15 Favorite Horror Films - #14

The Devil Rides Out - 1968

    

      In the late 50s, a British production company called Hammer, then known for suspense and science fiction films, started to release horror films.  Unlike the other horror films in the 1950s, these weren't about nuclear tests making animals large size or about aliens taking over the world.  No red scare allegories here or nuclear scare stuff.  The first in Hammer's horror cycle were 1957's The Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula.  Both starred Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, who are now regarded as the two biggest stars of the company.  The next year they did The Mummy again starring Lee and Cushing.  With these three huge successes, the company produced many horror films until the company lost it's way in the mid 1970s.  They made many Dracula, Mummy and Frankenstein films, but also original films and adaptations of other horror literature.  And for the first time, there was lots of blood... In color.  At the time, the studio was considered by some critics to be in poor taste and disgusting.  Others saw the films as fun for the whole family.  Today they are for the most part quite tame, but for the time they were considered gory with a lot of sex appeal due to the buxom beauties that were included in almost every film they made.  The films had high production values even though shot on small budgets.  There's a reason why the company is so lauded now as a high point in horror film-making.  This film is one of the best they did, and is Christopher Lee's favorite film he did.

     The Devil Rides Out is based on a novel by Dennis Wheatley, a famous author of occult thriller novels.  The movie is an adaptation of a book in the author's Duke de Richlau series.  The duke and his friend find out that the son of their deceased friend, whom they look after, is involved in the black arts.  He's joined a society run by a man called Macata, and they worship the Devil.  That night is supposed to be Simon's re-baptism to become a satan worshiper.  The plan gets foiled, and they must keep Simon and a girl who is also set to be re-baptized from being found and the baptism carried out. 

     It may not sound like much, and I'm sure today it would seem quaint and laughable.  But for 1968?   This was some serious stuff.  The older generation viewed the younger ones of the day with contempt and many were considered to be devil-worshipers.  (They were mostly just hippies or free-lovers.)  The author of the book was one who believed such things too.  I'm sure a lot of them did dabble in Satanism at the time, as LeVay Satanism was founded in 1966 and Charles Manson had his following at the same time.  In Hammer films of the late 60s, early 70s Satan worship was a big thing.  This one was the least silly.  I mean it's still pretty campy, but it's at least enthralling and scarcely laughable.  Charles Gray (who played the criminologist in Rocky Horror Picture Show) is quite menacing.  His glaring blue eyes are particularly menacing in the hypnotism scene. 

     The film would only be frightening to those that believe the devil has power over people, as goes with most of the horror films in that genre.  Horror is very subjective, and it's hard to tell how many people or who a particular film will scare.  I imagine that hard-boiled no nonsense atheists would find no horror films particularly frightening...  At least not those that deal with the supernatural, as they don't believe in it.  For a horror film to be effective, you have to believe somewhere inside of you.  It's easy for me.  Heck, I believe in the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.  Makes the world a more interesting place if you open your mind to possibilities however small.  For instance, this film has some pretty good special effects for the time.  There's a scene where our heroes stand in a circle drawn on the floor to protect themselves from the forces of darkness sent by Macata.  They see all of these illusions meant to draw them outside of the circle.  The water turns to sulpher, there's a giant spider, even the angel of death shows up on his winged horse!  It's a cool scene.

     Another cool scene is the Satanic orgy, which isn't as sexy as it sounds.  By orgy, I mean party, even if they do call it an orgy.  I suppose the sacrifices and blood make it an orgy.  Anyway, in this scene, the Goat of Mendes (Baphomet) shows up at the baptism.  The Goat of Mendes had started to be used as a symbol for the Church of Satan, but before that it was an idol used by the Knights Templar.  Here he's known as the Devil himself.  The scene is actually pretty creepy in an over-the-top way, and is the one part of this film that would go on to be one of the things from horror films to be used in my favorite band, Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast music video.

     There's an aura of mystery and menace to the film, which is why I really like it.  It was a challenging time to do an occult film in the 1960s, but in that same year, Rosemary's Baby came out as well.  For the next few years, the devil was the big villain in quite a few films ranging from The Exorcist to From The Devil A Daughter to The Omen.  

