Spotlight: Friday the 13th Part VI

You know how Jason Voorhees has become a part of our culture? In some ways, not as much as Freddy Krueger. But there's no denying that name, that guy in the hockey mask, and that infamous "ch ch ch, ha ha ha" (infamously we all now know that that's not the original sound, it was recorded as "ki ki ki, ma ma ma" and somehow in the echo process it softened) - it's become part of pop culture as we know it. Every time there is an actual Friday the 13th on our calendar, we think of these movies. Every Halloween, you see something about Jason or these movies on TV. Even if it's on cartoon or as a joke on a sitcom or kids' show. You can see mentions of it everywhere. Even on Full House and Tiny Toon Adventures.


True, people don't exactly know what Friday the 13th and Jason Voorhees are really all about. Most people. Much like Texas Chainsaw Massacre- it's all a blur to most people. When Jason takes off the mask or someone else takes it off for him... do most people know what's (ever been) behind it? Quiz your friends some time. For all they know, he might be the guy who wears other peoples' faces sewn together. Of course, me and you - us true horror buffs - know that's actually Leatherface. But as far as most people know, Jason might carry a chainsaw and wear a bloody buther's apron. Or have a bunch of pins sticking out of his face. Of course (again), we know that's Pinhead. From Hellraiser.


These things all blend together for most people. I mentioned this a little bit when talking about Part IV: The Final Chapter. I also mentioned Nightmare on Elm Street. In a war of advertising between Jason and Freddy (which Paramount might very well have thought they were engaged in against New Line), Freddy Krueger and Nightmare always really won because Robert Englund was a real actor playing a real talking character. He could do Mtv shows and personal appearence spots. His personality helped really sell the movies. Friday the 13th was still working off of what it ripped off from Halloween- the killer doesn't talk or make noises unless someone is stabbing him to death. Even into its 6th film (or 5th sequel, if you prefer).


All of this is a lead up to my personal plea to the odd Friday the 13th fan who actually thinks a quote-unquote "zombie" Jason is a really bad thing because it's not faithful to the story. The plea is to ask yourself... What story? I'm going to elaborate on this fully when I get to Friday the 13th Part II, but- this series is notorious for logic gaps you could drive a Mack truck through and story inconsistencies that boggle the mind. The simple fact is: nobody was paying attention. We lost track. Everyone did. The people watching these movies, the fans. The people writing them. Remember that almost no two movies in the Paramount series had returning writers and often the producing staff would change slightly. Or a lot. And with every new director- a whole new vision.


This series was looked at as a formula, plain and simple. Each new film was like a salad, getting tossed and mixed. None of the new creative people really knew what the series was about. They would merely react to the formula. And it mostly attracted pretty crappy directors. Or, to be nicer about it- directors that nobody ever talks about anymore. Rob Hedden came from TV (and went back there, I believe). Danny Steinmann came from porn (and probably went back to it). Joe Zito jumped onto the cheapo direct-to-video / cable action flick bandwagon (making me lose even more respect for the guy- horror takes more care and more work than action). And then there's Tom McLoughlin, who also did a Stephen King movie that was poorly received by almost every major critic.


Each film is a success or failure based on its' own individual merits. In a way, it has to do with vision. A vision... to make dumb popcorn flicks but ones that somehow feel like trademark Friday the 13th. Most fans of this series just know what that means. You could watch the first 3 in a row and except for the switch from 1.85:1 to 2.35:1 between parts II and III, you could actually forget what movie you're watching at times. Everything changed after The Final Chapter. And because it was the mid-80's and with such a variety of different subgenres (vampires, werewolves, sci-fi horror, monsters, little creatures, zombies, etc.) at the time, the feel of each movie was quite different from the one before it. This is the real competition between Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. Which franchise could remain freshest longer?


I'm game to keep this going- my money is on Friday the 13th. It really had all the advantages. A bigtime Hollywood studio is blindly throwing money at it to keep it going, long as it kept making more in profits than the filming budget. New Line in the 1980's couldn't compete with that (in fact- New Line in the 1990's couldn't either - not until 1994 when The Mask and Dumb and Dumber shot them into orbit). Friday the 13th also came first. And established a safe reputation. I also previously mentioned fast food franchises. That's what these movies really were. They were the true movie fast food franchise of the 1980's. People weren't going to a movie, they were going to a place. Camp Crystal Lake was like a restaurant in a way. It was an old-faithful. You could depend on it to deliver. You always knew what you were getting.


I really admire that. That's how it became part of our culture. Somebody took something made for maybe 1 million at the most (the original 1980 film) and set it up like a building. And that building stood there for 10 years. Count them (the first film released in 1980 and the last Paramount film in 1989). There wasn't a film every single year, I'm just making a point. It really defined the 80's in a way. It's the only thing we had all 10 years. Even in 1983 and 1987 (the 2 years when a new film wasn't released by Paramount), you could still go to drive-ins and see the movies, or watch them on TV- certain channels would show them. Or, in 1987, you could rent 6 of the movies on VHS. And then, there was either laserdisc or beta too. And soundtrack cassette tapes- if they had them.


Friday the 13th encapsulated the 1980's. Madonna wasn't with us all 10 years. Michael Jackson was still doing disco in the early 80's- he hadn't yet broken through with "Thriller" and "Billie Jean" (not until 1982). Reagen didn't become President until November of the first year, so his influence hadn't begun to take hold for an entire year. Police Academy wasn't released until the mid-80's (but, God did they milk that fucking thing or what?!?! 6 sequels at least!). And there are several other examples. Of course, what a movie franchise about sexed-up teenagers being slaughtered viciously in double-digit body counts and its' enormous popularity actually says about America (especially considering that Carter, a Democrat, was still our President at the time this whole thing started) is anybody's guess. Maybe we just like things simple and fun.


