MICHAEL VS. JASON

Couldn't find who made this, but to the unknown artist: good job.

HER NAME WAS PAMELA: 'FRIDAY THE 13TH' (1980) TURNS FORTY

The Friday the 13th series will always hold a special place in my heart, regardless of how dumb it became once Paramount Pictures’ eight-film reign ended and the franchise ended up with New Line Cinema. (Jason Goes to Hell is enough to cement my point, but the remake easily earned my hatred.) As a kid, and once the calendar fell on Friday the 13th, catching a mini marathon of the series on TNT, USA Network, or what was then known as the Sci-Fi Channel was always an event. I’d fire up the VCR, grab a VHS tape from the cabinet to sacrifice, and record as many entries as I could, stretching EP mode to its breaking point. Growing up with an old-school mother, the hammer often came down on the movies I rented, so I worked with what I was given, which were edited-for-content, commercial-ridden airings of the least mother-friendly horror series on the planet. 

Slasher fans seldom point to the first Friday the 13th as their favorite series entry, or even the best, which flies in the face of how these things usually go with long-running franchises: the original is almost always the favorite, and almost always the best, but with the franchise not even introducing infamous masked killer Jason Voorhees until the second entry, nor putting him in his famous hockey mask until the third, and with the overall series also going through an odd metamorphosis that saw entries vying to be murder mysteries (Friday the 13th), grindhouse sleaze (Friday the 13th: A New Beginning), gothic monster movies of the golden age (Friday the 13th: Part VI – Jason Lives), paranormal tales (Friday the 13th: Part VII – A New Blood), or self-aware dark comedies (Jason X), it’s easy to see why certain entries appeal to certain people. Overall, and even extending into the lesser heralded New Line era, the Friday the 13th series is like a Rorschach Test: if you look deep enough, you’ll find something that calls to you.

Though Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is the most popular entry in the series (I won’t argue with that), I often feel that the 1980 original gets overshadowed and dismissed as being that weird entry where the killer is Jason’s mom instead of the marquee maniac we’d all come to love. Even with the maestro of mayhem Tom Savini in charge of the blood and guts, it doesn’t contain the same kinds of outrageous kills that the series would later feature, much like in Savini’s return to the series with The Final Chapter, or 1993’s Jason Goes To Hell, which has nothing going for it except the violence. But there are all kinds of reasons to celebrate the original, even if its own creators still admit to this day that it was a blatant rip-off of John Carpenter’s Halloween.

Friday the 13th offers an honest-to-gosh attempt at creating backstories for its characters, regardless of their superficiality. Alice (Adrienne King) has unknown and unresolved issues in California, Marcie (Jeannine Taylor) had nightmares about raining blood as a kid, Ned (Mark Nelson) is the “funny one,” etc. There’s nothing earth-shattering going on here, and except for some outward capering, their backstories come solely from dialogue and not their performances, as Halloween was so keenly able to do. But that’s okay! Post-Halloween slashers didn’t strive for much beyond a passing resemblance to real life and some nifty kill scenes, and Friday the 13th handles that with ease. Though it’s primarily known as a slasher flick today, putting yourselves into the shoes of an unknowing audience those forty years ago instead reveals a murder mystery at its core, even if clumsily handled. Halloween never played around with “who” the killer was—it’s how the flick opens—and while Friday the 13th is happy to ape Halloween’s slasher aesthetic, it’s also eager to apply a bit of Ten Little Indians, sticking a bunch of characters in an isolated spot and painting several of them as potential killers. Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer), who has a vague romantic history with Alice and seems against her leaving to return home, disappears into town just before bodies being to drop at Camp Crystal Lake, and all while driving a jeep…just like the unseen killer. Crazy Ralph (an incredible Walt Gorney) prophesizes all across town about how the camp is doomed, and how all those who stay there will “never come back again.” These red herrings aside, a cheap final act reveals the killer to be…someone who hadn’t appeared as an on-screen character until that very moment, stepping out of her jeep wearing her best church sweater: Jason’s mother (Betsy Palmer), known only then as Mrs. Voorhees. (She’d be given the name Pamela in The Final Chapter.) Though this reveal is a total cheat, in that audiences couldn’t possibly have guessed that the killer was a character they didn’t know existed (the on-screen hands of the killer throughout the flick are definitely a man’s—see  below), the machinations of the film up to that point were mired in mystery, successfully keeping the audience guessing up until that “oh…” reveal.