     I recommend almost any film in the Hammer horror canon.  They have a style to them that's hard to come by.  For modern audiences, I'd say the closest thing to that style would be Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, which had Hammer as a huge influence.  Dark woods, frightened townspeople, battles between religion and atheism, lots of cleavage and sex appeal..  All traits of Hammer horror.  Oh, and of course blood.  Lots of bright red blood.  I would particularly recommend this film, Curse of Frankenstein, Curse of The Werewolf, The Mummy, Rasputin The Mad Monk, Dracula Has Risen From The Grave and Captain Cronos.

    As I said, the film isn't really frightening anymore, but it's good fun.  You don't see satan as a scary evil in many horror films anymore.

15 Favorite Horror Films - #15

Poltergeist - 1982

     A poltergeist is an entity that causes havoc on a particular person or group of people.  Commonly thought to be angry or playful ghosts, they get attention through moving objects or loud noises.  Unlike regular ghosts, they can follow people.  Ghosts haunt a place.  Poltergeists haunt people.  There are some studies that suggest that the phenomena is actually unintended telekenesis done by people.  I think the former idea is more interesting.  

     Poltergeist has never truly scared me.  I'm a believer of ghosts, and stories and movies about them often prey on my mind.  Not this one.  This movie is pure fun.  It's a bit creepy in places, but in general it's more like Jaws or Jurassic Park.  Spielberg wanted to do what is called a "funhouse film".  That's a film that sort of simulates an amusement park funhouse.  Things pop out at you.  There are loud noises to make you jump.  Halloween is also a funhouse film.  Having Tobe Hooper direct this was a good choice as he'd just done his own funhouse film called aptly The Funhouse.  (And I recommend giving that one a watch too.)  The man knew how to make people jump, as did Spielberg.  It was a good match.  

     The story is simple.  In an upper-middle class subdivision in California there lives a normal everyday family.  There's the dad, who works for the subdivision selling houses and played by the coach himself, Craig T. Nelson.  The mom, who is a pot smoking housewife played by JoBeth Williams.  There's a teenage daughter, a son of about 10 or 11, and the youngest, Carol Ann who is 5.  Well, after Carol Ann is caught talking to the static screened TV, strange things start to happen.  Ultimately Carol Ann disappears though her voice can still be heard through the TV.  Spookier things start to happen as the film goes on.  

     The movie is a special effects extravaganza, which for the time was odd for a movie about ghosts.  Most of the prior films' versions of ghost special effects were balls dropping down steps or disembodied voices.  Here we see a friggin' tree try to swallow a kid, a woman being dragged across the wall and ceiling, a closet sucking a bed and children into it, a psychologist tear chunks of his face off, etc.  Yes, you read that last one right, and it's one of the most famous scenes in the film.  I like to think that it helped lead to the PG-13 rating, because it's pretty darn gruesome for a PG film even if the special effects are woefully dated now.  (It's still gross, as is the meat crawling with maggots before it.)

     I like to think that the film takes place just a few miles from where E.T. is taking place at the same time.  Both the neighborhoods look the same anyway.  Unlike most haunted house films, this one takes place in a newer suburban home, making the audience feel less at ease.  The TV and closets being conduits for the spirit world also no doubt made people uncomfortable, having many of those in their houses.  Being able to relate to things going on in a scare film is key to producing frights.  And I love the fact that the son, the middle child, is apparently a film geek, as he has a poster for Alien, lots of Star Wars stuff, and the like in his room.  In fact, he's a fraidy cat just as I was as a kid.  I definitely relate to him.  And he's very afraid of his clown doll, because who wouldn't be?!  Especially after what it does to him late in the film.  

     The acting from young Heather O'Rourke, who plays young Carol Anne, is amazing for someone so young.  No wonder they kept her for the next to films.  (Both of which I do like, though they do steadily decline in quality.)  The son (who can be seen in Airplane II as well from the same year) is also a pretty good actor, though not of the same quality.  Of course the grown ups play aging yuppies pretty well too.  Hiding their pot smoking from their kids, spoiling them horribly, and annoying their neighbor.  I must mention the other actor in the film.  The music, which is fantastic.  It's done by Jerry Goldsmith and was nominated for an Academy Award (the film was nominated for 3, winning none.).  The main theme is one of the most famous out there, and I'm surprised no band uses it for when the house lights come up at the end of a concert...  Anyway...

