Newb Views the 80s #9: Halloween II (1981)

Directed By: Rick Rosenthal

Picking up directly where it's groundbreaking predecessor left off, Halloween II is unique and one of my favorite genre sequels because we actually get to see people not directly involved reacting to the events that had unfolded in the previous movie. While the film has Jamie Lee Curtis in "scream queen" mode and Donald Pleasance holding everything together as the true heart of the franchise (even with JLC still involved), the town of Haddonfield itself becomes a character here, as people tell bullshit stories, stone the childhood home of the hated killer, and we get to see newscasts of the story we are watching still unfold. For the citizens of Haddonfield that survive Halloween night 1978, it was surely the most interesting night of their lives. At least until the late 1980s.

What ends up hampering this movie the most is John Carpenter letting outside influences change the Halloween motif. Rosenthal's original cut was similar to the original in its lack of gore, but Carpenter, sensing pressure after Friday the 13th hit to conform to its formula, personally went back and shot more "gore footage" to appeal to that crowd. Also, one thing that set back not only this movie, it's sequels (aside from III), and even retroactively the original, is the success of The Empire Strikes Back and its surprise twist at the end. While working on the screenplay, a drunken Carpenter decided to copy that surprise twist and make poor Laurie Strode the sister of Michael Myers, which not only doesn't make sense (so where was she when he killed Judith?), but now makes Michael a supernatural DNA sniffer, a trait that takes some of the inexplicable nature of The Shape away, since in the original, Laurie is simply a girl he sees through a window and decides to make his main target.

A scene I really don't like is Michael killing some random girl very early on. Michael, even in the sequels, was shown as killing people to prevent them from possibly helping his main target when he decided to go after her. She has zero to do with Laurie, and thus this is Michael killing for the sake of killing, which lessens him. 

Fortunately, what follows is a great chain of scenes, as a drunken kid (later revealed to be Laurie's crush Ben Tramer) is mistaken as being Michael by Loomis and Sheriff Brackett, and as Loomis frantically orders for him to stop, Tramer wanders in front of a speeding police car. It...doesn't go well for him. Not only does this scene provide a classic case of Hitchcock-ian suspense (we in the audience know for a fact that it wasn't Michael), but it also provides a reason for Loomis to be preoccupied and not actively looking for Michael for a bit. Before Brackett can even process that one of his officers just killed someone, he gets the bad news from Officer Hunt: one of the teenagers killed earlier was his own Annie. This is the last we see of Sheriff Brackett, and I have to wonder if there is a behind-the-scenes story for that.

Now we get to spend some time at the woefully understaffed Haddonfield Hospital, and perhaps my favorite side character in a slasher movie ever, ambulance driver Bud.

HELLO ladies...

Bud is awesome. He calls bullshit on an obviously made-up story that is relayed to him, gives a sarcastic response when an uptight nurse criticizes his cursing, and points out that a lot of the people in the streets are  treating the tragedy like a social event. I LOVE this guy. Too bad he has to go out to lead to one of the more obvious "we thought this was a cool idea, whether it makes sense or fits the movies' style or not" death scenes, that of the nurse getting her face scalded off by boiling water in a physical therapy bath. I'm not sure why those things would even have a setting for that high, but maybe safety regulations back then weren't as tight. Also, you'll notice, that while the nurses' face melts away, the water does nothing to Michael's hand. 

After taking that step back, we take another step forward, as Loomis, Hunt, and another officer inspect a classroom that Michael has broken into. The scene is a throwback to the "WTF?" nature of Michael from the original, especially him taking the time to neatly write SAMHAIN on a chalkboard in his own blood. Then Nurse Whittington (Nancy Stephens, a.k.a. Mrs. Rosenthal) arrives from wherever she's been since the opening of Halloween to tell Loomis he's been ordered back to Smith's Grove by the governor. The  unnamed officer makes some goofy, Mike Tenay-esque faces while she delivers this information. I hadn't noticed that before, and it's hilarious.