Sean S. Cunningham does a commendable job for someone only a handful of films into his directorial career and working in the horror genre for the first time. Prior to Friday the 13th, Cunningham had worked exclusively (and amusingly) in softcore porn and family films, with one of the latter being a Bad News Bears rip-off called Here Come the Tigers. If you’re sensing a disingenuous flair with how Cunningham produced his earlier projects, you’re not wrong, but if we’re being fair, he wasn’t doing anything then that Hollywood’s not doing now.

Cast, director, and special effects aside, the real star of Friday the 13th—and almost every entry produced by Paramount—is the musical score by longtime series composer Harry Manfredini. If there were any justice in this world, the exploitative reputation of the Friday the 13th series would be forgiven and his work would be just as celebrated as the compositions in JAWS, Halloween, Phantasm, and The Omen. During this era, low-budget filmmakers were seeking cost-cutting synthesizers, but Manfredini stuck with real-live strings, giving Friday the 13th a lush and propulsive orchestral score that, if we’re being honest, the sub-genre probably didn’t deserve. (He also scored the 1986 slasher Slaughter High, where he treads much of the same very recognizable ground.)

For the last few months, fans have whispered about the rumored Friday the 13th Complete Collection that seems to be in the works, and seems to be coming from Scream Factory, which stems from a couple series veterans getting a little too loose-lipped on social media. With the series celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year, it would've been great to see the announcement of a brand new Friday the 13th film, but with the series having been in litigation for the last couple years, for now, it seems as if Camp Crystal Lake and Jason Voorhees really are doomed. The only other nod to 40 years of Friday was Paramount’s steelbook reissue of the first film, and while its release smacks of the kind of “blood from a stone” pattern of re-releasing the same titles over and over without new content, at least the studio, once ashamed of its affiliation with the series, is acknowledging its place in cinema history and celebrating its impact on the movie-going public. 

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YOU PIECE OF SHIT: FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)

We're briefly hitting pause on Carptember in honor of today's date: Friday the 13th. And on this day, I like to kick back, watch a few of my favorite Friday titles from the Paramount era, and also talk about how fucking shitty the 2009 remake is. Plus it's somewhat Carpenter-related since he gets name-dropped in this piece while recognizing that the Friday the 13th series wouldn't exist were it not for him, anyway. 

Either way, let's get hatin'.

I’ve been watching Jason Voorhees murder human beings ever since I was a wee one. Too young and poor to own actual copies of the films, I was reduced to watching versions recorded off television from ABC’s “Million Dollar Movie” and USA’s “Up All Night.” The gore was heavily edited, the nudity had vanished, and even benign lines of dialogue like “thank God” were edited down to “thank ___.” But at that time, I took anything I could get, and I wore out those tapes without much effort.

Jason Voorhees, both pre- and post-zombie, was kind of my hero. He was a monstrous force of nature with which to be reckoned. He crushed heads and introduced axes to bodies without prejudice. He cared little for the half-naked nubiles that were helplessly straddled on the floor in front of him — he wanted nothing more than to throw them out the window, bash them against a tree, or stab them…you know…down there. The Friday the 13th series was even, in essence, my first exposure to sex (and in a largely overblown way, its consequences), since it predated my father’s birds-and-the-bees talk, the 37th-generation porn tape that circulated among my friends, and my public school’s laughably tardy sex ed class. No sir, I learned all about female anatomy from The Final Chapter.

Funny and inappropriate as it may sound, the series was a large part of my childhood, but despite my adoration, I would never describe the series as art — not even the first film. Slasher movies that result in legitimately good cinema are a rarity — John Carpenter's Halloween naturally comes to mind. Sure, slashers are “good” in the sense that you like them, and they are certainly entertaining, but they’re not written to trigger any emotional response other than screaming. They don’t want to push you to question society. They just want you to laugh as the fat chick on the side of the road gets a pick-axe through her neck, or to fear for Final Girl who is completely alone, knowing the masked maniac could be around any corner. Post-Halloween slashers were willing to show you anything to earn that response. They are buffalo wings and beer: they’re an option, they really hit the spot, but at the end of the day, they’re junk. (But that’s okay!)