     Poltergeist is a film with a complex history to it.  It's now considered a semi-classic, and was a pretty big hit when it came out in the summer of 1982.  It came out only one week before the biggest hit of the year, Steven Spielberg's E.T. The Extraterrestrial.  Whereas that one was directed by Spielberg, this film, officially anyway, was only produced by Spielberg.  Poltergeist was directed by horror movie auteur Tobe Hooper, who had previously done The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Eaten Alive (which had a troubled production history and was his only flop at the time), the very effective TV movie Salem's Lot, and The Funhouse.  Spielberg had great respect for the director and chose him to do the film as he was working on E.T. at the time.  However, stories started to circulate very soon after the film came out that Spielberg was the real director of the picture.  Spielberg denies this, as do some of the cast and crew.  However, other members of the cast, including Zelda Rubenstein, have stated that all Tobe Hooper did was set up the shots.  She went on to say that she thought he was on drugs.  This could be true, as the reason Spielberg didn't direct the film was due to a clause in his contract saying he couldn't work on another film until E.T. came out.  Hiring Tobe Hooper could just have been a way around that.  And the film has the Spielberg feel to it as well, but not much of a Tobe Hooper one.  The way I think it went was that Tobe Hooper basically did all the technical work, but Spielberg did all the creative work.  And the movie turned out perfectly as a result.

     Another story about the movie is its supposed curse, which I think is just coincidence.  The girl that played Carol Ann in the movie and its two sequels ended up dying before the third film was was released, due to bowel obstruction that went misdiagnosed.  The man who played Kane in the second film died before that film was released as well.  Will Sampson, who played the medicine man in the second film, died shortly after that film was released.  And most famously Dominique Dunne, the older daughter in the first film, was killed by her ex-boyfriend a few months after that film was released.  The curse is stupid.  I actually like to think about curses and such because it makes life more interesting, but this one is bunk.

Poltergeist.  It knows what scares you!

Update On Things To Come

Coming Attractions

     I'm going to guess that many of you noticed that I have not made a blog post recently.  That's due to a few things.  I was busy, I'm watching through the 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1 as quickly as I can, I was sick for a week, I didn't know where I wanted to go on this blog, my numbers of viewers had dwindled dramatically...  Take your pick, they're all true.  However, starting tonight, I'm ready to write again!  I've got some new ideas that I'm excited about, which I'll talk about below.  However, I'd like to take this chance to thank all my readers, and those of you who have shared links to this blog especially.  I hope it continues to be of interest to you.  

     Seeing as my list of 30 films that effectively made me who I am today was quite popular, I will continue making lists of different types of favorite and important films.  Until the end of the year, this blog will continue to be only movie/TV based.  After 2014 starts, I intend to branch out more covering music, books, and theme parks.  There will be no politics here, as I intend to make a separate blog for that in the future.  Also, that subject tends to rile up some of my friends/family that don't believe as I do, and I'd like this blog to be free of all that nonsense.  So without further ado, here's some of the things coming by the end of the year.

Animated Disney Film Discussions:  I intend to talk about 3 or 4 Disney films in separate blog posts a  month until I run out of ones to talk about.  I love Disney films as I grew up with them, I still very much enjoy and collect them, and I know many others do as well.  These posts will discuss the making of the films, the songs (where applicable), the animation styles, what I do or do not like about them, and where they fit in to the Disney catalog.  

Top 15 Horror Films:  This one starts tonight and goes until the end of the month with no days off.  Some of them will no doubt be repeated from my prior top 30 list, but I will try to find new things to say about those.  

Top 20 Musical Films:  This one starts in November and will be a list of my favorite musical films.  Animated Disney features, plays filmed for video release, and music video collections like Moonwalker will not be included.  The films must have a story and be musicals preformed for theater/TV audiences.

