sean Robertson (Scott Reeves, also of a whopping 198 episodes of General Hospital), the hunky son of the Captain.

Scott has the hots for Rennie (Jensen Daggett), whose androgynous name and connection with the chaperone/twelve-time Champion Douchebag title-holder, Charles McCullough (Peter Mark Richman) mark her beyond a shadow of a doubt as our Final Girl. The fact that she has a tendency to hallucinate about Jason as a child is just icing on the cake. In due time, Jason hitches a ride with this merry band and knocks them off one by one as they celebrate in their own unique ways (boxing, saunas, snorting coke off a mirror in the cabin hold, trying to seduce your creepy biology teacher who looks like an elderly Bill Nye, to each their own).

People should really think about inviting him to these things. Maybe he wouldn't be so angry.

Perhaps you have noticed that Jason doesn't appear to be taking anything, especially not Manhattan. Ay, there's the rub. You see, nobody actually gets to Manhattan until the final half hour, at which point it is played by Vancouver save for one scene. Honestly, I don't mind the boat setting at all - it's a claustrophobic change of pace - but false advertising is false advertising and people were rightfully upset.

Luckily the scenes set in New York largely make good on the premise, at least at the most basic level possible. It's not mind-bogglingly difficult to come up with a few cool things for Jason to do in a city. So despite the criminal deficit of artistic merit or even popcorn movie merit displayed by the film, it's smart enough to stick Jason in a subway, have him face off with muggers, and send him careening through Times Square.

There's a lot that's wrong with this movie, but it's not exactly dissimilar to the rest of the franchise - the kills are watered down so late in the game (most kills are cutaways or look like a stunt guy stabbing a pillowcase), the production values are so thin that the fashion industry wouldn't even take them in, and Jason moves according to the whims of the script, at times literally teleporting across rooms (at least, according to the editing) like some kind of magic man. 

And the loss of composer Harry Manfredini (who composed the first six and whose work was rearranged with additions for the seventh) removes even that sheerest veneer of class provided by the previous installments.

Reminder: This is the type of movie I'm referring to.

But this is a Friday the 13th picture we're talking about. Quality isn't exactly of highest priority. The plot is engaging enough that the weak kills don't feel as punishing as The New Blood and the breaks from formula are refreshing. And Kane Hodder is still in tip-top shape, providing Jason a bubbling rage that fuels him throughout, apparent even from beneath the mask and heavy make-up.

However, what recommends Jason Takes Manhattan above all else is its horrific vision of New York once they actually get there. Part VIII's Big Apple is a dilapidated DayGlo nightmare of graffiti and crime, where barrels of toxic waste are strewn across the streets and any visitor will be immediately accosted by thugs. The film's attitude toward the city can be summed up in one of the worst (this is remarkable considering its company) compositions in the film, a rap song called Livin' in the City (Ain't No Big Deal) which states that "if the crack don't get you, the hookers will."

This childish secondhand approach to depicting one of the world's most well-known cities is riveting, compounded with the heady nonsense of the more supernatural plot points (the ending especially is an endless source of bemusement). So, although Jason Takes Manhattan doesn't quite take you away, it can still be a fun outing if you're willing to overlook the superficiality of the thing and meet it on its own terms.

Killer: Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder)
Final Girl: Rennie Wickham (Jensen Daggett)
Best Kill: Julius learns his lesson about boxing with mythical serial killers.

Sign of the Times: J. J.'s Joan Jett influence lies in more than the name.

Scariest Moment: Baby Jason comes out of Rennie's mirror and grabs her.
Weirdest Moment: That Ending [Not only are we supposed to believe that the New York sewer floods with toxic waste every night at midnight, we're supposed to have no qualms about the fact that this kills Jason and turns him into a little boy.]
Champion Dialogue: "Gorgeous guy at ten o'clock. Look sensual."
Body Count: 19; not including a ship's worth of passengers that drowned.

1. Jim is stabbed with a spear gun.
2. Suzi is stabbed with a spear.
3. J.J. is bashed in the head with an electric guitar.
4. Boxer gets a hot sauna rock in the chest.
5. Tamara is stabbed with mirror shards.
6. Carlson is harpooned in the back. 
7. Admiral Robertson has his throat slit.
8. Eva is strangled.
9. Crew Member is accidentally shot by Wayne.
10. Wayne is electrocuted on a control panel.
11. Miles is impaled on an antenna.
12. Deck Hand is axed in the back.
13. Gang Banger #1 is stabbed through the back with a syringe.
14. Gang Banger #2 has his head bashed on a steam pipe.
15. Julius has his head punched off.
16. Irish Cop is killed offscreen.
17. Colleen is blown up in a car.
18. Charles is drowned in a barrel of sewage.
19. Sewer Worker is bashed in the head with a wrench. 

TL;DR: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is frothy nonsense, but great fun to watch.
Rating: 6/10
Word Count: 1616
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)