Unlike Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th isn’t a series where most fans point to the first film as their favorite, simply because the series didn’t really come into its own until the sequel, which introduced a masked Jason as the primary maniac. Now that the baggage of “the original” was no longer on the table, fans were free to choose which chapter was their favorite. Pretty sure it’s The Final Chapter, and also pretty sure that’s because of all the Crispin Glover dancing. (It’s my preferred entry, anyway.)

Despite the lack of “quality” in each successive sequel, insofar as could be expected of Friday the 13th, and despite the stick-in-the-mud claims that each sequel was the same movie over and over, you can’t claim that each entry following The Final Chapter wasn’t trying something new.

A New Beginning pissed off fans by removing Jason from the equation and replacing him with a copycat killer. Luckily, the movie boasts a healthy amount of the red stuff, and director Danny Steiner leans on a slimy yet effective grindhouse aesthetic that feels right at home in the franchise. Even with the disappointing fake killer reveal, it’s a natural continuation of the Tommy Jarvis saga, which began in The Final Chapter. It’s effectively directed, and if the real Jason had actually been the killer, I’m confident A New Beginning would be considered a series high-point.

Jason Lives is the “funnest” of the series, with its tongue firmly planted in cheek, and it shows on both the page and the screen. Having said that, (and putting aside the goofy but lovable James Bond-esque opening title sequence), let it not be said that Jason Lives doesn’t live up to the Friday the 13th brand. Jason, newly resurrected, is back with a vengeance. People are smashed through RV walls, ripped apart, and bent in half. Heads are stabbed and triple decapitations are on the menu. “Fun” tone notwithstanding, the threat is still very real. Thom Mathews (Return of the Living Dead) caps off the Tommy Jarvis story with the best iteration of the character and puts Jason back in the lake for good (haha, not). Director Tom McLoughlin keeps things light, channeling Joe Dante and Amblin Films, delivering a hoot-and-a-half of a Friday. With a diverse cast that doesn’t just focus on teenagers, McLoughlin manages to make Jason Lives feel less like a slasher flick and more like an honest-to-gosh horror film geared toward everyone. (It actually got some decent reviews, too, which in the land of Friday the 13th is usually unheard of.)

The whole Jason vs. Carrie gimmick of The New Blood is a little absurd, but most fans have been pretty forgiving of that plot point. It’s what the MPAA did to poor director John Carl Buechler, and all his gory set pieces, that they can’t forgive. Still, despite being tame with the gore, The New Blood is fun, and if nothing else, depicted the most bad-ass Jason so far (played for the first of four times by fan favorite Kane Hodder) — exposed spine and all.

Jason Takes A Cruise Ship Toronto Manhattan would unceremoniously serve as the last entry produced by Paramount Pictures (the same studio that gave the world the Godfather trilogy), who had distributed the original and funded every sequel. Following the series’ declining box office receipts, Jason Takes Manhattan would prove to be the studio’s last go-around with their hideous and embarrassing cash cow. Unfortunately, what sounded like a clever and exciting script was hacked apart to reduce the budget, forcing writer/director Rob Hedden to sacrifice much of his vision, which included scenes in Madison Square Garden (where Julius was supposed to get his head punched off), a chase scene on the Brooklyn Bridge, and a finale in the Statue of Liberty. Instead, Hedden shifted most of the action to that goddamn cruise ship, where Jason miraculously negotiates tight hallways and cabins without anyone ever seeing him. (In case you were wondering, 34 minutes of the movie’s 96-minute running time “takes place” in New York, and two minutes of that time is actually shot there.) What Hedden can be blamed for, however, is shitting the Friday the 13th mythology bed by impossibly suggesting that Final Girl and Jason were children around the same time period, making Jason either both a zombie killer AND a lake-haunting boy ghost, or Final Girl the oldest high school senior on record. Also, while Jason’s uncanny talent for taking lives has always bordered on absurd, Jason Takes Manhattan takes it one step further and bestows on him the completely ludicrous ability to teleport.

