Die Hydrogen Monoxide

Year: 1988

Director: Steve Miner

Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett, Adam Arkin

Run Time: 1 hour 26 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Let’s not pull any punches here. Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later is the single most asinine title ever inflicted upon an innocent horror movie. The core concept makes sense (this – the seventh film in the franchise – was released twenty years after the original and brings back many of its characters and themes), but the execution is downright execrable. This film has nothing to do with water, and the needlessly hip, hopelessly confusing title is just another outgrowth of the pop postmodern horror flicks that sprouted like kudzu in the years following the success of Scream.

Yes, we’ve finally reached that fabled genre-savvy period of the late 90’s, where slashers could be slashers and teens could be overwritten. While I’m on the subject, let’s take a moment to appreciate how much the Halloween franchise adheres directly to the historical development of the genre as a whole. It’s uncanny, really. The whole thing is like a road map of the dominant trends of each era. Halloween exemplifies the proto-slashers of the 70s, Halloween II the gory killfests of 1981, Halloween 4 the quasi-supernatural bent of the post-Nightmare period, Halloween 5 the soul-sucking crappiness of 1989, and Halloween 6 the bleak desperation of franchise filmmaking in the early 90’s. Then it would move on into the no-man’s land of the early 2000’s slashers and stand at the forefront of the remake boom, but that’s a story for another time.

Halloween H20 upholds the tradition, providing a textbook example of the self-reflexive slasher. Normally this wouldn’t bode well, considering that it’s in the company of mediocre films like I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend, but the film was assigned a dream team of slasher bruisers, including many veterans of Scream itself. Along with the guidance of Screamsmith Kevin Williamson (who isn’t credited with the script, but according to the hot Hollywood gos, probably should be), we have Scream editor and composer Patrick Lussier and Marco Beltrami, as well as Friday the 13th Part 2 director Steve Miner. The cherry on top, naturally, is the return of reigning Scream Queen Jamie Lee of House Curtis.

Long may she kick ass.

Of course, there’s the nasty little wrinkle of Laurie Strode having been killed off in Part 4, but that’s nothing a little ignoring the last three sequels can’t solve. H20 is a direct continuation of Halloween II: Keri Tate (Jamie Lee Curtis) is the headmistress of a prestigious Southern California boarding school, but she has a secret. Back in 1978, her brother (yeah, that’s still a thing) Michael Myers (Chris Durand) killed a lot of her friends, then vanished in a hospital explosion, presumed dead. After that she faked her death and changed her name, living constantly under the fear that Michael will return once more.

This paranoia has led to some glam alcoholism (there’s nothing like shotgunning chardonnay in a chic cream sweater) and damaged her relationships with her son John (Josh Hartnett) and her boyfriend, guidance counselor Will Brennan (Adam Arkin). On Halloween night 1998 (helpfully proclaimed by a condescending title card that reads “October 31st – Halloween”), John ditches out on a school field trip in a rebellion against his overprotective mother, throwing a party with some Meat friends. He, his girlfriend Molly (Michelle Williams), and their horny mates Sarah (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe) and Charlie (Adam Hann-Byrd) sneak into the school building for some illicit merriment.

Of course, a little thing like an exploding hospital can’t stop Michael Myers, and he shows up to wreak havoc once more, though he must have lost his mask at some point over the years and had to make do with a Sideshow Bob wig.

You’d think it wouldn’t be too hard to replicate the original mold, but you would be wrong.

The thing about Halloween H20 is that there’s a character named Brennan, and I only allow my namesake to be used by good films (for the record, there’s a Dr. Brennan in The Exorcist). Ergo, Halloween H20 turns out to be the best sequel of the entire franchise, in a close race with 4. Some might argue that bringing Jamie Lee Curtis back pretty much earns the movie a free pass, but some probably haven’t seen Halloween: Resurrection.

Halloween H20 is short and sweet. It gets in, does its job, and books the hell out of there, and I greatly admire it for that. The story it tells is simple and taut. A trauma victim must survive one more trial to wipe her slate clean and get her life back on track. It’s surprisingly poignant, and the return of characters we actually give a flying hoot about bumps up the scare factor something fierce.

Obviously, H20 couldn’t dream of matching the elemental terror of the original. Steve Miner is a competent workhorse at best, not a Carpenter-esque auteur. But after a couple dozen years in the business, you learn how to stage a scene, and he certainly horses his work. Scenes like the opening kill, where the police are called to one house while the murder occurs next door, are genuinely thrilling. It’s the first actually tense Halloween in a decade. In the later scenes especially, the film uses parallels with the original film to crate expectations and repeatedly thwart them.

