Newb Views the 80s #3: Friday the 13th 3 (1982)

a.k.a. "Saturday the 14th"

Directed by Steve Miner

*Full disclosure: I'm not sure what I did with my glasses, so I watched the 2D version.*

Even though Part 2 did well, the massive influx of Friday clones meant that if the series were to have any kind of life moving forward, it would have to find a way to stand out. Enter the big idea: the return of 3D. Paramount would take another gamble with the Friday franchise, this time by bringing back the 3D gimmick, and actually paying money to utilize a never-before-used method of creating the 3D illusion, which also meant spending the money to install projectors in every theatre the film played in to make them capable of playing the movie. Paramount truly believed that this movie would bring about a new 3D revolution with their studio at the forefront. It...did not work out that way. Not because of anything involving the movie itself, since the Friday name and the 3D gimmick were enough to ensure profitability despite the increased cost, but because several lawsuits which were filed in the wake of Paramount attempting to force everyone to use their process and projectors if they wanted some of that sweet three-dimensional cash.

As for the movie itself, it's mostly a bunch of stuff that happens with little connection, rhyme, reason, and of course no continuity with the previous movies, as the geography of Crystal Lake and the surrounding area changes again, this time to accommodate Higgins' Haven, a retreat that is who knows how far from the scenes from the first two movies, and sans any kind of police presence, given that Jason is still on the loose after his rampage in part 2 and the killing of the couple in the opening of this one. There's even a replacement for Crazy Ralph the prophet of doom, clutching an eyeball he apparently lifted off one of Jason's victims. 

Example of the lack of continuity: Chris finds Shelley (who somehow has a ton of stuff packed into a tiny little box) hiding in the back of the van. She asks him why he's not swimming with everyone else. The very next scene she is showing the decidedly not-swimming Debbie & Andy their room. A couple scenes later, Shelley fakes his death and everyone there crowds around, with no one showing signs of having been anywhere near water. 

Speaking of Shelley, I fucking hate that guy. He's an annoying little asshole and his constant moping and general personality ruin any scene that he's in. Fuck him.

The bulk of the movie is pure Friday formula, with a group of people I don't think would ever really hang out with each other, the world's least intimidating motorcycle gang, and objects being unnaturally pointed at the camera to show off the 3D. It's easily the worst of the lot so far, with the only positives being very basic "set something up and pay it off later" moments, namely the gang siphoning the gas from the group's van, which keeps Chris from escaping later. I did also like Ali's brave fight against Jason in the final stretch, even if by all rights he should be dead, and excited, mask-less Jason is easily one of the scariest moments in the entire series.

Jason Voorhees, or Kurt Angle after a cage match?

On the flip side, the idea, and execution of Chris' past history with Jason is terrible on all levels. What we know about Jason doesn't jive with this piece of exposition, them having no idea how to logically end the story other than "I passed out and woke up later in my own bed" is equal to "they never found the body" as weakest horror plot cliches, and to top it all of, Dana Kimmel's telling of (and Paul Kratka's reactions to) the story are so stilted and awkward, it makes sure the only thing the scenes are good for is great MST3K-style riff material. If the movie had any kind of momentum, this whole deal would have killed it dead. Since it  doesn't, those scenes just make it worse.

There is really only one creative kill in the whole movie, that being the eyeball pop. The false scares are of the laziest variety as well. In one scene Chuck & Chili try to scare what they think is Shelley, but he's not there, and we see Jason watching them as they leave. The very next scene is a false scare with Shelley messing with Vera as she sits on a dock. Harry Manfredini even pulls out the OH SHIT SOMETHING BAD IS GOING DOWN strings, which makes the scene much worse considering we know from the very beginning that it can't be Jason. Watching this movie closely is really opening my eyes to just how terrible it is, and I'm not even getting into the racism in the scene in the store where the bitchy clerk assumes Vera only has food stamps, which the store does not accept...and she turns out to be right, as Vera has to turn and ask Shelley for money. *sigh*

This movie also has moments where it gets ridiculously lazy, relying on self-reference rather than adding anything new, namely Deb's death being a carbon copy of Kevin Bacon's, and the ending, which is a dream sequence featuring a Voorhees family member popping out of the water.

I don't know if it's me getting older and my tastes/expectations changing, me paying more attention, or both, but I used to like this movie, but watching it for this project and now I see for the first time that it blows. HARD.

3/4* For years I used to hand waive people bad mouthing these movies as people either not liking the genre or simply repeating what they had heard or read from others, but now I'm starting to believe that I was wrong the whole time. So very wrong.

Newb Views the 80s #2: Friday the 13th Part II (1981)

Well, it delivers what it promises.

Directed By: Steve Miner

After the surprise success of Friday the 13th, a sequel was fast-tracked into production to be released the following year. The question was, since Jason Voorhees was only meant to be a "chair jumper" gag at the end of the first movie, what would a Part II be about? The first thought was to keep the Friday the 13th name, but have each sequel be a separate story with only a loose connection to the others, if any. Enter Georgetown Productions President and holder of the money Phil Scuderi who insisted that, despite it making zero logical sense, Jason Voorhees himself become the focus of the next film. Sean Cunningham had no interest in returning to Crystal Lake behind the director's chair, opting to produce instead, so the duties were handed off to Miner, who had acted as Associate Producer & Unit Production Manager on the original, and who was so desperate to direct a film he thought to himself "Yeah, I'll do Friday the 13th Part II!".