But I respect the kind of person that would offer people something like that. Perhaps it's the secret anarchist in me, because like I said- nobody was keeping track of it. People saw a new movie if they bothered at all, and forgot about it. It was mindless and fantasy-esque escapism (oh come on! You know as well as I do the last thing these movies were were gritty, realistic, or hardcore) for 88-95 minutes and only what it represented really stayed behind. I imagine most people knew as well as I did that these movies were pretty cheap- that's what horror always used to be. Cheap movies that either didn't bother to hide the fact they were cheap or that tried to look expensive. And you know what? People liked that too! As much as they liked the cheap, fast ones like... oh, Critters.


I think the guy put in charge of this thing was Frank Mancuso Jr. Does that name ring a bell to you? Apart from Friday the 13th- it doesn't for me either. God was he a good looking mofo! Anyway, enough of this... Can I blab on and on or what?! ;D All things have to change. Or end altogether. Friday the 13th was made for the 80's (though its' creators certainly didn't know that- how could they see what the culture of one of the most depressing decades in human history would give us?) and it died with the 80's. Every decade, every half decade since has tried to resurrect it again. Each time they've failed miserably. That could be because New Line were in charge (they only know Freddy - leave Jason alone, for once and for all). But really it's because the people re-doing Friday the 13th think they need a supernatural or survival / torture film gimmick. Go back to the 80's, that's all I can say. But no one can turn back time.


The 80's was all about opportunism. Opportunism fuels escapism. And horror in the 1980's was ripe with experimental, crazy ideas (thank you; Dario Argento, Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, Joe Dante, Stuart Gordon, and Larry Cohen) and thin fantasy motivations for anything-goes mayhem (Gremlins, The Evil Dead, Hellraiser, Bad Taste, Creepshow, From Beyond, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Cat People, Videodrome) of all scales and incarnations. God bless non-realistic horror! I guess anything seemed possible. Hey, look, Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master reincarnated Freddy with flaming dog piss - not that I'm saying you should approve of it or that you do, but you knew what to expect.


In the case of this sequel, I think most fans don't resent the Frankenstein concept to bring Jason Voorhees back from the grave (he actually, finally, died in one of the previous movies- how about that?). Of course it's a bad idea. But who really cares? The fact that he comes back is the most important thing. And... doesn't it seem like a blast of electricity could make one of your worst nightmares come true? Doesn't it scare you at least a little, on a primal level? Here he comes back like a cross between a flesh-rotting, skinless (the rotten flesh is his skin now) Fulci-zombie (a little like the one from House by the Cemetery, Dr. Freudstein) and The Terminator. A lot of people hate that. Because... it's impossible to "kill" him.


By that, they'd better mean that the movie will never end. That that's the problem. Because, think about it: people hating (the new) him because he's too hard to kill... You make a list of all the stuff the survivors had to do to "kill" him in parts II, III, and IV combined before he actually bit the big one during young Tommy Jarvis's machete rampage. And tell me what you came up with. Isn't that utterly ridiculous in itself? After that, it's impossible to hold his new zombie look against him. Look at his face in The Final Chapter. That's even more horrific than his mask-less face in this sequel. Well... equally, then. His mongoloid face kept rotting or becoming less human with each movie (basically). And I've never complained about the looks from any of the previous movies either.


Not the original look(s) that is. The ones that were the idea of the writers and not ripped off from another movie. I mean- I say it with no hesitation. That though this is my favorite horror franchise of all time, 1980's Friday the 13th copied Halloween. We all know it. Part II ripped off The Town That Dreaded Sundown for that Jason with the bag over his head look. The killer already had a bag over his head. But after that, even the mongoloid look was somewhat original. That hockey mask is iconic. And the other thing most iconic about Jason and this series is how you can't kill him. Part V: A New Beginning is its' own thing when you're watching it. But when you're not, it's nothing more than as they explain in the beginning of this movie- a hallucination. Or a series of stitched-together hallucinations.


You can really only fault Jason Lives for the pieces of it that don't work or hold up well. I've always had a real thing against David Kagen- Megan's father, the sheriff. Give me Sheriff Tucker from A New Beginning any day of the week!! That first scene, the whole "don't piss me off Junior..." Terrible line readings. I hear he was like a theater actor or something. Well- he should go back there. I'd hope they miss him too much to let the movies keep him. We all have a few specific things that drive us up the wall about certain movies and horror sequels. Also, there's the painfully awful Vincent Guastaferro as Rick the putzy deputy. This guy has no charisma. To say the least. I don't even think he has the spine to make me believe he's a sleazoid hoping to take advantage of Megan just because she's always fighting with her father- his boss. So it would be like the sheriff would trust him more than her. They could have gone that far.


And I mentioned the character of Martin the Caretaker in the Spotlight for A New Beginning. This movie is, when you set aside the silly humor, aces compared to the two previous ultra-sleazy, low on scares, by-the-numbers films. You can't deny those sequels were meant to be trash. Of different colors, of course. Harry Manfredini's music score again becomes too reliant on horns and some farty militaristic beats (the same goes for 1986's House, a Steve Miner film, for which he also did the score the same year as Jason Lives). After awhile though, you don't notice it. What's really great about this sequel is that director Tom McLoughlin bragged and boasted about himself as an atmosphere director... and he wasn't kidding. His plentiful use of shots of the trees and the wind and the woods all around the characters as they basically end up one-by-one on the chopping block makes for the single scariest moments in the entire franchise after the first 3 movies. This film in fact scores highest on the Boo! Jump meter.