It is in these moments that Halloween H20 truly works as a self-referential piece. There are several not so subtle nods to other films (like Curtis’ actual mother Janet Leigh being cast as her assistant whose every line is a veiled Psycho reference), but the canny Williamson humor doesn’t quite strike up a meaningful relationship with the narrative. In the Scream films, the characters are aware that they’re living out a horror film, hence the references, but when our H20 teens pop on a DVD of Scream 2, it’s only a leering pat on the back. Their knowledge of horror doesn’t influence events in any way. Most of the humor is totally acceptable and amusing (especially LL Cool J as a security guard/budding romance novelist), but a lot of it just sort of aimlessly drifts across the screen like an errant balloon at a Fourth of July picnic.

One day I’m going to gather up all these magnificent similes and write the great American novel.

While we’re on the complain train, I have one last grievance to air, which is again the fault of one Kevin Williamson. He certainly does adore writings teens who speak like overly trendy mini Rhodes scholars, and the non-Strode kiddos are irritating as balls. Or, as K-Dubs would say, more painful than Titus Andronicus’ tongue piercing. Sarah especially is a one woman quip machine, with a groan-worthy line constantly at the ready for any situation (“Inconsiderate, party of one!”). This archetype is what really dates this movie, even more so than Josh Hartnett’s haircut, which looks like it was chewed into shape by a rabid dog.

But lo and behold, H20 leaps those hurdles like it was born to do it. The most irritating parts are hardly onscreen longer than you can say “ixnay on the ipsquay.” This is a movie that has Laurie Goddamn Strode in it, and she isn’t about to let no pockmarked whippets ruin it for her. Jamie Lee Curtis is just as subtle and illuminating as ever, bringing her natural charm to the far meatier role of a Girl Next Door gone sour. She’s a vodka-pickled, snarling survivor with a plastic smile that’s all bared teeth and hard edges. Her performance really picks up on the nuances of a genuinely good girl closed off to the world, and it reinforces the strong emotional throughline that the film boasts.

A little loopy but always fun, a little gritty but always exciting, H20 is a massively entertaining entry in the franchise. Coming hot on the heels of the atrocious Parts 5 and 6, this was a much-needed breath of fair to allow me to regroup and keep on plowing full steam ahead. On to 2002 and the film that completely undermines this one’s climax! Hooray!

Killer: Michael Myers (Chris Durand)

Final Girl: Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis)

Best Kill: Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets an ice skate buried in his face.

Sign of the Times: John’s shirt is about fifteen sizes too big for him.

Scariest Moment: Charlie drops a corkscrew in the garbage disposal and reaches in to get it.

Weirdest Moment: Another Halloween tradition this film follows is that the local kids go trick or treating absurdly early. They can be seen wandering the streets at the explicitly mentioned time of 1 PM.

Champion Dialogue: “I’d rather have my eyes pierced.”

Body Count: 6; not counting Michael Myers (whose head is chopped off), who always seems to find his way back home.

1. Jimmy is stabbed in the face with an ice skate.
2. Allegre is stabbed in the back.
3. Nurse Chambers has her throat slit.
4. Charlie has his throat slashed.
5. Sarah is stabbed to death.
6. Mr. Brennan is stabbed in the back.

TL;DR: Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later is a brilliant rejuvenation of the franchise through the lens of the post-Scream era.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 1547
Reviews In This Series
Halloween (Carpenter, 1978)
Halloween II (Rosenthal, 1981)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Wallace, 1982)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (Little, 1988)
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (Othenin-Girard, 1989)
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (Chappelle, 1995)
Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (Miner, 1998)
Halloween: Resurrection (Rosenthal, 2002)
Halloween (Zombie, 2007)
Halloween II (Zombie, 2009)
Halloween (Green, 2018)

Halloween Kills (Green, 2021)

Splatter University V: A New Beginning

Here we are again at the start of yet another promising and terrifying semester for Yours Truly. To cope with the sheer amount of work I have looming in the distance (including six consecutive 12-hour weekend shoots), what else is there to do but write reviews of crap we watched in my horror class (for which I am now TAing - the student has become the master)? And so it goes.

Warlock

Year: 1989

Director: Steve Miner

Cast: Julian Sands, Lori Singer, Richard E. Grant

Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Dave Twohy, the director of the Riddick trilogy wrote the screenplay for this late 80's fantasy horror picture shortly after graduating from California State University, Long Beach. Evidently he was too lazy to return to his alma mater and talk about his early career. For that reason, there shall be no further mention of him in this blog.

I'd rather talk about Steve Miner, anyway. This man resolutely refuses to leave the hallowed halls of crap horror and has thus ended up on this blog more than any other director save Wes Craven. Although Miner is certainly less talented than Ol' W. C. (as House and Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D can attest), he is always a welcome presence around these here parts.