Back at the hospital, more people die, and Jimmy gets a concussion after slipping in a pool of the head nurse's blood. Cool visual, but I'm not sure I buy the idea behind it. Another nurse goes to leave for the night and discovers that somehow Michael found the time to slash the tires of literally every car in the parking lot. This also makes the engines not start up for some reason. She goes back inside, and soon becomes the victim of the classic stab & lift. That kicks off a pretty nice chase scene, which Laurie survives by hiding in a car. Why Michael stops looking for her like a Zelda monster the moment you leave the room is beyond me. 

Meanwhile, Loomis gets the franchise-hindering news about the Myers' bloodline (right after Whittington completely no-sells a Loomis rant about the meaning of Samhain), and he forces the state trooper to turn his car around and bring him to Haddonfield Hospital. He doesn't see Laurie crawling and weakly crying for help. Fortunately for her, the sight of Michael is enough for her to get up and run, and she's able to catch up with Loomis and the rest.

Now for the ending, which has people show incredible skill that they shouldn't have, stupidity that they shouldn't have, and the classic case of Hollywood crazy making someone immortal. Loomis damn sure should have known that the gun he kept for himself wasn't loaded. There's no way a panicked Laurie would have hit Michael in both eyes on consecutive shots with presumably zero firearms experience, and Michael almost no-sells GETTING SHOT TWICE IN THE FACE, simply stumbling around while blindly swinging a scalpel. 

The ending was intended to be it for the Michael Myers story, and it would have been a fitting conclusion. Loomis sacrifices himself to make sure Laurie makes it out alive and that Michael can't do anymore damage. However, Michael would be revived not by magic, but by a poorly-received sequel...

 He's just a little crispy. He's still good! He's still good!

*** I still like this one quite a bit despite its glaring flaws. Is it a huge step down from the original? Yes, but it's not nearly as bad as a lot of franchise sequels, especially some in this particular series. I also want to note that I love the organ version of the original score that is used here. It adds quite a bit and is at times even creepier than the original version.

Newb Views the 80s #8: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

a.k.a. "Jason Takes a Cruise Ship"

Directed By: Rob Hedden

Picked after directing an episode of Friday the 13th: The Series, Hedden had only one question "can I get Jason away from the lake?". After being told he could, the decision was made to put him in a big city. Naturally, since only two cities exist in Hollywood's mind (unless the person making the movie wants it set in their hometown), the obvious choice was made: New York. Only problem was, Paramount didn't want to spend the money to actually film in NYC. So what we actually got was Jason attacking the cruise ship, followed by him (mostly) chasing the few remaining survivors through Vancouver.

There's the usually logic/continuity flaws. Somehow Crystal Lake flows into the ocean. Hedden tries adding more overtly supernatural elements to the series, and...it doesn't work, especially once we get to the spectacularly awful ending.

So after a character provides yet another run through the back story under the guise of playing a prank on his girlfriend, Jason is revived by both the power of electricity AND the two kids getting ready to bone, so you know he's super powerful this time. Fortunately the ill-fated Jim has one of the old style hockey masks with him for no particular reason, allowing Jason to keep his favorite look while going on his quasi-annual murderous rampage, because what's the point if you can't do it in style?

There's a secondary villain, that being the principal of Crystal Lake High School and coincidentally the uncle of the "last girl" Renny, played quite awesomely by Peter Mark Richman. There's a variety of archetypes, including a couple new ones in the rocker girl and her friend, director stand-in Wayne. The only one of the side characters that really stands out is boxer Julius, played by the charismatic V.C. Dupree. He, not coincidentally, is the one that gets the most memorable death.

There's tension on the boat because Renny is afraid of water after her evil uncle chucked her into the lake in an attempt to teach her to swim, and she somehow was attacked by young Jason, who was chilling at the bottom of the lake even though by this point in the timeline Jason would have been full-grown and killing folks. Her English teacher brings her along on the senior trip against the principal's wishes. There's also the "bad girl" who uses Wayne to try to frame the principal in order to achieve...something. Shawn is the son of the captain, and he gets mad when his dad tries to let him captain the ship, only for him to promptly fuck it up and storm away when his dad corrects him. Renny stumbles upon the bad girl & Kelly Hu doing coke, and they assume she narked when they get in trouble. Like usual, none of this actually leads to anything once Jason wipes everyone out, including a literal boatload of extras who simply vanish without a trace. Later on it storms (of course) and then the mentally deficient zombie Jason has the presence of mind to disconnect everything that could help the people on the boat contact anyone else for help. Why he would give a shit if more people came is another matter.