At film’s end, Jason screams like an elephant and drowns in toxic waste.

It had a really fun teaser poster, though:

 

Once the Paramount reign of Friday the 13th ended and New Line Cinema stepped in to adopt the rotting hulk, Jason went to Hell, space, and Elm Street. Most would agree none of them were a return to form for the masked killer (though it’s easy to love Freddy vs. Jason).

And then 2009’s Friday the 13th happened to us all, which came out ten years ago.

Happy birthday, you piece of shit.

When the soulless production team of Platninum Dunes, headed by Michael Bay, announced the remake of Friday the 13th, every horror enthusiast and their decapitated mother knew they weren’t actually remaking the first film. Instead, they were remaking the concept of Friday the 13th —Jason, with mask, cutting down teens in the woods. But I’ll admit, when the remake of Friday the 13th was announced, I was excited. By this time, Platinum Dunes had already given the world the remake of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which was shockingly good, along with The Amityville Horror and The Hitcher, which…weren’t, but each announcement in regards to Friday the 13th really seemed to indicate they knew what they were doing: the writers of Freddy Vs. Jason would be writing the script, Chainsaw director Marcus Nispel would be getting behind the camera, and Jared Padalecki, star of Supernatural, would be playing the lead role of Clay — basically a reiteration of Jason-hunter Rob from The Final Chapter. This trio of creative decisions tickled my horror fancy. In my eyes, that was some promising horror street cred all involved in this hotly anticipated remake, and this was only Friday the 13th — fucking that up would be like burning water. The movie was soon shot, set visit reports showed enthusiasm from all those involved, and the trailer masterfully captured the tone of the original movies, even going as far as mimicking the “thirteen deaths countdown” as the trailer for the original film did 30 years prior.

But the audience was doomed. They were alllll dooooomed. And on Friday the 13th, 2009, nothing would save them.

After all that, I have to ask…why? Why was the final product so awful? How did they get all of this seemingly so right and then flush it right down the toilet? How did the Friday the 13th flick with the highest budget, made by a studio finally unashamed of its ownership, and created by people who purported to love the franchise, become the worst entry in the series?

Let’s start with the script.

You’ll never (ever) have me bemoaning the lack of character development in a Friday the 13th because I don’t need that, and it’s not what I expect from a movie that’s essentially Part 12. Instead, I would have preferred a group of characters to be, in the most effortless way, at least a little bit likable. Ripping off my own face and begging for Jason to come down off the screen and vivisect me was tolerable compared to watching Funny Dick Guy say one putrid “the obnoxious character is always a gas!” line of dialogue after the other. Meanwhile, writers craft scripts like this and then grin at you and say, “These kids feel like real kids!” If Friday the 13th’s kids are based on real kids, Planet Earth is doomed.

And what’s with these kids and their utter masturbatory obsession with smoking weed? What’s with this needless, overbearing crusade to really reinforce that kids not only smoke week, but that smoking week is hysterical? Yeah, I get it. Teens smoke weed. Teens have always smoked weed, and will always smoke weed. You know who else smoked weed? My parents. And yours. We’re not doing anything new here, people. But Friday the 13th seems intent on beating their audience over the head with a thirty-pound bong. Not only does the movie open with kids hunting for a pot field, later on, an entirely different group of kids come along and smoke weed and laugh a lot, because weed is the BEST. Listen, the original Friday the 13th entries are horrendously dated, I’ll freely admit it. The environments are free of cell phones and flat screens. Kids dance “the robot” and have gigantic hair. The guys wear shorter shorts than the girls. For an entry or two, punk was “in.” But they were still way cooler than the kids of Friday the 13th 2009. They didn’t make their bongs and pipes do puppet shows. They didn’t go “awwww yeaaaah!” when someone took out an ounce and waved it around like a Polaroid. They didn’t say “this is some good shit!” or bellow “I am so stoned!” for comedic effect. They passed the joint, smoked, and played some acoustic. The end.

And if you think the film’s immature look at marijuana is the last of the pitfalls, think again.