The plot goes like this - an evil Warlock (Julian Sands) is imprisoned in the 16th Century and the unpredictable magic he uses to procure his escape lands him smack dab in the middle of 20th Century Los Angeles - 1988 to be precise. Although perhaps we need not be so precise, considering that the girl who lives in the apartment he crash lands into looks like a cross between Run Lola Run and LeeLoo from The Fifth Element.

I don't normally post screencaps in mini reviews, but come on. How could I deprive the world of this?

She teams up with a 16th Century warrior (Richard E. Grant) sent to defeat the Warlock in order to lift the curse of aging he has placed on her. Also, there's a whole thing about uniting the separated thirds of an ancient tome that will reveal the true name of God, which - if uttered backwards - can undo Creation.

It's a whole thing, I won't get into it.

Original fantasy horror like this would soon be lining video store shelves in the early 90's (Leprechaun, anyone?), but Warlock is better than most. Sure, it's a hunk of cheese big enough to trap Mickey Mouse, but it's such a loveably batty and low rent thriller that it never fails to charm.

And for once in this kind of film the comic relief consistently lands, making up greatly for the tepid horror (which falls flat in spite of some frankly terrific original ideas). In fact, it can hardly be distinguished as a horror film what with the brightly lit setpieces and largely inconspicuous music. Only one scene can be counted as truly horrific, but it's a doozy - genre veteran Mary Woronov is possessed by some sort of orgasm devil and it is grand and melodramatic in the best way.

All in all, it made me excited to watch more crappy DTV horror, which is always a good(ish) time for me.

One last thing before we go: Apparently God's true name is Rakisha, which seems a little ghetto for an omnipotent deity but you won't catch me complaining.

Rating: 7/10

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Year: 1992

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Cast: Winona Ryder, Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves

Run Time: 2 hours 8 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Why oh why does this kind of thing keep happening? The Dracula story is over and done, simple as that. The story is centered around a real estate agent and hops back and forth between Britain and Transylvania so many times that the characters spend more time traveling that actually doing anything. All the sex in the world couldn't spice that narrative up.

Sorry, I've been sitting on that one for a while now.

At least Francis Ford Coppola's retread of the classic work has a daring visual aesthetic that challenges and creates a thoroughly moody and lovely horror backdrop. Unfortunately I am not the type of film major that can be won over with visuals alone, practical effects or not (and yes, this film displays a truly impressive amount of in-camera effects - in fact, all visual effects but a screechingly obviously fake blue flame were done the old fashioned way and it's a major credit to Coppola that he stuck through such an arduous task around the beginning of the mainstream acceptance of computer generated imaging).

So yes. Visuals. And effects. Yay. And an immense theatricality which would be welcome in a movie with literally any other cast. Gary Oldman fares well as the aged and decrepit Count Dracula, but mysteriously falls flat as the handsome young swain he becomes. Winona Ryder fumbles hopelessly at the role of Mina and Keanu Reeves just plain never was going to work, was he?

Although he is perhaps the only actor alive at the time who could convincingly portray just how unfathomably stupid the character of Jonathan Harker really is.

It really doesn't help that Van Helsing was played by Anthony Hopkins in one of the first of his many subpar post-Silence of the Lambs roles. If every Van Helsing scene in the film was cut, it would still make just as much sense. And it would still be too long.

In a just world, Coppola's vision of a bloody, sexy, colorful, melodramatic Dracula would have been a smash success, but so many of the pieces fail to fall into place that the film is stuffy by the first minute and dull by the halfway point. A swing and a miss.

Rating: 6/10

Interview with the Vampire

Year: 1994

Director: Neil Jordan

Cast: Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst

Run Time: 2 hours 3 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I watched this film for the first time in class on Monday. It's really quite interesting to see how many plot and character elements were lifted wholesale from this film and the novel it's based on to piece together the literary wreckage that is the Twilight franchise. But enough of that. It's uncouth to kick a franchise when it's down, no matter how repugnant or obnoxious it may be.

The most important takeaway from this film is that Kirsten Dunst is a BABY. Here I was obliviously expecting her to be a love interest, not having noticed the year on the back of the DVD case. But no. She may as well be a fetus. It's insane.

Interview with the Vampire tells the story of one Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt), a grieving American colonist who succumbs to the curse of vampirism as offered by the fiery Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise). Louis struggles to accept his newfound thirst for sexy sexy blood and manages to avoid killing actual humans for a while, but finds that his Cullen-ness doesn't pay off in the long run. 

Also Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt's hair colors are switched for this film and it trips me out something fierce.