The kills are again mostly sanitized by MPAA interference, but better deaths wouldn't save this one. There is one effective moment while on the ship, however, that being Shawn finding his dad moments after his death and having to take control of the ship. 

So finally, an hour into a 90 minute movie, the four people with the most screen time (plus Julius and the dog) flee the ship and miraculously make it to New York. It's established that they spend a whole day on a row boat to get there, then once they do...Jason casually emerges from the water right after them, breathing like Darth Vader, although he's supposed to be dead. 

Because our heroes are in a 1980's stereotype of New York, they are promptly mugged and Renny is kidnapped by Hispanic thugs. Just as she is drugged and about to be raped JASON SAVES THE DAY and Renny is able to escape. 

The other survivors split up, leading to THE FIGHT...

...and it's predictable but still awesome conclusion.

Everyone left meet back up, and they manage to find a cop (in NEW YORK? HOW?) with a hilariously thick Canadian accent. For some reason Jason has stashed Julius' head in the front seat (without anyone noticing), and after he kills the poor cop, the drugged-out Renny tries to run over a vision of young Jason with the cop car, only succeeding in hitting a wall, blowing up the car, and killing her favorite teacher. At least she had a reason for seeing Jason this time.

For some reason Jason is REALLY intent on killing these kids, completely ignoring all the other plentiful opportunities. After a near-death via railroad track frying that we're supposed to buy despite him being revived by electricity in the beginning of this movie, he has a clear shot at a small group of teenage wannabe gangsters, and opts to show them his face instead of caving theirs in. FUCK. THIS MOVIE.

Finally he chases Renny & Shawn into the sewers, for perhaps the most ridiculous Friday plot point yet. A worker explains that the sewers are flooded with toxic waste  every night at midnight. WHAT. THE. FUCK. It's like Hedden wrote down the ending he wanted, came up with the worst possible explanation he could come up with, then shrugged his shoulders and thought "if they realize how dumb this idea is, we've lost them already", which he has gone on record as explaining his rationale behind letting the plot hole of how Crystal Lake connects to the ocean get swept under the rug.

Renny throws some waste as Jason, WHO SCREAMS IN AGONY as his mask melts and he's revealed to have a terrible makeup job underneath. Maybe he was screaming in embarrassment.

I...have nothing snarky to add.

Then the promised toxic waste comes. For some reason we hear young Jason's voice calling for his mommy, then he is reverted back to his younger self. UGH

Renny & Shawn escape, then Hedden stupidly adds a false scare on top of it, with an inexplicable facial expression from Renny, considering that she's looking at her dog. Then FINALLY THIS ONE IS OVER.

1/4* I can appreciated Rob Hedden trying something different, and the idea of bringing everything full circle, but pretty much every decision he made was the wrong one. He shrugged off plot holes like they were nothing and with the ending chose his symbolism and stuck with it, no matter what insane reasoning he had to come up for it. The "story" for this one is like terrible fan fiction written by a pretentious student who doesn't actually like Friday the 13th but had it assigned to him for a project. Of all of the Paramount Fridays, this is the one best suited for some fine MST3K-style riffing.

Newb Views the 80s #7: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

a.k.a. "Fri-Gay the 13th"

Directed By: John Carl Buechler

 After Jason Lives, the idea of finally doing Freddy VS Jason was gaining some steam. However, New Line Cinema & Paramount could not work everything out, so Buechler came up with another idea: Jason VS Carrie.

This is probably going to sound really snarky, but the best part of this movie may be the opening, with the terrific voice over by Walt Gorney (a.k.a. "Crazy Ralph), which recapped Jason's escapades leading to this. After that, this movie becomes a story of a director fighting battles against the MPAA and one of his own producers, and losing most of them.