Top 15 Holiday Films:  By holiday, I mean ones set near Christmas.  This list will of course be done in December leading up to Christmas.

Criterion Blu-Ray Reviews:  These will be done unscheduled.  They will talk about both the Criterion Collection blu-ray releases themselves, and about the film itself.  I tried to do one of these back in August, but was unsatisfied with the result.  This will be done in a different format probably than that one.

Movie Reviews:  These will simply be reviews of films that I see in theaters.  So look forward to reviews of Thor, The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, Saving Mr. Banks, Jack Ryan, etc.

And of course, I will finish reviewing the films in the Friday the 13th series.  It's not getting many views, but I like to finish what I've started, and I'm having fun with them.  And that's what matters.

Hope you will enjoy these coming attractions, and will give them a 'like' on Facebook if you like what you see.

Many Days of Friday the 13th - Part V

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985)

     Here's where it begins.  Or it is when you ask most fans of the series.  I agree with them.  This film started the gradual death of the Friday the 13th franchise.  The Final Chapter, which was the film before this one, decided to kill off Jason once and for all.  That was going to be the end of the series, no more, bye-bye, gone!  Oh, the movie made a good amount of money?  Well, when we said 'the end', we didn't mean the end!  I mean, obviously people still want more of these!

    Yes friends, the series would go on.  (And on, and on, and on!)  But they killed Jason...  But fans will surely cry foul if we don't give him to them...  Hmm...  I know!  Let's make the story about the boy that killed Jason!  I mean, it was obvious at the end of the last film that he'd become mentally disturbed!  I mean, he stared straight into camera while hugging his sister!  Who does that?

     And that's just what the studio decided.  The new movie would center on Tommy Jarvis, the kid played by Corey Feldman in the last film.  The movie is set years after the last film.  Tommy is now about 17 or 18 years old, having been shifted from the mental institution to a new group home for disturbed teens.  He still has bad dreams about Jason, and he's obviously got issues.  He doesn't talk much and is awkward around other people.  Well, just after he arrives at the new group home, one of the teens murders another (very annoying) teen.  Then murders start happening in the surrounding area.  Tommy is one of the main suspects.  Is it Tommy, a copycat, or is Jason really back?

    Well, the answer is a bit convoluted and, I can't hide the fact, stupid.  Little spoiler here, but everyone knows it by now.  Jason isn't the killer here.  Hell, even the hockey mask isn't the same.  The red marks of the original mask are replaced by two blue ones.  That should be a hint to anybody.  The red marked mask does show up in some of Tommy's hallucinations, however.  Oddly enough, though the killer is an otherwise ordinary human being, he seemingly still has superhuman strength, which I will just put down to the fact that Paramount wanted a new Jason without it really being Jason, and Jason has to have great strength and cunning.  Yeah, whatever Paramount.

     

     So that's the trailer for this odd little movie.   They made sure people knew that Corey Feldman was in the film, as he was well liked by now having been in the last film and in Gremlins the year before.  Well, he's in about two minutes of the beginning of the film.  He was making The Goonies at the time of filming and could only spare a Sunday, which was his day off from the other film.  So they shot some shots of him in his back yard.  After that, you don't see Feldman in the series again.  They also set the film up as some sort of mystery, which seems fun, but it's a let-down when you find out who it is.  It's the proverbial Scooby-Doo ending!  

     What the trailer doesn't show you is how friggin' odd and downright sleazy the movie feels.  And this is the only movie in the series I would call sleazy.  There's the first use of cocaine in the series, a lot of dark morbid humor, a hardcore sex scene that was very much cut by the studio but is still sleazy as hell, and someone even dies on the crapper.  Oh, and the director?  He was known for one thing.  He was a porn director!   That's right, Paramount decided they needed a director of porn for the new film.  This makes a certain sense, as slasher films were seen as just above porn by most critics and audiences.  I suppose in a way they have a point, but as many people secretly watch a lot of porn, so do people like to watch idiots being hacked away by numerous sharp objects!