The two enter a loving partnership long-term companionship that leads them across America and eventually to the creation of a vampire child, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst). Basically the first act is Dracula and the second act is a vampire version of The Kids Are All Right.

And the third act is Harry Potter Book Five, all angsty and brooding.

I'm really avoiding intense analysis of the film because it is a towering obelisk of pop romantic filmmaking. Interesting and pretty to look at, but lacking the depth that (possibly? I wouldn't know) might be contained in the books.

It's largely entertaining for what it is, although it does drag in it's second hour. Man, do I loathe second hours.

And I might just have to create a new custom tag for my blog posts - "homoerotic vampire movies" - because this is the most recent in a string of many, starting with The Lost Boys. Remember how the brothers in that film couldn't talk without staring into each others' eyes with the intensity of a thousand suns? Well Brad Pitt speaks directly into Antonio Banderas' mouth.

It's pretty hot.

The end.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1387

December Cleanup

I'm trying, I'm really trying to get my slate clean before the new year. I'd love to begin 2014 without any pending reviews to write, free to watch movies and write as I please. But as it happens, in the idleness of Winter Break, I've been watching far too many movies to keep up with. I am but a mere mortal. So, as per monthly custom, it is time to purge some of the less relevant films I've seen this month in a spate of mini reviews. Here goes nothing!

House

Year: 1986

Director: Steve Miner

Cast: William Katt, Kay Lenz, George Wendt

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Our first target is 1986's House, not to be confused with the 1977 Japanese fever dream House (Hausu), or the 8 seasons television medical drama House, M. D., or the 2008 Michael Madsen thriller House. Or really any of those other movies that are exponentially better than this one.

From producer Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th) and director Steve Miner (Friday the 13th: Part 2 and Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D), House is an alleged horror comedy in the vein of campy gore classics like Raimi's The Evil Dead or Gordon's From Beyond and Re-Animator. What those three movies share is a singleminded dedication to gleefully over the top gore and high camp in spite of the limitations of their poor budgets. Helmed by devoted and enthusiastic auteurs, these films looked cheap but made up for it with cleverness and fun.

House is nothing like those movies. Despite having directed one of my favorite slasher films, Sean Cunninggham has been a passionless hack ever since his early days in the soft core porn scene. While Steve Miner has proven himself to be a capable director with the actually pretty good Part 2 and Halloween: H20 (and, weirdly enough, the pilot episode of Dawson's Creek), there's not a lot he can do with the material he is provided.

House is yet another 80's cult classic where its reputation (largely derived from its sequel - House II: The Second Story) vastly exceeds its quality. Starring Norm from Cheers and William Katt aka The Greatest American Hero, House is a dull oddity about a struggling horror writer who is trying to write a memoir of his Vietnam experience in a house owned by his recently deceased aunt which turns out to be haunted.

In the grand tradition of cheesy B-horror, this film attempts to plumb a much deeper thematic vein than your average horror flick (namely the post-war reassimilation of veterans). Unlike its brethren, it is an unusually shallow and pointless exploration of such. There is some joy to be found in the monster in the closet and the gonzAno closing scene, but most of it is stifled with pacing as stiff as a corpse's joints.

There is a surprising deficit of actual comedy and the whole affair feels much longer than 90 minutes. It's plagued by a common 80's horror ailment - Fadeout Disease - and despite some of its more gleefully campy charms, it is better to let sleeping ghosts lie in this case.

Rating: 4/10

Caddyshack

Year: 1980

Director: Harold Ramis

Cast: Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray

Run Time: 1 hour 38 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

It is interesting that a comedy at least nominally about the young caddies at a golf course should focus so heavily on its older male characters, but as it is it's an interesting combination of upper class caricatures heavily intermixed with copious teen nudity and revelry.

A classic comedy that doesn't play quite as well today, Caddyshack is still a clever and charmingly batty look at life behind the scenes at a country club. Cast with a whole pack of comedy greats in their prime, classic line deliveries zing left and right.

The filmmaking of Caddyshack isn't the best thing in the world. In fact, it's quite grainy and washed out for a studio comedy of its time. It seems like something that could have been produced in the 50's, although this isn't necessarily a problem and lends a kind of wholesome feel-good atmosphere.

And though the script is well done, the teen antics pale in comparison to the veterans of the craft who are made of much sterner stuff. Allowing Murray, Chase, and Dangerfield a chance to run the show instead of placing protagonist duties on the young shoulders of Michael O'Keefe would have allowed the film more room to breathe and avoid the hijinks overwhelming the script.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 764

Census Bloodbath: The Third Die-Mension

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Year: 1982

Director: Steve Miner

Cast: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Richard Brooker

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Here is where I brag about how cool I am.

Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D was the third feature in Friday's mini-marathon, and the theater screened it in actual red/blue 3D, be still my heart.

Hi, Sergio!

Nevermind the fact that red/blue 3D is the easiest way to make your brain explode this side of Fran Drescher, it's authentic! I never thought I'd live to see this film in 3D in theaters and I am immensely grateful to live so close to LA and have this opportunity.

It's only a minor detriment that the film sucks, this is Friday the 13th we're talking about here.

This never fails to make me happy though. Maybe I'm a terrible person.

Friday the 13th Part 3 manages the impressive feat of being visibly worse than Part 2 within about 2 seconds when it turns out that the first five minutes of this film are just the last five minutes of the previous film shoved in there unceremoniously like the final peg after hours of building IKEA furniture.

The film proper doesn't fare much better with its first scene in which Crystal Lake shopowners and odious comic relief characters Harold (Steve Susskind) and Edna (Cheri Maugans) wander around their general store, shove things into the camera, and die in the toilet for no reason.

With that over with, we can meet our real heroes. And what a bland vanilla whitebread bunch they are!

We have Andy (Jeffrey Rogers), who is one half of the couple who has sex; Debbie (Tracie Savage), who is the other half, but with the added twist that she's pregnant which is mentioned in two lines and promptly forgotten about; Shelly (Larry Zerner), Andy's roommate and the what we can by now call the obligatory prankster who pulls a series of the most malicious and unjustifiable stunts yet all in the name of having low self esteem; and Chris Higgins (Dana Kimmell) whose family owns the lakefront property they're driving to despite her not quite having gotten over What Happened.

This wouldn't be a sequel if there weren't more meat than that, but luckily our new characters are doled out in small enough chunks that they are all pretty distinguishable from one another.

In the second dollop we get Vera (Catherine Parks), Shelly's way out of his league blind date who has to deal with the twin problems of growing up in a Hispanic household and struggling to afford groceries with food stamps despite the fact that she looks like she just stepped out of Little House on the Prarie; and Chuck (David Katims) and Chilli (Rachel Howard), two outlandish hippie stoner stereotypes who feel the need to prove their hippiness by saying "man" every three words and are palpably older than the rest of their crew. 

At the property we meet Rick (Paul Kratka), Chris' on-and-off boyfriend whom she left behind to go to college. Please ignore the fact that he looks like he's about 30.

And to top all that off, Shelly and Vera attract the unwanted attention of some motorcycle thugs during an altercation in a grocery store. Foxy (Gloria Charles), Ali (Nick Savage), and Loco (Kevin O'Brien) perform a vital task in the movie as they sneak onto the property, disable the car, and get summarily murdered to fuel the audience's bloodlust after such a large amount of exposition.

I'm sure you guys could use a little break yourselves.

You're welcome.

The next part is all spontaneous nighttime and unnecessary backstory (Chris apparently was attacked by Jason in the woods years ago, which in no way ties in to the rest of the film considering she doesn't even recognize him until the end. Also, the word "Jason" isn't even said in this film. Whatever.) as the expendable characters get picked off in various 3D versions of other scenes from the previous films.

Debbie's death is especially heinous. She's lying in a hammock reading a magazine until blood spatters from the ceiling and she is pierced with a knife from below more or less exactly like Kevin Bacon in the original. So much for being pregnant (Jason is equal opportunity. He murders regardless of race, creed, gender, sexuality, disability, or fetus-having status).

Evidently after having sucked Twitch of the Death Nerve dry of gore scenes to rip off, Friday the 13th turned to its previous entries and began to devour itself. Part 3 bears the brunt of it, but this will be a common problem throughout the series from this point on.

Luckily, the creative deficit isn't yet at its all time ebb and we get some admittedly pretty great shots of Vera getting gored by a harpoon and Andy being split in half while walking on his hands, all rendered in glorious three-dimensional photography.

What an eyesore.

Fun Fact: Jason gets to wear his iconic hockey mask for the first time in this film.

Sad Fact: He stole it from this guy.

Shelly ruins everything.

But enough with these clowns. What about the important guys? What of Jason? What of the Final Girl?

Unfortunately Dana Kimmell's performance as Chris starts off bland and then starts to degrade like plutonium as the film goes on. It doesn't help that she is given the least to do of any Final Girl yet, running around and shouting for Rick and turning off bathtub faucets and stuff.

She does have the good sense to double tap (she gets Jason unconscious and then hangs him) but then immediately goes out of sight range (where anything can happen) and ends up facing his wrath.

So that's a bust, but upon this screening I gained a real appreciation for Richard Brooker's work as Jason. He has a casual, almost tossed-off vibe to his killings in a way that makes it seem like this is all in a days work for Jason. Which, in fact, it is. And it's immensely cool.