There actually is a story here, as a teenager named Tina is being brought back to Crystal Lake by her well-meaning mother and the EEEEEVIL Doctor Cruise played by Terry Kiser, a.k.a. the corpse from A Weekend at Bernie's years after accidentally causing the drowning death of her father after he pulled an Ike Turner on her. There's also a group of teenagers/twenty-somethings nearby, as they have gathered for a birthday party. Oh yeah, this one is nicknamed "Fri-Gay the 13th" because the majority of the male cast are, including the potential love interest, played by Nick Spartas. He was actually closeted at the time but everybody knew what was up, which made him miserable and ruined any relationship he might have had with the secretly-married Lar Park Lincoln, who played Tina. Thus, the main love story sucks because the two have no chemistry and in truth could barely stand to be around each other.

After a troubling session with Cruise, Tina has another freakout, and of course accidentally resurrects Jason, who does what he does. Of course, he first has to go out of his way to leave the immediate area to take care of the late-arriving birthday boy and his girlfriend, who are having car trouble and have to walk. This movie is most notable as being the first appearance of Kane Hodder in the role of Jason, and he has Buechler to thank for it, since the director fought to cast him after he was the stunt coordinator on Buechler's previous film Prison.

The kills are mostly of the arrive--->kill--->leave variety with little suspense, as the focus of the story is on Tina, who has visions of Jason doing the deed. The side characters are stock. There's the bitch, the nerd, the stoner, the uptight weenie, and even a "girl who goes from geek to hottie by taking off her glasses", and that hasn't even become a teen romance trope yet. There is one really inspired moment during the "Jason offs the unimportant people" section of the movie, in which the stoner Eddie heads to the kitchen to get some food. The lights are out, so it's dark, but it's storming (or course) and the lightning illuminates Jason, who is standing in the corner, unseen by his soon-to-be-victim.

The kills are gutted by the MPAA, with a lot being changed or simply cut. One character originally head his head squeezed until it was the size of a baseball, but that was left on the cutting room floor. Even the one kill everyone seems to like, the sleeping bag, was cut from several hits to one. The brutality of the final edit is in part due to Hodder getting frustrated at having to swing the heavy meat-filled sleeping bag over and over. 

The body of the movie seems to be mostly an effort to kill time until the lengthy "final girl" battle, which may have more parts than a battle with Gannon in one of the Legend of Zelda games. There are some attempts at humor which mostly fall flat.

The final stretch of Tina VS Jason is pretty spectacular though, and at least an attempt to pit the monster against someone who can do more than run while screaming. A lot of effort is put into Jason's look, and both that and the removal of his mask are battles that Buechler would win, which would cost him dearly later.

I hope seeing this face was worth it, because it ruined the ending.

The only actor who really comes out of this looking OK is Kiser, who does a wonderful job of playing the asshole doctor who is more interested in using Tina to make him famous than doing anything to actually help her. 

Because Buechler won the battle over how Jason looked, he lost the battle over how Tina's resurrected father would look. Instead of looking like he spent ten years underwater, we got this:

Oooooh scary!

In the end, this movie is mildly interesting because of Buechler's grand ideas, but he had so much working against him, and even if he got everything he wanted, I'm not sure Buechler is up to that challenge as a director. There's a reason he's spent the majority of his career in special effects, which he is great at. It's not good by any means, but it's not terrible either. 

** I would file this one under the category of "interesting failure".

Newb Views the 80s #6: Jason Lives (1986)

Directed By: Tom McLaughlin

Conceived as a direct response to the dark cynicism of A New Beginning, this entry is much lighter fare, with elements of gothic horror and humor that manages to be "dark" without going all the way to "black". This is the one that introduces "Zombie Jason" as Tommy Jarvis (now played by much less dour Thom Matthews) and a friend (played by the late Ron Palillo of Welcome Back, Kotter fame) dig up Jason's corpse (despite him being supposedly cremated as of New Beginning), only for him to be brought back to life via a lightning bolt. This opening is tremendous, as everything goes wrong for poor Tommy. Jason is brought back to life via the lightning bolt, and when Tommy gets the idea to light Jason on fire...it starts pouring rain just as he's about to strike a match. Poor Hawes gets his heart punched out, and Tommy gets the fuck out of dodge, leading to the AWESOME Bond-esque main title sequences.