     Speaking of deaths, this one has a body count of 21!  That's the most until Jason Goes To Hell.  The disappointing part about that?  There's very little blood and gore to these deaths.  Part V was one of the most censored films in the series.  It was censored so much that besides some reaction close-ups of victims' faces or shots of the initial impalement or whatever, everything was cut.  The director to this day dislikes the film due to the MPAA cuts.  Sadly, these cuts are lost for good apparently.  There are a few shots of some interesting post-death gore, such as the result of a few chops with an axe (not done by not-Jason), and a shot of a girl who had gardening shears put through each eye, then closed.  (That was a cool death, by the way.  Too bad they didn't actually show it happening.) 

     Oddly enough, the acting isn't all that bad.  The teens are all cliches to be sure, but they aren't horrid actors.  Now I'm not saying they are good ones either, just acceptable.  In fact, one of the best actors in the film is the one that plays Tommy Jarvis.  After this film he became a hardcore Christian and went to seminary, but here he's quite good as a mental patient trying to move past his traumatic experiences.  The only really bad acting here is by some characters that should never have been put into the screenplay in the first place.  The redneck mother and son that live next door to the youth home.  My God are they annoying!  Here's just an example, but at least you can delight in their deaths.

Besides that, the movie is just another slasher film.  It's not set at Crystal Lake for the first time in the series, but that makes no difference as Jason isn't the killer here.  Now a few fans of the series consider this one the last film in the series that has the feel of the first few films.  After this, the series went downhill and became something else.  Well, I have to agree that this is the last film with the feel of the Friday series up to this point, but I think the next installment was better than this one, and most agree with me on that one I think.  A New Beginning gets a bad rep, just like Halloween III for not having the series' main villain as the baddy.  However, this film is not the huge piece of trash some would have you think.  It's certainly not great, but the series would go much lower in just a few years.  I'd say it's a definitely low on the list of ones I'd recommend in the series, but you can do worse.  I mean, at least you get to see some odd interpretive dance moves in this one!

     Also in this film is another case of a child in danger.  Again, he's a smart quick thinking boy.  He screams like a girl and wears a red track suit, but hey, token black guy!

Yep, I went there!

Many Days of Friday the 13th - IV: The Final Chapter

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

     So here we are...  The film that was originally supposed to kill of Jason for good.  This was going to be the last movie in the series.  That's it.  Paramount hated the ill-will from parents' groups and critics that went along with the series, and really, how many movies can you make about a guy who goes around killing teenagers?  The answer?  A lot more than four.

     This film takes place right after the ending of the 3rd film.  The CSI team finishes up their investigation, and Jason's body is taken to the morgue.  Of course, Jason isn't there long.  He escapes the morgue and goes back to his old stomping grounds of Crystal Lake to terrorize more people.  Now, I have one big issue with this movie.  This movie isn't just teenagers getting killed.  Sure, there's teens renting a house to have a party, but there's also a family next door to that house.  A mother, a teen daughter, and a pubescent son.  My issue is that there's been about 20 people killed around the lake in the past few days, and NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT IT OR SEEMS TO CARE!!!  Are these people insane?  Has the story been covered up?  How?!  But I digress.  This film has two rather well known actors in it.  There's Crispin Glover, who would star in Back to the Future right after this, as a shy nerdy teen at the party house.  There's also Corey Feldman, who would star in The Goonies after this, as the little boy next door.  Those two do give some weight to the film, as they are both pretty good actors.  In fact, out of the first four films, this one may have the best acting out of them.  The dog is pretty good too.

     The film also is memorable for the return of makeup effects master Tom Savini, who did the work on the first film.  By this time, he'd become pretty famous for his makeup effects, so I'm surprised he accepted the job.  He says that it was the chance to kill his creation that made him come back.  That it made him sort of a Doctor Frankenstein in some way.  I dunno.  I think he just enjoyed the first film and wanted more money, myself.  In a nod to the series title, this is also the first of the movies to have exactly 13 kills in it, if I remember correctly.  Speaking of the kills, they actually aren't too inventive for the most part in this one.  Jason has his usual assortment of hatchets, machetes, and his hands.  I will commend the film-makers for two very good deaths.  There's one where a guy has a harpoon shoved into his crotch, is lifted up by it, and Jason then fires the harpoon into him.  It's probably one of the more painful deaths in the series, and I don't think it even has any blood in that scene.  It's carried merely by the guy's screams.  The other really noticable death is one that involves a corkscrew through the hand and then a meat cleaver to the face.  Again, the corkscrew just seems really painful to me.  Jason's death is pretty great too.  One of Tom Savini's best effects.  (And that's not a spoiler.  The ad campaign sold this movie on Jason's death.)  It also includes a nice head shattering against a shower wall.