Love Kane Hodder though I do, Richard Brooker is the first standalone Jason (Hodder is the only actor to play the killer in multiple films) that really captured my attention and his performance is truly commendable, more than just an anonymous stunt actor.

And when Jason gets an axe to the forehead he thrusts his hands out in one last ditch effort to grab Chris in a manner reminiscent of the classic Universal movie monsters and that really just got me.

Feel bad for your eyes? Imagine this for 90 minutes.

And there's no way I can get out of this without talking about the ending, can I?

Boy is it stupid. It's campy and ridiculous enough to end on a light note but geez man.

With Jason defeated, Chris gets in a canoe and floats into the middle of the lake.

Sound familiar?

Playing with our suspicions, the film throws a couple of weak jump scares at our tortured heroine (in the form of a log and a duck) before the money shot.

Do you see the zombie of Mrs. Voorhees jumping out of a lake? Cuz I do, but I might be having a fever dream.

If you're gonna make a film as bland and tedious as this one, I suppose it benefits you to have an utterly incomprehensible closing shot so at least the audience has something to talk about. Considering that it made $15 million more than Part 2, I'd say it worked.

As much as I love Jason making money, this doesn't change the fact that this film is less vivacious than its predecessors, has actors way out of age range, features two distinct outhouse scenes, and hinges on the performance of Dana Kimmell. The cherry on top is that returning director Steve Miner is too distracted by waggling things at the camera to frame anything even remotely approaching his style in Part 2.

This film is still worth watching for a Friday the 13th diehard because the mask makes its first appearance, Richard Brooker does right by Mr. Voorhees, and the cheesy 3D effects always elicit a laugh but for a less committed horror enthusiast, I'd suggest skipping straight to The Final Chapter.

Killer: Jason Voorhees (Richard Brooker)

Final Girl: Chris Higgins (Dana Kimmell)

Best Kill: This one, filmed in eye-popping 3D.

 Geddit?

Sign of the Times: Foxy and the Chain Gang

Scariest Moment: The van gets stuck on the bridge as it runs out of gas and Jason approaches.

Weirdest Moment: Just listen.

Champion Dialogue: "This is the sweat of a worker on my forehead, not of a lover."

Body Count: 12

1. Harold gets a meat cleaver in the chest.
2. Edna is stabbed in the back of the head with a knitting needle.
3. Foxy is pinned to a rafter by a pitchfork through the neck.
4. Loco gets a pitchfork in the stomach.
5. Shelly's throat is slashed offscreen.
6. Vera gets a spear fired into her eye.
7. Andy is macheted in half while walking on his hands.
8. Debbie gets knifed through the chest from beneath a hammock.
9. Chuck is electrocuted on a fuse box.
10. Chili is impaled with a fireplace poker through the chest.
11. Rick gets his head crushed by Jason's strong, manly hands.
12. Ali gets bludgeoned with a wrench, loses an arm via machete, and is stabbed to death. 

Cheesy 3D Effects Count: 26; including my personal favorites, a blunt and a yo-yo.

TL;DR: Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D is cheesy and fun but immensely dumb and unable to overcome its biggest problems at the script level.
Rating: 5/10
Word Count: 1617
Movies 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)

Census Bloodbath: Second Thoughts

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For our podcast episode about this very film, click here.

Year: 1981

Director: Steve Miner

Cast: Amy Steel, John Furey, Betsy Palmer

Run Time: 1 hour 27 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

And we have arrived at Jason's first starring vehicle! What a pleasure it is going to be to see this hockey masked buffoon get his time in the limelight!

Wait, what?

Yeah, you got me. The hockey mask doesn't come into play until Part 3, making this another Friday the 13th with a misinformed reputation. Perhaps this is a good time for me to mention how improperly memory has treated this series. You know how all Friday the 13th movies go, right? Ask anyone. Jason Voorhees in a hockey mask kills camp counselors at Crystal Lake.

This combination does not happen one single time in the entire 12 movie franchise. Sorry to burst your bubble. This is getting a little technical, but here's the deal. To start off, camp counselors die in only three of the films (Parts 1, 2, and 6). In the first, as we've already discussed, the killer was his mother. In the second (which we'll approach in more detail very shortly), he has no mask and also they're not even at Crystal Lake. Part 6 is the closest (he has the mask and he mows down counselors) but guess what? The camp has been renamed to Camp Forest Green.

I know that one's a technicality, but isn't that weird to think about?

Nothing anybody knows about this series is even remotely true.

Anyway, that's all in the future. Right now it's 1981. We have Jason in a bag, the hockey mask has never existed and as a matter of fact neither has adult Jason.