In the hands of anyone who actually gave a shit about continuity, there would be some thought put into how to logically make Jason, who had supposedly drowned as a boy, the killer. These guys simply threw their hands in the air and said "fuck it", starting with a prologue that perfectly encapsulates just how ridiculous the premise is. Alice Hardy, the lone survivor of the massacre at Camp Crystal Lake, is tracked all the way to California (where she mentioned being from early in the original), and murdered by Jason. How he figured out where she lived and made it all the way across the country, while toting his mother's severed head is not explored, That could have made a much more interesting movie in of itself. What makes the prologue worse is that it's not needed in the slightest. It has no connection with the rest of the movie, and since they made a slight effort even after saying with that opening that *SPOILER ALERT* Jason is the killer, to make this a suspense thriller in the vein of the original (Miner and others have gone on record stating that this was made as a carbon copy of the original on purpose, a la The Hangover Part II), the movie could have been more effective, even with them being married to the Jason idea, of having him be revealed at the end, or they could have had time for common sense to set in, and change the identity of the killer. But hey, making Jason the killer spawned, to date, ten more movies and a healthy profit for the producers, so who am I to argue?

On the plus side, he did take the teapot off the burner.

What follows is a glossier version of the original, only this time the main action takes place with a group of camp counselors at a training center, at a site adjacent to the off-limits Camp Crystal Lake. There are some things I like here, namely Paul's campfire story about the legend of Jason and Scott's increasingly desperate attempts to hook up with Terry. There's also decent chemistry between Amy Steele's Ginny and Richard Feury's Paul, and the jump cut from the dog Muffin running into Jason, to a shot of hot dogs cooking on a grill. 

Aside from those positives, there's not much to sink my teeth into. There are a couple decent kills, including the fan-favorite "shish kabob", and the poor paralyzed guy getting a machete to the face and falling backward down some steps, before the screen freezes and goes white for no particular reason. Jason's movements make no sense, and he is simply placed wherever he needs to be for that particular scene with no rhyme or reason to his actions. A few cast members are only in one scene, that being Paul asking who wants to go out for a night on the town. These people do not appear to be in any of the scenes taking place the first day, and are not seen again later, having not stayed out all night, but apparently not gone back to the camp either. The only one who is shown to have stayed out is Ted, the resident jokester, who defies genre convention by surviving the movie. That he had to vanish for the last act is immaterial. He made it!

Pictured: The luckiest bastard in "Friday the 13th" series history.

Oh! Another scene I do like in this movie: Ginny giving exposition and trying to bring some logic to the idea of Jason being the killer, and Paul's immediate reaction is to literally call "bullshit". I don't like her getting mad when Paul (and Ted) react like normal people, especially since she herself at this point in the movie has no real reason to think Jason is actually alive.

Watching this again, I'm more than a bit surprised that this movie led to anything after it. It's very paint-by-numbers with nothing particularly notable about it, since the gory, SFX-laden slasher movie had already started taking over the landscape, so gore hounds weren't nearly as limited in options as they were the previous year, and while there were a couple decent ideas, I can't imagine that there's anything here that made it stand above it's contemporaries, aside from the Friday the 13th title. On the other hand, people can get attached to brand names, and this did open at #1, making another nice return on investment for Paramount. The producers would be smart enough to realize that a Part III would need something to set it apart, but that's for the next review.

There has been some speculation that Paul disappears for the final stretch because John Feury had a dispute with Steve Miner. This is NOT the case, as the original ending had Ginny asking for Paul like she does in the final ending, but then the scene cuts to a shot of Mrs. Voorhees' head, and she smiles, supposedly indicating that Jason has killed Paul. This was deemed too fucking stupid even for a Friday the 13th and jettisoned, so we were left with no resolution for the Paul character.

Rating: *3/4 Some ok ideas keep the movie afloat, but the general goofiness of the premise along with the movie itself not really bringing anything to the table weigh it down considerably. Not the worst movie I've ever seen, but you could skip over this one and not miss much.

Newb Views the 80s #1: Friday the 13th

Instead of waiting for the DVDVR "Best of the 80s" re-visit tio officially begin, I've decided to start my viewing on my own and turn it into it'as own little project. Since I'm a total whore for slasher franchises, I figured that would be a good place to start...

Directed By: Sean S. Cunningham

"Halloween is making a ton of money. Let's rip it off."

Those words from Cunningham to screenwriter Victor Miller was the less-than-stellar beginning to the film that would kick off the 1980's slasher explosion in earnest, and begin a journey for a franchise that is set to have yet another installment an astonishing 35 years after it's first. Meant only to make a small amount of money for it's creators while they figured out what to do next, it ended up being the only notable thing most of the people involved ever did, with the glaring exception of one Kevin Bacon.