     So what are the film's negatives?  For one, the music.  For the first time in the series, I feel that Harry Manfredini was simply going through the motions.  The music just plain sucks.  The lead girl in the film is probably the worst lead of the first four films acting-wise.  She does scared very well, but other than that, she's not that great.  Still, the other actors are much better.  Those are really the only negatives I can think of besides the plot hole I mentioned at the beginning.

     This installment also has the most brutal Jason of the first four films.  The actor they got is imposing, he seems full of meanness instead of a playful sicko like the one in part 3, and the makeup they used for when his mask comes off is really great.  Another thing people watch this film for is Crispin Glover's crazy dance moves.  Apparently this is how he danced in clubs at the time, too!

     Yeah...  Crispin Glover is pretty crazy.

    Anyway, so when the film was released, critics of course, again, hated it.  Especially Siskel and Ebert.

      Yet again, those guys attempt to be moral critics.  I'm glad that Ebert ended up growing out of that a bit.  However, as I've stated before, this moral panic was big at the time, so everyone was saying this stuff.  It was a bit like the torture porn pushback against Hostel and Saw back in the mid-2000s, only amplified.  Apparently critics had not known about Grand Guignol.  This sort of stuff has been put up as entertainment since the late 1800s!  

      The film was released on April 13, 1984.  For the first time, it had been over a year since the last film.  It has gone on to be near or at the top of most peoples' polls of individual films of the series.  In fact, it's usually at the top of most.  I would definitely put it in the top 5.  Besides part 2, it's probably the one I watch the most.  I'd say it's probably 3rd or 4th best.  The film went on to make more money than any other horror film, including Nightmare on Elm Street, released in 1984.  It earned around $32 million, which to date makes it the 5th highest grossing in the series.  Unlike Part 3, I can recommend this to any slasher fan.  It's quite fun. 

Many Days of Friday the 13th - Part III

Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982)

     For those wondering, yes, that is one of the two real poster designs for this film.  You rarely see this one for some reason, though I kind of like it.  It makes Jason look like he's on steroids, which could be a very good reason he seems so superhuman.  Or maybe Mrs. Vorhees was subject to secret German medical tests during WWII, but that doesn't matter right now.  Let's talk about Friday the 13th Part III.  Let's start with what is the most awesomely horrible version of the theme song.  (It should be heard in discos across the nations.  I love it so much I have it on my mp3 player!)

     Wasn't that just beautiful?!  Now, if you're wondering why the titles are filmed like that...  Okay, none of you are really wondering that, as everyone knows this was originally released in 3-D.  In the early 80s, there was a brief resurgence of popularity in 3-D films.  There was Jaws 3-D, Amityville 3-D...  And that actually may be all the horror ones, because the craze lasted about a year and a half.  It was a horrible idea in hind-sight, especially with home video, which could not replicate the effect at the time, coming into popularity.  Also note that none of the films in the craze got good reviews.  Out of the three I named, I think this one actually did the best, and critics hated the series so...  Anyway, back then, 3-D was showed off by having things conspicuously come out of the screen towards the audience to showcase the effect.  Broom handles, ping pong paddles, hands, that sort of thing.  Of course in this film, it's more like harpoons, eyeballs, machetes, a striking snake.  So I would bet it would have been pretty exciting.  Sadly, even on the new blu-rays, they don't use modern 3-D technology to show this.  No, you're stuck with the red-blue polarized glasses and a picture on the DVD that's less than stellar due to how that type of 3-D is done.  It's not great.