Why does every single character in the film lack the social skills of a zoo-born gorilla? Did you really just take your tits out for no reason, Dumb Girl? Were you seriously going to do some common-area masturbating since no one was around, Other Kid? Are we really watching a redneck about to masturbate all over a naked mannequin as he feels its chest? To quote that YouTube child, is this real life?

Worse, most of the deaths are incredibly lazy, while some border on the kind of discomfort-causing dispatches from the world of Saw, Hostel, and all of those imitators so popular during the 2000s, which ain’t the Friday the 13th way. As a result, the deaths look merely unpleasant and somehow simultaneously boring. Case in point: Stoner Kid wanders around a dark garage looking for god-knows-what, spending almost five straight minutes talking to himself. The music is mounting, and you know Jason’s about to pop up and give this moron a death we all hope is glorious. And then…

Jason shoves a screwdriver into his neck.

Slowly.

As Stoner Kid begs for his life.

It’s not fun, but boring — and uncomfortable. That’s not why we’re here. We’ve come for titillation, not revulsion. For the first time in a Friday the 13th, watching teens get slaughtered isn’t…fun.

As far as Jason’s killing capabilities go, I’m a little more lenient than some other fans. If Jason wants to shoot an arrow into some girl’s skull, that’s fine. In previous entries, I’ve seen him throw spikes directly into people’s faces from afar with deadly precision, so I won’t complain about the method, but to then flash to Jason’s old room and show us an archery trophy? Who fucking cares? Astoundingly, the writers thought they were clever enough to “explain” why Jason is good with a bow-and-arrow, yet when it came time for him to find his hockey mask for the first time — in a moment that should have been iconic — they write a scene where he literally finds the thing on the floor. Come on guys, really? That’s like Bruce Wayne deciding what his Batman costume will look like by buying a fucking Batman costume on Amazon.

Not helping matters is the lifeless “bum-bum-bum-bum” film score by Steve Jablonksy, who unfortunately sees fit to keep “ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma” and toss the rest — unaware of the effectiveness of Harry Manfredini’s original music. Manfredini’s awesome original score isn’t music you can hum, like Halloween, Phantasm, or JAWS. Notes are all over the place, and hardly repetitive — more Herrmann than Carpenter—and the collection of harsh strings, harps, and low brass is what made the not-that-scary events unfolding on screen seem pretty scary. It’s a superior film score that deserved just as much respect as Jason himself, but given the complete lack of understanding as to what made Jason a great character, it would seem the score never had a chance. (For an example of how to do this the right way, see Graeme Revell’s score for Freddy vs. Jason, which effectively marries Manfredini’s Friday stuff with Charles Bernstein’s Nightmare stuff, all while writing original compositions.)

The only worthy kudos is entirely dedicated to Derek Mears as Jason. A longtime fan of the series, he understood that — despite what people think — Jason Voorhees really is a “character,” and he did a great job bringing him to life. 

After a great opening weekend, Friday the 13th suffered such poor word of mouth that the following weekend saw a severe drop-off in box office, thus killing any plans for a follow up. (It takes a special kind of talent to make a lot of money from a Friday the 13th movie and not parlay that into an immediate sequel.)

Fans all have their own ideas for what makes or breaks a Friday the 13th entry, with many of the criticisms leveled at the remake being things I don’t have the time to care about. Jason runs and that’s weird? I don’t care, and no, it’s not, because he ran in the first three Jason chapters. How does he know how to keep his electricity running in his childhood home? I dunno, ask the Jason who had a working toilet in the second entry. I tend to overlook these details and focus on things that are obviously dumb, like establishing that the town of Crystal Lake knows that Jason is running around in the woods, but aren’t that concerned about it. Or that Jason doesn’t kill one particular female character because she resembles his mother, yet he does chain her up in a dungeon, which seems like a very bizarre way to treat a mother. Or that an abandoned summer camp is infested with a series of underground tunnels which the screenwriters couldn’t be bothered to explain with one line of dialogue.

How did making a Jason film get so hard? Why is the concept of a masked killer cutting off heads so uncrackable? (How did a bunch of kids make the Friday the 13th fan film Never Hike Alone with a fraction of the remake’s budget, resources, and Hollywood talent, and still create something vastly superior?)