The film tries to smooth that narrative wrinkle (having him die as a child in the first film rather complicated sequel opportunities) by saying it only seemed like he drowned and that he saw his mother get beheaded that fateful night and vowed revenge on her killer and any others who intrude upon his territory. Apparently he never saw fit to approach her before then and give her a quick heads up that, you know, he was still alive. Whatever. He was busy. I get it.

So now he's all growed up and the movie opens two months after the original. Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) is trying to put her life together but is still haunted by nightmares (that take the form of five minutes of footage from the last movie crudely grafted onto shots of her not only failing to act but failing to be convincingly asleep).

She is run through a conveyor belt of horror standards as she gets a mysterious phone call where there's nobody on the other line, hears noises, takes the world's fastest shower, and has a cat thrown at her from offscreen by a PA.

Unfortunately her time is up and as she goes to get some milk for her tea, she gets a rather nasty surprise in her fridge, followed by a nasty surprise in her temple (an ice pick).

So that's what head cheese is.

Now it's five years later, her body was never found, and the shore of Crystal Lake is being used for the first time since the campground was condemned after the original murders.

Paul Holt (John Furey) has opened up a counselor training camp not far from the blackened ruins of Camp Blood. The events of half a decade ago have faded in memory and Jason has been reduced to nothing but a campfire story. 

As training begins, a heaping platter of Meat is laid before us in unprecedented amounts. First we meet the obvious analogues for Jack, Marcie, and Ned from the original. There's Jeff (Bill Randolph), the horndog and something of a Walmart brand Brad Pitt; his girlfriend Sandra (Marta Kober) who is adventurous and pushy; and Ted (Stu Charno) the prankster. Apparently the writers couldn't be bothered to even try to hide the fact that he is transparently Ned, just in a different body.

Thus begins the well-worn Friday the 13th standby of "exactly the same, only different." It only serves to underscore the fact that the individual characters don't matter. All that anyone cares about are the infinite variations in the ways that they screw and the ways that they die (Sometimes at the same time. More on that later).

Also on the crew are Terry (Kirsten Baker), who I took to calling "Slutty McSlutNipples" in my notes because of how clear her exact purpose in the script was; 

She gives the franchise its first full frontal! And has some gleefully sleazy innuendos that make me love her.

Scott (Russell Todd, who we'll revisit in Chopping Mall), the stud bucket who relentlessly pursues Terry like a five-year-old, stealing her clothes when she goes skinny dipping and hitting her with rocks from a sling shot; Mark (Tom McBride), a wheelchair-bound counselor with enormous arms; Vickie (Lauren-Marie Taylor, who we'll also see again in Girls Nite Out if I ever get my hands on the DVD), a clean cut girl who can't help but notice said enormous arms; and Ginny (Amy Steel, also of April Fool's Day and my fantasy dinner parties), Paul's girlfriend and all around spunky queen doing awesome things all over the place like cutting firewood with a chainsaw, winning at chess, and running the fastest (foreshadowing!).

There's also some random extra counselors with no lines, but some of them are ethnic and break stereotypes by not actually dying.

Also a Rock in a Puddle that is onscreen more times than the black counselor.

Not exactly a paradise of diversity.

Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) also makes a brief reappearance to spout more prophecies of doom only to become the first victim of Jason's rampage. And because the movie needed to have more kills to spice things up before the real bloodbath begins.

The first act is breezy and fun as we settle in with the characters. Much like the first film, there's not much plot of import, but it's just enjoyable to watch these teens have a good time. We learn that Slutty McSlutNipples' dog is named Muffin, which is the best thing ever. Jeff and Sandra expand the narrative universe a bit by exploring the condemned Camp Blood which is so dilapidated it might as well be made of cardboard (That was a joke. It is made of carboard).

There is some great use of foreshadowing in this sequence as well, the subtlety of which is balanced out by the bluntness of the expository dialogue. Ginny is a Child Psychology major, a character trait that is introduced with all of the grace of a first time writer who is also a boxing champion. Paul literally says "Why don't you use some of that child psychology you're majoring in?"

This guy.

When half the counselors leave to spend a night out on the town, things start to get hairy.

The counselors that chose to stay behind fall into the typical patterns of Friday the 13th teenagerhood, drinking, smoking, banging, and dying. Although the gore scenes are positively modest in comparison to the original (the MPAA had begun its first of a series of crackdowns on the slasher genre), what is shown is gleefully wicked.

Jeff and Sandra are speared mid-coitus in a bald ripoff of Twitch of the Death Nerve (one of the franchise's favorite victims) that nonetheless is shocking and fun, Vickie sits immobile in fear and watches Jason approach her for about ten seconds with a big knife and thus earning her a spot in my Ten Modern Horror Rules list, and Jason proves once and for all that he is an equal opportunity serial killer.