     Neither is the film, for that matter, especially when compared to the last two films.  It's hard to explain why, as it had the same crew and same director as the great second film had.  I think I know one reason though.  After the many times they had to re-submit new cuts of the film to the MPAA on part 2, the director Steve Miner, decided to tamp things down before they sent the film in.  And indeed, apparently they had to only send this one in once or twice before they got an R rating.  There's also a noticeable downturn in the quality of the acting on this one.  Everyone seems to be a bit more over the top, and a few characters are intensely annoying.

     The plot of this one is a bit different from the last two.  This time there's no new camp.  This time it's just friends hanging out by the lake for a while.  Now, one of the girls is a bit apprehensive about this, as she was almost molested by a deranged guy a few years back in those same woods.  Also, this film takes place right after Part 2 did.  It's just on another part of the lake.  In the beginning of the film, a couple is watching the news about what happened in the last installment.  So really, this is Saturday the 14th.

     Now, this is the film where Jason finally gets his mask, which has stayed with him through all of the sequels.  However, that wasn't what was meant to happen.  This was actually supposed to end the series, and the hockey mask was only chosen because when they were doing a lighting check, the only mask they had available was a hockey one.  They liked the look so well, they went with it.  So there you go; serendipity.   And once again, the series doesn't take itself too seriously.  This is one of the funnier entries as well.

     Seriously, I have to say, the movie just isn't that memorable other than for the hilariously bad theme music, the bad compositions due to it originally being in 3-D, and it being the first film with the mask.  I watched it for the 5th time in my life just a few days ago and honestly can't remember much about it.  I remember that the character of Shelly annoyed me so badly that I was happy with his death (he's the reason Jason got the hockey mask), I remember a guy's skull getting crushed so that his eye pops out towards the camera (and that you can see the rod it's on), and I remember the last 5 minutes being pretty good.  However, the last 5-15 minutes of any Friday film is usually pretty good.  It's the part of the movie where the last one standing finds all the dead bodies of their friends strung up all over the place while the killer chases them.  It's fun!  Out of the original run of films, which I count as 1-4, this one is the worst.  Still, there's much worse to come later.

     So the film went on to make a better profit than the second film did. (About $15 million more, actually.)  However, this was on top of a budget $1 million more than the second film, mostly due to the 3-D cameras, so it actually made more along the lines of $13.5 million more.  I will guess that a lot of it is just due to people wanting to see a slasher film in 3-D, which I can't blame them for.  It's probably one of the best genres for 3-D if you do it right, and they DID do it right for this type of film.  The technology just sucked.  However, Paramount still wanted to kill the series... Just one more film... Then we're really going to kill him... Really.  We'll even call it The Final Chapter!  Stay tuned for that story.

     

Many Days of Friday the 13th - Part II

Friday the 13th - Part II (1981)

     This installment tends to be overlooked by many fans of the series.  That's a crying shame, because it's one of the better ones, and is, in fact, my favorite of the series.  I think the reason it's overlooked is because Jason doesn't have his hockey mask yet.  He also doesn't dress the way he does in later installments.  No, in this one he's farmer bob with a bulap sack over his head!  I'm talkin' suspenders and flannel!  Another reason it's not as popular is because of the cuts the MPAA forced on the film after the outcry over the first film by people like Siskel & Ebert.  But let's talk about the story.  For those that don't remember, here's how the first movie ended.

    Which leads to a pretty bad inconsistency.  Jason died in the 50s, but in that scene in 1980, he's still like 12 years old.  Now, granted it was shot as a "it could have been a dream" ending, but Jason's in part 2.  My theory is that it was a dream due to the woman's horrible night, but that Jason was in the area, fully grown.  Still, it's just a sequel, and making sense of the last movie is the least of this one's problems.  The plot here is that another guy wants to open a camp.  This time it's across the lake from where Camp Crystal Lake was.  Surely that'll leave enough room, right?  Also, it's 5 years later.  Once again, new camp councilors come, and once again they die one by one.  Womp, womp, womp, wwwooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmpppppppp!