Guys, this isn’t Don Corleone we’re talking about here. Nor Indiana Jones, John McClane, or the aforementioned Batman. It’s Jason Voorhees. Put a mask on him, dump him in the woods, give him some unannoying kids to kill in clever ways, add a twist of lemon for freshness, and holy shit, make it fun. As a lifelong Friday the 13th fan, who was able to find merit in every single entry up to Jason X (and I really had to reach for that one), 2009’s Friday the 13th was the first time I ever recall feeling embarrassed by my love for the franchise.

To all the folks who mucked this up: this is such an easy wheel to keep turning, and somehow, you totally blew it.

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

HAPPY MOTHER'S

THIRTEENTH

 

EYE hope you have a good one!

Ugh.

FRIDAY THE 13TH

Worst game ever.

LEVITY

DAY 13: BONUS POST

The result of an impromptu pumpkin carving.

Happy October 13th.

THIRTEENTH

Happy Friday.

LEVITY: GERIATRIC HORROR

 

Federico Cheisa Photography

LEVITY

SHITTY FLICKS: JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY

Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant camp-girl penis.

WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.

Abraham Lincoln’s last words were “Jason Goes to Hell is the biggest piece of shit in the world. And even though this bearded Confederate fuck is about to blow my head off, I want it on record that these were my last words: that Jason Goes to Hell is the biggest piece of shit in the world.”

He wasn’t kidding, folks. But before we get to reviewin’, let’s start with some history.

In 1980, a really cheap and simply-made horror movie, starring that guy who played the prep in National Lampoon’s Animal House, came out during the summer season. Its name was Friday the 13th, and its path to filmdom was paved when that movie’s screenwriter received a call from that movie’s director saying, “Halloween is making a lot of money, let’s rip it off.”

Actual quote.

Lineage be damned, Friday the 13th, the nothing-special-but-still-competently-made summer camp slasher movie, was released, and it was greeted by lines around the block, enthusiastic fans, and abysmal reviews.

One year later, Friday the 13th: Part 2 (originally simply titled "Jason") was released and introduced the world to the killer who took over for mama and made his name synonymous with Friday the 13th.

Paramount, though ashamed of the series, cranked these suckers out one after another on a yearly basis until 1988’s Jason Takes Manhattan, which due to poor box office, signaled the end of Paramount’s relationship with the hulked-out, rotting mongoloid known as Jason Voorhees.

Enter New Line Cinema in 1992. The rights to the series expired and New Line snapped them up, thus paving the way for Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, whose status as the most absurd entry in the franchise remains unchallenged to date.

So, for clarification:

June 13th, 1980: Mrs. Voorhees kills counselors, blaming them for the drowning death of her son, Jason.

August 13, 1993: Jason, having inexplicably been resurrected after his toxic waste exorcism at the end of the previous film and having retaken residence at Crystal Lake, is lured out into a field by an FBI agent in a bath towel, is blown up by a SWAT team, and has his heart eaten by a coroner, which leads to his spirit possessing the bodies of several people by way of regurgitating a giant worm demon thing into their unwilling mouths, his ultimate goal being to wriggle inside the vagina of his dead sister in order to be reborn in his meaty, stinky, lumpy, hockey-mask-wearing, machete-grasping body.

Yikes. And that happened in just thirteen years. (GASP—THIRTEEN!!)

"Hello, Space. ::narrows eyes:: See you soon..."

FBI Agent Elizabeth Marcus—undercover, naturally—shows up onsite at the former residence of the Voorhees family home in Camp Crystal Lake, NJ. Elizabeth walks into a cabin, flips a switch, and a light bulb sparks to life momentarily before pooping out and coating itself in brown goo, which is something I must say I’ve never seen a light bulb do. She then strips down, revealing her very unsexy and masculine body, to take a shower.

I’ll give her credit for knowing what draws Jason out.

Sho'nuff, Jason shows up, attacks her with his trusty machete, and sends her hurtling down over the balcony to crash into a coffee table.

