Post by No Personality on Mar 11, 2010 8:31:23 GMT -5
The key to making any Friday the 13th film work for me is the characters. I need to be able to either ignore them altogether- in the interest of moodiness or amazing death scenes, or to find them really fascinating or like they embody a really fun stereotype. Something that doesn't bother me and that I can believe them in... enough. The movie can be as sleazy as it wants to be, really. I have no problem with nudity or sex scenes, overall (though the sequence in the first film of Janine Taylor grabbing "Kevin Bacon's" butt in closeup - I'm 100% sure it was a 'stunt butt' - and his dubbed over "uh!" were pretty damn scuzzy). But somehow, when that translates over into the characters, when they become basically single-minded morons with a need to aggressively announce how horny they are and how much they're thinking about sex... that's when I start to roll my eyes.
Things don't quite graduate to that level of idiocy in this sequel. But they do come close. This movie still adheres to the early films' ease to and freespirited attitude about sexuality. But at one point, when a character steals another's clothes when they're skinny dipping, you have to ask yourself why this guy can't be more mature? What about the concept of a group of early 20-somethings alone in cabins in the woods suggests an orgy? Or, that people will immediately become completely inconsiderate toward the opposite sex? Though sex is something these characters should want to do in private, they can't stop themselves from talking about it and sometimes even kind-of assaulting each (groping, throwing objects at butts, and the clothes stealing bit) other in wide open areas and broad daylight?
In this sequel, the sexual content and sleaze quotient get an upgrade. In terms of abundance. And I believe I've mentioned this before here- that's the least interesting thing about these movies. The sex the characters are having and talking here begins to equal the level of work they do, since this film reprises the original's plot about the Camp Counselors having to fix up and otherwise train to get ready to work with kids. Since again- they're doing as much screwing and expressing sexual frustration as they are anything else, I'm forced to say: I didn't realize this was a skill that came in handy when dealing with children. I'm not conservative or a Republican. Nothing like that. But this sort of thing does strike me as silly and ridiculous. It's positively out of control in this movie.
We don't need a shot of naked Terry going into the lake with full bush. And while I'm at it- how come they never film this sort of thing in the daytime (women skinny dipping alone)? That would at least give us the novelty of sunbeams sort of bouncing off objects or reflecting into the camera lens and giving the whole scene a warm glow. Or better yet, just don't put it in a horror film. Since the natural quality of being naked isn't actually scary, it's just irritating and condescending. And makes me yearn for more male nudity to balance things out. But I never get it. The point really is though, that almost no horror movie actually needs nudity. And certainly not this kind. I don't use fictional movies as an education on real life. Nor do I use any other kind of "film" than a porno to get-off. So, horror doesn't need to show us nude anatomy. There are already a good many helpful books dealing head-on with the subject.
Friday the 13th Part II is not one of the better acted sequels in the series. What mars it the most is the overabundance of supporting Counselors goofing off and a series of terribly unfunny and lame off-color jokes by the Ted character. This I might expect from a Troma movie. But if any of that is adding complexity to the typical formula- I'd prefer things stayed simple. However, the movie does have the benefit of a very natural performance by Amy Steel as Ginny, the lead heroine. This sequel has received a great deal more praise than it deserves on account of how people judged her as smarter, more resourceful, and more kind-hearted than any other of Friday's "final girls." To an extent, that's true. To put it simply though, she is very sweetly nurturing and unpretentious.
Her big scene where she gets to toss around theories on Jason Voorhees and his mother is a great moment, if not one of the best of the series. There's a certain creepiness to the idea that she might be right about some of what she's suggesting. Not only does it give Jason the motivation that we've attributed to his character since the series has become popular, but it gives us a chance to feel sorry for him. If we want to. Of course, that door open only gave me (and no one else agrees) an excuse to either defend Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan or to ignore the attacks against its' ending where it decided to humanize Jason, and show him as a boy as a pathetic, tragic figure. Whereas, usually, he's nothing more than a dumb, hulking mongoloid monster who mindlessly slaughters victim after victim.