As I'm sure you know, this one attempts to be a suspense-thriller instead of a straight-ahead slasher movie like the sequels ended up being. While it has its moments, there's not enough attention to detail to keep everything logical. Example: in an early scene Alice asks Bill whether he needs more paint. The camera movement and the presence of music (which was supposed to only be used when the killer is present) suggests that *OMG SPOILER ALERT* Mrs. Voorhees is there, hiding behind a tree. Only there are two big problems with that: 1.) Alice walks right past where she would have been standing, and could not have missed her location and 2.) moments later Mrs. Voorhees is on the road in her van so she can kill Annie. Logical errors like this plague the movie, and would sadly be commonplace throughout the series. The movie also makes no attempt to play fair with it's mystery, after throwing a few red herrings (namely "Crazy Ralph"), Mrs. Voorhees simply pops up at the end, with all but a "KILLER" sign hanging around her neck.

Who would EVER suspect this sweet old lady?

Speaking of the Annie kill, that and the ending perfectly illustrate that, despite Halloween being the impetus behind the movie being made, then bigger influence on Miller as he wrote the screenplay was clearly Psycho, with the "potential heroine die early" kill and the Mrs. Voorhees/Jason relationship being the direct inverse of the Norman/Norma relationship in Psycho. 

This movie was made with almost no money, so the cast is the usual kind you get in that situation: inexperienced and largely untalented, chosen mostly for their looks and real personalities that can be translated onto the screen the easiest. The direction is flat with zero sense of style, which is no surprise at all given Cunningham's lack of both artistic ambition (he has been open with his feelings of movies being simply a business proposition and having no artistic sensibilities) and talent. It's no coincidence that despite the success of this movie, he never had any other successes as a director, and this movie aside, the only success he ever had as a producer was working with better directors, whether it be Wes Craven or the much-less-heralded Steve Miner.

The only person besides Bacon that had much of a career either before or after this is Vietnam War photographer turned special effects wizard Tom Savini, whose creations more-than-likely saved this from being stuck in a film canister in Sean Cunningham's basement.

What I personally find more interesting than anything involving the movie, is how it made an impact on the cultural landscape, and what impact it made. Really, the biggest innovation that came from Friday the 13th was not the movie itself, but Paramount's marketing of it. This was the first time a low-budget, no stars movie of its type was treated as a huge studio release, a gamble that paid off when the movie opened and removed The Empire Strikes Back from the #1 spot. This move by the studio, independent of anything involving the movie itself, is what I would argue to be the biggest cultural impact from it. Paramount striking it big with the blitz they gave this movie convinced filmmakers and the people that gave them money that all you needed to make a profitable hit were young, attractive actors, a spooky setting, and good special effects. There were an assload of movies made immediately following the release of Friday the 13th that aimed to copy it's formula, but from what I can tell, most of those movies misread what little Friday was actually trying to say.

Somehow, despite Michael Myers & Pamela Voorhees quite obviously representing sexual repression, the formula became "sex equals death", without any thought as to why that was. Future slasher movies, and they still do this, give audiences supposed "reasons" that characters "have" to die because of the conventions of the genre, and discussion about victims in these kinds  of movies almost always includes the macabre idea that actions taken by characters in movies that would result in minor or no consequences in real life are somehow enough to make their gruesome deaths somewhat justified. If you think about it, did Kevin Bacon REALLY deserve to get an arrow through his neck, simply because he smoked a joint and banged his girlfriend?

By slasher movie "rules", this is a justifiable homicide.

Slasher movies almost always include characters that are obnoxious, dumb, or straight-up assholes in an attempt to get the audience to root for the killer. Why? Probably because it's a lot easier to follow the Sean Cunningham "roller coaster ride" theory of horror, than make a movie that is actually scary and stays with you longer than two minutes after you leave the theatre. Much like wrestling promotions will debut more characters as heels than babyfaces, because it is much more difficult to make audiences react positively to a character than negatively. A "good guy" has to strike a very precarious balance to keep the audience with them, as one fatal flaw, intentional or not, can cause the audience to turn against them. This is probably way most slasher movies are stocked with milquetoast, throwaway victims that are only introduced to be dispatched later and up the body count, rather than fleshed-out characters.Also, hack filmmakers in any genre will unthinkingly stick to the established formula, rather than try to do anything new.

As for the oft-heralded gore, I'm sure this movie's reputation amongst the generations that came after it's release (basically anyone born in the 90s or later) has suffered because of the graphic nature of what came after Friday opened the floodgates, or if you showed someone my age (30) who has heard about, but has never seen this movie before, but has seen episodes of CSI, The Walking Dead, or Hannibal, they would probably turn to you and ask "that's it?".  *Insert Bart Simpson quote here.* What this movie offered during its time does not hold up at all, while it's betters, which offered much more in terms of story, character, style, and atmosphere, still do (I'm thinking of Psycho, Halloween, & A Nightmare on Elm Street here). That, sadly, is the one lesson that horror filmmakers should have learned, but in most cases did not.

Friday the 13th, much like the first WrestleMania, is memorable not for anything it offers on its own, but for setting the table for what came after. That's something, at least.

RATING: **1/2 out of 5.