Jason, despite the presence of the brutally brilliant KNB EFX, looks the absolute worst he has in this series. And not in the good way. His previous bad-ass visage consisting of an exposed spine and a face only a decapitated mommy head could love has been replaced with the look of a dumpy voo-doo doll and a big round head that looks like Aqua Teen's Meatwad.

I don’t approve.

Jason hauls ass after the toweled girl to the middle of a field, where spotlights suddenly flash on, and SWAT team members open fire on him (positioned in a circle around him, which means odds are in real life, some members on either side would have blown each other’s faces off).

An expertly-placed bomb blows Jason to literal smithereens, limbs, head, and heart flying in every direction.

Miles away from the explosion, Creighton Duke ("The X-Files'" [and The Blues Brothers'!] Steven Williams), apparently-famous bounty hunter, lowers his binoculars and gives a steely glance.

“I don’t think so…”

Sigh.

Say, since Jason is dead forever and ever now (ha ha) can I briefly ask if anyone else can hear a single fucking thing said in this movie? Why is the goddamned volume so low on this thing?

Jason’s remains are flown to Youngstown, Ohio, to be given a once-over by a couple of coroners who don’t take their jobs all that seriously.

As Older & Blacker Coroner performs his autopsy, Jason’s heart (which we learn is twice the size of a normal heart, kinda like the Grinch post-Christmas) begins to beat methodically, hypnotizing Older & Blacker Coroner until he literally picks up the heart, growls animalistically, and shoves it into his mouth for a huge bite.

Eating Jason's heart is grounds for death by alien lasers.

Hang on, folks, because we’re now officially in please-check-your-disbelief-at-the-door territory. Older & Blacker Coroner, (now Jason), finishes his hearty meal (OMG!) and stands around, waiting for something to happen.

And something does: Annoying Weiner Coroner (aka the movie's screenwriter).

Annoying Weiner Coroner walks into the room, having just been felt-up by some FBI agents (why security for a dead body is necessary remains unknown). Annoying Weiner Coroner begins showing what a man he is by calling the dead body of Jason a “faggoty, blown-up fuck.”

Then a probe gets up in his face.

As Jason, wearing the body of Older & Blacker Coroner, exits the room covered in blood, the FBI agents (one of whom is actually Kane Hodder, the man responsible for playing Jason in Friday the 13ths VII-X), says that Jason was “nothing but a big ol’ pussy, anyway.”

And for the second time in this movie, a part Kane Hodder is playing is cut very short.

Later, in the backroom of a diner located in Crystal Lake, a woman named Diana fearfully watches an episode of “American Casefile,” which is detailing the disappearance of Jason’s body from the morgue, and the path of dead bodies seemingly on the way back to Crystal Lake.

“American Casefile” host Robert Smarmdude interviews Creighton Duke, who claims to know of Jason’s ability to possess people’s body.

During a round of word association, Robert asks Creighton what he thinks of when he says the name Jason Voorhees. Creighton responds with, “A little girl in a pink dress, sticking a hot dog through a donut.”

I’ve no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but it belongs on BrainyQuotes.

Creighton ends the interview with a nod to Jaws, offering to kill Jason for half a million dollars, which would include: “the mask, the machete, the whole damn thing.”

"A black cowboy? What is this, some kind of joke?"

Diana, who is Jason’s sister and was absolutely never mentioned before in this series, turns off the TV and goes back to work.

This is when we meet Steven (John D. Lemay, "Friday the 13th: The Series"), the dweebiest Friday hero so far. Steven, who was dating and is currently estranged from Diana’s daughter, Jessica, plans to meet Diana later on to discuss his failed relationship.

Later that night (in an obvious re-shoot), Steven drives to Diana’s, and picks up some hitchhikers who plan on fucking and doing drugs at Crystal Lake “now that Jason is dead.”

Good one.

Jason—smelling sex—shows up and slashes one of the girls in the face before proceeding to what will be the best kill in the series (just behind the sleeping bag death from The New Blood).

Jason picks up a tent spike and plows it through the belly of a girl currently giving her boyfriend the ride of his life, and gloriously rips it all the way up, out through her shoulder, splitting her into two very wet parts. The screaming boy’s head is then stomped in for good measure.