Most of the other movies when dealing with his past as a boy just matter-of-factly showed him drowning and left it up to your imagination what, if anything, could be going on in his head. As for Jason drowning and how it relates to the present-time of this movie, the one where Jason the horror icon was basically born... It was inevitable that we would get to this point. The most overlooked and under-discussed problem in the entire Friday the 13th series... how the hell could dead Jason Voorhees be alive? In the first film, he was dead. It is essential to the logic and reality of that film that he remains dead. It gave the original killer motivation to slaughter all those Counselors and the movie an excuse to almost write-off the violence (in the mind of the writer, I'm sure this is true) because there's a revenge kind of reason for it if you try taking the story seriously.
However, at the beginning of this movie, a character we have to assume is Jason - especially since Alice from the original returns and is having a nightmare where the ending and all the dialogue about "Jason" plays in her head - is stalking and killing someone. Then later, other characters. Jason is alive. But how? I said before on this site that this series is well-known for its logical inconsistencies and I meant it. If you want to enjoy these movies, throw out the book of realism because there's no way they're going to make sense to a rational person. But since this movie is considered such a fan favorite, and many people bash the 3rd film (one of my favorites) for 'messing up the story', I think the fact that this film is downright screwy when it comes to continuity needs to be addressed.
What appears to be accepted by fans as the reasoning for this very nonsensical turn of events is that Jason never died. With no explanation whatsoever as to how he survived the drowning, Jason is said to be alive and living in the woods where the first film's summer camp was located- only a little ways down the road / across the pond from the camp where this story takes place. He's been alive for years (y'know ever since the drowning), has grown up into a mongoloid-man, and built himself a fairly spacious and sturdy shack-house (with multiple rooms, doors, and windows). In a clearing in the woods where the first film took place yet despite all the scenes of people walking in the woods in the first movie, no one ever stumbled upon it.
Oh, and... in case none of the above has tipped you off to there being something colossally fishy going on in this movie... here's the kicker- he was watching in the woods the night Alice murdered his mother. Which now offers a kind of extremely bent explanation for why Jason the zombie jumped out of the lake and attacked Alice at the end of the first movie. Wait... WHAT?! Jason died. He didn't attack Alice at the end in the first movie. It was only a dream sequence that ripped off Carrie, used as a way to get one last big jump from the audience. It was never part of the story that Jason was alive. Now, again don't get me wrong. I don't mind any silly idea they use to get Jason into the movie. I'm a huge fan (look at my avatar). But if we're going to forgive this movie's cracked logic, we have to accept that- there is no right and wrong logic to this film series whatsoever.
There are actually a lot of theories on Jason as a character. Few deal with what he represents and instead, more focus on his motivation for killing. I think the idea that he's a revenge killer holds about as much water as a cheese grater. There's no way he could have survived the drowning and lived. That would make him some kind of superhuman creature. Just because he's deformed does not mean he's capable of surviving something like that drowning - or to be able to take as many chops with machetes and axes to his head, being hung with a noose, and various stabbings, slicings, and chainsawings as he does throughout the first 3 sequels without freaking dying. Remember how Parts III and IV: The Final Chapter begin. He just... stands up. That's it. He never died and all the wounds he received in the previous movies end up not phasing him a bit.
I could accept that in the interest of continuing the slasher mayhem. I wouldn't want other movies and movie series trying to do the same thing and getting away with it. But with Friday the 13th, a series with an established setting and mood to them. A series where you know what you're getting every time. Yet, people completely ignore these glaring flaws when criticizing the sequels where they say Jason is a zombie. I put it to you that Jason's always been a zombie. No, the film never showed him eating people's flesh or biting them, eating their brains and whatnot. But he was never killed in these early movies and received a tremendous amount of damage. They sliced and diced him every which way but he just kept getting up and going around like nothing was the matter with him. Now how the hell does that make sense?
Worse yet though is the suggestion that Jason watched his mother being murdered and decided to avenge her death. How many holes can you count in that theory? Let's try it now. 1: If he was watching her when she was killed, why didn't he attack Alice right away? Overcome with emotion(?); I doubt it! This is Jason Voorhees, the mongoloid murderer with nothing driving him to exist but the urge to kill. / 2. Since it's highly unlikely that he could have been watching his mother being killed, he would have had to discover her body somewhere in the space of the time between when she was killed and the moment the police arrived the next morning. Not very much time. I say he would have had to hear her scream. She had her head chopped off. No chance of a scream there. So, sometime in maybe 8 hours, he would have had to find her body, in the dark, and recognize that the bloody head was his mother's. A major stretch, I say.