          In case you didn't notice, the trailer here is done exactly like the first movie.  Just showing off that this is a continuation of the first film with the body count rising.  In fact, the film's tagline was "The body count continues..."  I think that's one of the best taglines out there for a slasher film.  It knows what it is, and it has no qualms about it.  It doesn't try to be more or less than it is advertising.

     The film still has the low budget feel of the first movie, though the film had over twice the budget, coming in at 1.25 million dollars.  The pacing is a whole lot better.  The movie is only 87 minutes long, and about 10 of that is a recap of the first film, leaving only a bit over an hour to tell it's story.  For a slasher film with not much story like this one, 75-90 minutes is just about right.  The film is better directed.  Sean Cunningham moved on to other things after the first film, and this film was shot by Steve Miner, who was the Production Manager for the first film.  He's a much more capable director, and would go on after this to shoot Part 3, Forever Young, House (1986), Halloween H20, and Lake Placid.  The killer is more convincing.  The first film's killer was kind of laughable, due to overacting and the fact that a person of that build be easily overcome by a teenager.  Also the kills are more interesting. Those are all great qualities.  But how about the bad?

     Well, as I stated, the MPAA demanded a lot of cuts to the gore in this one.  The shot above is from the back of the VHS case, but is not in the film.  That shot was cut due to the MPAA.  The death is still there, but the money shot as it were, was not there.  You simply see the girl noticing Jason, Jason raise the pole and start to bring it down, then an under the bed shot of the pole coming through the mattress.  (Oh, and just as an aside, this death and one other were taken from Mario Bava's Bay of Blood.  They are tributes if you will.)    The film doesn't have a lot of blood in it due to the cuts, but it's nowhere near as bloodless or tame as the late 80s Friday films would become.  I also do not like the first 10 minutes of the film being a recap of the first movie.  However, this was before video cassettes were widely available, so I can understand it.  When this came out, it had been a year since the first film, and I'm sure some had not seen it before going to see this one.  Today we can just pop in the older film and watch it first.  Not so back then.  Also, the plot here is pretty non-existent.  It's a retread of the first film in many ways.  Still, the characters are a bit more likeable and better looking.  The acting is still not great, but serviceable.  Those are about the only negatives I can think of.

     So why is this my favorite?  Well, for one thing, the burlap sack is awesome!  Jason's whole outfit including the sack is stolen from a 1970s horror film called The Town That Dreaded Sundown. It seems more like what a deformed guy would find to put on his head.  It makes more sense than a hockey mask, as it covers the whole head.  Makes him look more mysterious too.  I also like how Jason makes mistakes here.  There's one scene where he's about to impale a girl while he's standing on a chair.  He's about to make the plunge, and one of the legs breaks.  He has to run to catch up with his victims too.  All of this goes along with the story that he may have been a bit mentally disabled as a child, as was alluded to in the first film.  After this film, Jason gets real smart and becomes more and more invincible each film.  Here he can get hurt, he falls down...  He's human.  I also think the last 20-30 minutes are the best in the series.  It's suspenseful, which is surprising coming from a Friday film.  Most of these just don't try for that.  There's one shot in particular that I love.  Ginny is being chased by Jason, and finds his shed.  She runs in and closes the door.  The door has a window in it, and we see Jason running at the door while Ginny's back is turn and she sees him coming just in time to start running again.  It's probably the most suspenseful scene in the series, and is just great.  During the whole chase, Jason is just within arm's reach of her, which makes things more terrifying.  Also, the characters in this film are a bit more likeable than in the first film.  There's a sweet guy in a wheelchair (and he gets one of the best deaths in the series) who reminds me of Jason Ritter's character in Joan of Arcadia. (And oddly enough, he was in Freddy Vs. Jason.)  The lead girl is a bit less of a goody goody than the one in the first film, and in this guy's opinion, she's prettier too.  

     Just because Jason doesn't wear his hockey mask yet is no reason to skip this one.  It's probably the best put-together in the series, even with the jump cuts and logiclessness caused by the MPAA cuts.  There's more nudity, more deaths....  What's not to like?  Oh, the less gore?  Psh.  Get over it.  It's not like they cut all the blood out like they did for later installments. 

Discussion on part III will come on Sunday!