At the time of this movie’s shooting, the director was 21-years-old. Can you tell?

Later, Jason figures he’ll expand his horizons, so he kidnaps an old man, Deputy Josh, and shaves his buck-baked body, which is strapped down to a table in the living room of his old house. He even has a fire roaring in the fireplace (to make things as romantic as possible for the two dudes). Jason ’s got quite a big load for this old man, and he wants to be sure it will fit in his mouth.

Jason lovingly applies shaving lotion, shaves the man, and then some delightful kissing ensues, as Jason regurgitates some weird black-viscous covered thing into the man's throat.

Jason’s old body then drops dead, and after a few moments, Jason’s new body comes to: now that of Deputy Josh.

In that big list of things that people felt the Friday the 13th series needed, homoerotic shaving can now be checked off, just under a 3D eyeball, Horshak, and Crispin Glover’s frenetic dancing.

Steven gets to Diana’s house, where Jason also shows up.

Now, we don’t find this out for a little bit, but we eventually find out from Creighton Duke that Jason needs the body of someone in the Voorhees bloodline to be physically reborn, returning him to his dumpy potato-sack body, mask, and all.

So, in this scene, where Jason chooses to instead kill Diana, ignore her body, and go after Steven, you’ll wonder just what the fuck his problem is.

Steven pricks Jason with a firepoker and tosses him out the window. Luckily for Steven, the Sheriff shows up, sees his dead lady love on the ground and a bloody Steven claiming that the killer was actually the sheriff’s own deputy. Not to mention that, even luckier, the body of the deputy is now missing.

Dancing with the Stars got really intense
once Margot Kidder joined the cast.

Needless to say, Steven goes right to jail and does not collect $200. It’s at this prison where Steven meets Creighton Duke (locked up for strictly being a dick), who regales him with his expansive knowledge of the Voorhees family, and how Jason can finally be damned to hell for good...at the hands of a Voorhees. Welp…Diana’s dead, so I guess that leaves her daughter, Jessica…and Jessica’s newborn baby!

Plot twist!

Steven escapes from the prison and goes to the Voorhees house, where he spots an old book of spells and skeletons on the desk: The Evil Dead’s Necromonicon. Gosh, what a neat homage. If only it were in a good movie.

Smarmy Robert suddenly walks in talking on his huge cell phone about the truly exploitative segment he is planning on for his show: Secrets of the Voorhees House Revealed. He then details how he had (quite easily it seems) stolen Diana’s body from the morgue and planted it in the house in order to avoid the mistake Geraldo made many years ago. Jason then bursts in and kisses Robert, giving him the worm. Deputy Josh melts and Robert comes to, now more evil than even a TV executive.

After that it’s a race against time for Steven to get to Jessica before Jason does. Well, they kinda get there at the same time and Steven runs Jason over with her car as she screams and beats the hell out of him, leaving him on the side of the road to be promptly arrested.

Boy, this is exhausting, isn’t it?

Flash forward through a lot of bullshit, a talking Jason, and some glorious violence, and Jason is reborn when the demon worm slithers up into the vagigi of dead Diana.

Jason is finally actually in his own fucking movie, and it took 85 minutes.

Jessica, using the magic dagger given to her by Creighton, plants the sumbitch right into Jason’s heart. Big meaty puppet hands explode from the ground to grab at Jason and pull him down into Hell, slowly and awkwardly.

And in the now well-known shock ending to end all shock endings, Freddy Krueger’s glove bursts from the ground, grabs the mask left behind by Jason, and drags it down to Hell with him, laughing maniacally, and intentionally setting the stage for Freddy vs. Jason, the movie that everyone assumed was going to happen just a year or two later, and not the ten years that it actually took.

The filmmakers of Jason Goes to Hell pride themselves for taking on an iconic character and trying something new.

I don’t.

Had Jason actually been in this film the entire time, and with some slight plot modifications, and yes, even if the movie had just been a huge rip-off of Halloween (again), this still would have been one of the series' strongest entries. But these douchebags opted to add magic instead.

Drop Jason back off in the woods and leave him there. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to visit.

LEVITY

 

Arsenio vs. Jason

THIRTEENTH

Darkness Man.