Now we have our main character, Tommy, playing the "Crazy Ralph" role of warning everyone within earshot about Jason, only to have no one believe him. There are a bunch of in-jokes and references, before that became the hot thing to do when Scream hit it big as McLaughlin was given the OK to add as much humor as he wanted, as long as Jason himself wasn't made fun of.

There's even the return of the Friday tradition of casting a relative of a famous person, this time with John Travolta's nephew Tom Fridley as Cort. This movie also features Darcy DeMoss as his girlfriend Nikki. DeMoss, was originally in the running for Debbiesue Voorhees' role in A New Beginning, but did not get the job after turning down a proposition from Danny Steinmann and refusing to show him her breasts.

The only real series continuity problems, aside from largely ignoring A New Beginning, are the ones it creates by giving Crystal Lake the new name of Forrest Green, which is in turn promptly ignored by The New Blood. This was also very obviously not filmed in New Jersey, where it's supposed to be set (the movie was shot in and around Covington, Georgia).

I have, and will continue to, make the argument that this is not just a good Friday, but a good movie period. McLaughlin has a lot of fun within the constraints of the formula, and does a lot to make it stand out from the other sequels, not just with the humor, but the action movie elements as well. McLaughlin does a good job of straddling the line between humor adding to a movie, or taking away from it (like say, Scream 4). After the unrelenting bleakness of A New Beginning, the light-heartedness of Jason Lives is a welcome breath of fresh air.

The only real negative I have with this one is that there are times where Matthews is clearly having too much fun for what his character is supposedly going through, especially when the sheriff's daughter helps him escape the jail and head back to the camp.

Despite being largely bloodless (aside from the ridiculous aftermath of one off-screen death), there are still some memorable kills here, namely the triple decapitation of the paint ball players, and the back breaking of the sheriff.

The final showdown between Tommy & Jason is pretty good, even if it didn't need the kids involved, and there's some editing issues with part of the scene being shot on location with normal night, and other parts clearly being shot elsewhere (most likely a pool, I can't remember) with pitch blackness surrounding everything. The shot of Jason's neck getting destroyed as actually shot in McLaughlin's parents' pool, as he tells the story in Crystal Lake Memories and any kind of special edition of this movie about destroying it to  the horror of his mother, and the amusement of his dad, who loved that his son got a shot to direct a "big" movie. The tease of Jason potentially killing Tommy is well done, and the babyface victory seems well-earned and climactic.

***1/2 Definitely the high point of the series. It delivers almost everything that the Friday audience could want (missing only nudity), while not taking itself too seriously. A grand finale to the "Jarvis Trilogy".

FUN FACT #1: This is the first one since the original to explicitly take place on a Friday the 13th.

FUN FACT #2: McLoughlin wrote the script during Christmas season, which influenced the original title, Jason Has Risen.

Newb Views the 80s #5: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

Directed By: Danny Steinmann

In a series not exactly known for being high brow, this is the one that stands out for its sleaziness, so much so that it could have it's own version of the infamous DVDVR thread (just read the section on this movie in CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES) if you don't believe me.

It starts off innocently enough, with Corey Feldman returning for a cameo (he was too busy making The Goonies to reprise his role for the whole movie) in a dream sequence, which sees him watch two yahoos pick the stormiest night of the year to dig up Jason Voorhees' grave (which is helpfully marked by the cheapest tombstone ever produced), only to be dispatched because for some reason he was buried with both his hockey mask and sharp objects, including a machete. Dream Tommy then just stands there as Jason gets ready to take his head off. Fortunately he wakes up as John Shepherd, on his way to a half-way house for trouble teens run by the most lenient staff to ever be put in charge of one of those.

I once described this movie on DVDVR as a "Scooby Doo episode with boobs and a body count", because that's pretty much what it is. You have a half-baked mystery, people wanting a specific place shut down, and a villain taking the guise of a local legend to further their own agenda.