What a nice guy.

Slutty McSlutNipples goes skinny dipping alone because she's a brave queen. The clincher? Earlier that evening when she decided to stick around and look for her dog she said "I think I'll stay too, Muffin may show." This is seriously my favorite thing that has ever happened. Call me sleazy if you want, but exploitation cinema has never gotten more clever and cheesy and wonderful than that very line. Perfection.

Sooner or later, Ginny is the only one left and boy is she ready. She knees Jason in the crotch, attacks him with a chainsaw, and although she makes the fatal error of failing to double tap, she utilizes her child psychology knowledge to placate Jason by pretending to be his mother.

Jason is macheted by a miraculously alive Paul, and the two limp off into what I would call the most bizarre shock ending ever if I hadn't already seen the next film in the series. Everything is fine, but the door creaks open to reveal... Muffin!

Then Jason bursts through the window.

Then it was all a dream.

Then Paul has vanished.

I don't know anything about what happened here and I don't care about spoiling it because it's so outrageously hackneyed and stupid and sequelly. At least we got the genuinely frightening and cool Final Girl sequence beforehand.

In this gif, Jason is played by Warrington Gillette. Contrary to what he claims, he did not play Jason in any of the other scenes. Boo Warrington Gillette.

Overall, Friday the 13th Part 2 is tremendously fun if less shocking and grubbily powerful than the original. The script is strong enough to shoulder some of the burden left by the diluted gore effects and Amy Steel gives a layered performance as Ginny even if the other actors leave something to be desired. 

You know what? No they don't. I'm too jaded to desire good acting from these things. At least Amy is flawless.

Steve Miner (who was an associate producer on the original film) directs like he actually has a brain, and the movie benefits greatly from it. His scenes of darkness hide objects just enough to render them scary instead of just obscuring everything in sight. He also utilizes some basic deep focus cinematography that frame foreground and background objects in ways that relate to one another. Not exactly rocket science, but it shows more effort than the utterly workmanlike Sean S. Cunningham.

Ginny doesn't like hacks.

Friday the 13th Part 2 has nothing on the campy joy of later entries, but it's a solidly made and occasionally scary slasher film in the Crystal Lake saga (my unofficial name for the first four films before things got weird).

One more thing before I go (I know, I know. I'm almost done.). I mentioned earlier that the mantra of the franchise is "exactly the same, only different" which is perhaps a little unfair. Each Friday the 13th film is comprised of a million little details that are radically different from any other film in the franchise that lend it texture.

This film is no different as our expectations are subverted left and right.

The most obvious example is that Ted the prankster somehow survives the ordeal. Who could have seen that coming? He's happily ensconced in a bar booth miles away during the bloodbath. I already mentioned that the ethnic counselors survive, but that's worth mentioning again and again in an 80's horror film.

Also the clean cut prude looking girl turns out to be the horniest of them all (choice dialogue: "I only need your fingers." "Let's play for position.") and Ginny pretty clearly gets it on with Paul, ripping the Final Girl standard off its hinges.

And my favorite pairing. Slutty McSlutNipples never has sex and the studbucket strikes out. Take a look at him on your way out and don't tell me you're not surprised.

Slingshot. There's a joke in there somewhere.

Killer: Jason Voorhees (Steve Dash), and what a pleasure it is to be writing those words.

Final Girl: Ginny Field (Amy Steel)

Best Kill: Coitus interruptus 

Sign of the Times: Vickie's "sexy outfit" is a bulky sweater with geometric shapes.

Scariest Moment: Jason rips his pitchfork through the canvas roof of Ginny's car.

Weirdest Moment: It is shown that Ginny wears a bra. Take a close look, it's the last one you'll ever see in a Friday the 13th film.

Champion Dialogue: "This place is starting to look like a Burger King."

Body Count: 10; I included Paul even though nobody actually knows what happened to him. Also a dog maybe. The ending is really inconsistent.

1. Alice is stabbed in the temple with an ice pick.
2. Crazy Ralph is strangled to death with barbed wire.
3. The Cop gets the back of a hammer in his skull.
4. Scott's throat is slit with a machete.
5. Terry is killed offscreen.
6. Mark gets a machete in the face, then rolls down a flight of stairs.
7. Jeff is impaled with a spear while boning Sandra.
8. Sandra is impaled with a spear while boning Jeff.
9. Vickie is stabbed in the chest.
10. Paul mysteriously vanishes. 

TL;DR: Friday the 13th Part 2 is more technically proficient than its predecessor but can't fully recapture the grubby magic.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 2174

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)