3. In locating Alice to kill her... he decided not to follow her, for example- by car. Instead, he finds her home, way off the beaten path from Camp Crystal Lake. How the hell did he track her down? Sometimes in these movies, they suggest that Jason is actually very smart. Way too smart. The better explanation for how he knows things like this is not that he's a very evolved zombie, but that he's in fact a ghost. Ghosts harbor grudges, haunt people they don't like, and can follow someone they have a major problem with. And in the odd movie, kill someone they don't like. If this were happening in real life, it would be terrifying to be stalked by a force that can't be physically killed, knows how to find you where you go, and isn't in any way cut-off by the boundaries of time and space. That is, I suspect, what really drives the inclusion of things like this in a horror movie. The idea of the ultimate nightmare, violent death by something that controls your reality. But it makes for lousy logic.
4. If Jason wants revenge because he cared so much about his mother and is able to travel what I gather is hundreds of miles away from his home (in his woodland shack) to the home of someone he doesn't know just to kill them... why the hell didn't he ever go to find his mother like he found Alice? He was able to think the former plan out pretty thoroughly. If he was capable of that- why wasn't he able to go back to his insane and distraught mother? Especially if he was so overcome with rage at her death? I suspect the fans who think this movie makes sense didn't think it through very carefully. And I won't even go into detail on the ending. Let's just say, if this movie's opening is a puzzler- the ending is a madhouse!! Involving a ghost / zombie returning dog, a ghost / zombie returning hunk, another dream sequence - only without the benefit of the explanation the original one came with, and of course, an incredibly long chase scene where Jason disappears as though he really is a ghost.
Or, perhaps better... an urban legend? As he is in the now trademark scene where Paul tells the Counselors, sitting around a glorious campfire toasting marshmallows on sticks, the legend of "Jason Voorhees." It's a surprisingly great scene considering how crappy an actor John Furey (another soap opera veteran, and one I'm told was on the same soap as Kelly Ripa was) is. I would bet the reason they really hired him was because he's smoking HOT! Which brings me to the point where I give this poor, crippled movie a bit of a pegleg (compliment) - it has by far the hottest selection of guys in the whole Friday the 13th franchise (unless you count New Line's Freddy vs. Jason, and, I don't). Furey, Warrington Gillette (Jason's various stunts), the very farmboy hunk Bill Randolph (Jeff), ultra-handsome Russell Todd (Scott), the obviously gay and unfortunate victim of AIDS (died in 1995) Tom McBride as Mark the wheelchair guy who tries to play it straight, and a surprising number of nameless other Counselors have bodies to kill for! Even the class clown / prankster guy cliche here, the ultra-skinny Stu Charno as Ted, has amazing muscles...
But again, the focus of any Friday the 13th film should be Jason. The unbelievable gaps in the plot would be more than forgivable if Jason's reputation were in fact more of an urban legend. That would help give a grand mythos to the culture of Jason Voorhees. Which in the 80's manifested itself in a lot of fun advertising (these goofy trailers are damn classics!), a few creepy songs such as Alice Cooper's "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" and Pseudo Echo's "His Eyes," and even some merchandising. But the iconography of Jason with his hockey mask is greater than than this sequel's attempt to rip-off The Town That Dreaded Sundown and The Elephant Man by making Jason in his first outing as killer wear an empty white potato sack over his gnarly face. Not only is this not original, as the hockey mask in fact was, but it's not as good. It does make Jason look silly. And that's not the only instance of this film copying another film. Shockingly- this one also rips off Halloween, Phantasm, The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Jaws, Psycho, and though there's no way the filmmakers could have seen it, there is a scene here almost perfectly identical to one in Halloween II, even down to the same murder weapon!
The film's weakness, when all is said and done, isn't that it makes no sense. That's one of the things that's always remained charming about this admittedly overrated series of films. It's that it's low budget and cheap and decides to exploit that. It doesn't use its' opportunity to write and shoot what the mainstream would never allow it to apart from more nudity and sex talk. That's not an efficient or ambitious use of the low budget film. As simple entertainment... it's definitely simple, but also distractingly annoying. And since this franchise has basically become kept and beloved by most fans based on the strength of the gore scenes... let's remember that this is, along with Part VII: The New Blood, the most tame of the Paramount 8. Which actually does bother me a little. Though I don't blame the film. Had this thing been allowed to go through, uncut, I'd be singing a slightly different tune today.