When Vic kills Joey, which kicks off all the craziness, it should be a powerful moment, but it's undermined by the editing. There are a couple reaction shots like you see in trailers, with quick zooms into medium close-ups, and it looks goofy enough to ruin the whole moment.

As interesting and relatively-well-acted the characters in Final Chapter were, it's the opposite for the most part here. The worst may be the two greasers who act like they just wandered off the set of a high school production of Grease, and are introduced only to be killed off and pad the movie's running time. The only real interesting character and coincidentally the only actor who shows anything is Shepherd. There's an interesting story to be told with the Tommy Jarvis character, and Shepherd does a decent job of portraying a guy struggling to contain his inner rage at the world for taking a cosmic crap all over him and being stuck in a house with all of these fucking people. He also performs a very nice fireman's carry slam through a table. Everyone else, especially the cops, perform like characters who are aware that they're in a movie.

The only thing in this movie potentially worse than the acting is the writing, whenever the Tommy Jarvis character is not involved. All of the other characters are terrible (and most are terrible people). Steinmann's directing is terrible too. His attention is clearly on the Tommy storyline, and everything else is shot either in the laziest way possible, or he goes the other way and tries really hard to be stylish. He can't pull it off. The major sex scene is shot in such a voyeuristic fashion that I honestly felt the need to take a shower after seeing it (reading the back story of the casting of Debbiesue Voorhees and the actual shooting of the scene adds to this). It even has the "grifter" character looking on (before he is killed) acting as an audience surrogate. To make it even worse, the guy finishes in seconds and runs off, so we're left to watch Voorhees lay around nude until taking a pair of garden sheers to the eyes. Later, poor Melanie Kinnaman is stuck running around in the rain in a shirt that shows off her...assets. That Steinmann had a background in porn prior to making this movie should surprise no one. That most of the other people involved in making this movie had a less-than-favorable opinion of him should also not come as a great shock.

R.I.P. you sleazy bastard.

The only sympathetic side character (well, until he threatens to go Ray Rice on his girlfriend) is Demon, played by Miguel Nunez Jr., future star of Juwanna Man. His reunion with little brother Reggie "the Reckless" is actually pretty heartwarming and made that little shit tolerable for a moment. Him having random fast food in the back of his van is hilarious. Too bad he gets the taco shits and dies on the crapper, even if his song writing skills aren't that great.

Surprisingly, there really isn't much in the way of gore here. Most of the kills are quick with a splash of blood, as if they're there only because the Friday formula demands it. Part of this is probably because of the MPAA (it's at least a part of the changing of Violet's death, which may have been the sleaziest moment of the movie had the original idea made it to screen), and the fact all of the characters that are killed are side characters, with minimal screen time and thus not worth the effort to give them memorable deaths. If a side character is given any kind of storyline, it's literally so it can end in their death moments later. The only thing these throwaway victims and their deaths provide of note is another CRAZY DANCE in the form of Violet's robot, and the awesome song she dances to.

Good luck getting that chorus out of your head!

The final stretch sees "those meddling kids" in the form of Pam, Reggie, and the fashionably-late Tommy taking down "Jason" to reveal...well, I'll just say at least he's shown a couple times before then, even if the stunt guy and the actor he's supposedly doubling look nothing alike. The awful directing pops up again, as Pam attacks "Jason" with an obviously not-running chainsaw. The reveal of Tommy is not being the killer and his showdown with what he believes to be the ghost from his past is tremendous, and I really liked him using Rob (from Final Chapter)'s knife to save himself by stabbing the fake Jason apparently right in the nuts, which fake Jason actually does an appropriate sell of.

Finally fake Jason is thwarted and a dummy is dropped on a piece of conveniently-located farming equipment. As this is a promised New Beginning, the movie couldn't end without a tease for another sequel, which, fortunately for yours truly, is Jason Lives.

*1/2 If this had been all about Tommy instead of about 1/3rd about Tommy, it could have been a really strong movie. Unfortunately, the creepy director and the demands of the Friday name held this one back. I originally had this one rated at *1/4, but I noticed at the end when Tommy starts to consider becoming the next killer, the sound effect actually changes to KI KI KI TOM TOM TOM, which is a surprising attention to detail and series continuity, so I bumped it a little bit.

Newb Views the 80s #4: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

a.k.a. "Sunday the 15th"

a.k.a. "HA HA HA HA HA! The "Final" Chapter!

Directed By: Joseph Zito

 After the utter disappointment that was watching Part 3 again, I went into this viewing hoping against hope that this, one of my favorites of the series, would still hold up. Right off the bat, I find that I still like the opening theme, and Axel the sleazy coroner. His (mostly) failed seduction of nurse Robbie (named after Robbie Morgan) is great, especially his reaction after the supposedly-dead Jason's hand drops the moment he's about to get some. Sure, some of Robbie's lines aren't as clever as Zito thinks they are, but Axel is pure gold. 

There's still continuity problems, the most obvious being people still being allowed to camp along Crystal Lake (seriously, how big is that lake?), and Jason's constantly-changing appearance.  Later on there's the character of Rob, who appears to have been hunting Jason for years, despite the fact that his sister (Sandra from Part 2) has only been missing for two days.

This one actually has some semblance of "star power", with the presence of Corey Feldman, Crispin Glover, Peter Barton (who had just starred in a short-lived TV series and was getting a minor push in the teeny bopper mags), and Lawrence Monoson, who had starred in The Last American Virgin.

The relationships between the characters may not always be realistic, but there's chemistry in the cast and the characters themselves all have a personality or are memorable for something, especially for being stock slasher movie victims.

Although it seems goofy played out, I understand Zito's psychology of wanting the audience to be collectively bringing Jason back to life. The problem is, he doesn't stay "dead" long enough for that to really come into play. There's also the totally 80's idea that "computers can do anything the script requires" (which, as Transcendence has shown, has not gone away completely) with the Jim-Ted "dead fuck" stuff, but the interaction between Monoson & Glover makes that stuff not as bad as it could be, and Monoson does a good job of making the Ted character not nearly as annoying as he might have been. This movie has not one, but two "pure" girls, including one of my personal favorites, Barbara Howard, who is sadly dispatched as soon as she is about to lose that purity. I'm sure that there has been more than one film studies paper written about that.

There are still a lot more things here that I like than in the previous installments. Feldman as Tom Savini immediately marching Rob up to his room to show off his mask is such a kid thing to do, and Erich Anderson plays the awkwardness of the moment wonderfully. Right after that, is... THE DANCE!

60% of the time, it works every time.

The "story" in so much as there is one, is of course pure Friday formula, and in fact the weakest part of the film, IMO, is Jason himself, and how he's used. Every sequences he appears in, someone dies. There's no setup (or foreplay, as it were), it's simply, find, kill, repeat until the final sequence. At least some of the kills here are memorable, like poor Paul getting speared RIGHT IN THE NUTS, Doug's face getting caved in, "Where the hell is the corkscrew?!" and Rob's horrible realization of what's happening as his death takes a little longer than usual (which leads right into his yelling "HE'S KILLING ME!" which I can understand some people finding ridiculous, but knowing that Zito based that idea on a real-life murder makes that scene really creepy and sad to me). The kills being like that is intentional, however, as they wanted to give the prolonged, gory death of Jason the best chance of getting past the MPAA with minimal amount of cuts by not throwing a ton of blood on screen beforehand. 

The traditional "body discovery" scene that almost always kicks off the final stretch makes even less sense  than usual here, but at least Kimberly Beck's freak out sells the moment well enough. I think Beck does pretty well during the whole last run (although it's weird that neither her nor Tommy seem to wonder what happened to Mom), and having two older sisters myself, I can easily place myself in Corey Feldman's shoes. 

*** Does what passes for a story make a lick of sense? Not in the slightest, but the characters in this one are at least worth spending 90 minutes with, and the end, with Tommy killing Jason, is really spectacular. That makes it better than the first three, and much to my relief, I still like this one. 

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.