The Day You Count On For Terror Is Not Over

The murderous exploits of Jason Voorhees have spread out over so many films over the years that on this Friday the 13th, I thought it was worth remembering a time when the iconic character - and the Friday franchise - was still a fresh presence on the horror landscape.

In 1981, Friday the 13th Part 2 was released - not only was it the first Friday sequel but it was also the first slasher sequel. With its script by Ron Kurz and Phil Scuderi, Part 2 created a mythology that would steer this series into the annals of history as one of horror's most successful and long-running franchises.

Steve Miner, an associate producer on the first film, took over directing duties when Sean Cunningham was reluctant to encore on the sequel. Smartly taking a "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" approach, Miner aimed to deliver more of the same in terms of what made the first film successful (good looking teens and twentysomethings getting slaughtered) while striving to apply a little more craft behind the camera.

Miner shows his directorial chops up front in a lengthy and suspenseful opening sequence that reintroduces surviving Final Girl Alice (Adrienne King), now living alone after the traumatic events of the first film, trying to get her life back together, only to find Mrs. Voorhees decapitated head in her refrigerator. Jason finishes off his mother's killer with an ice pick to the temple and after a fade to white, the title sequence kicks in.

The movie picks up five years later as a new group of camp counselors are gathering for training near the area once known as "Camp Blood." Too near to it for many locals, including the sheriff and town looney Crazy Ralph, who both spread the word in their own way that setting up shop so close to troubled grounds is only inviting that same trouble to return. But do these kids listen? No, for them Mrs. Voorhees' killing spree is old business and any notion that her son might be prowling the woods is ridiculous - the stuff of campfire tales and local superstition. As practical joker and electronic game enthusiast Ted (Stu Charno) dismissively snorts: "five years ago, some girl fell out of a canoe." As the saying goes, those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.

Child psychology student and head assistant counselor Ginny (Amy Steel) is a little more thoughtful on the subject of Jason, seeking to put the legend "in real terms." Her mini-speech about the man-child she imagines the adult Jason to be isn't so flattering - calling him "a frightened retard" just ain't nice - but it's the only time in the series that anyone tries to wax philosophical about the character.

What Miner, Kurz, and Scuderi fail to have Ginny address is how Jason could possibly be out there in the first place. The legend of Jason was screwed up from the start but the original series just glossed over this and kept moving. What happens between Friday the 13th 1 and 2 makes absolutely no sense, however, and when the makers of the 2009 remake tried to retell the story, things didn't exactly fall neatly into place.

The trouble is this: for Mrs. Voorhees to be driven to kill anyone who dares to reopen Camp Crystal Lake, a path of vengeance that leads her to eventually be killed by Alice - which then sparks Jason's own bloody retribution - Jason had to have drowned as a child due to neglectful counselors. That's the event that starts everything.

So...ok. But if Jason did die as a boy in 1958, then how did he become a full-grown man? And if he didn't die, what was he doing in the woods from '58 to 1980? And hold on - if he drowned as a kid, why didn't they ever recover the body and give him a proper burial? The thought that Jason's body would have never been retrieved from Crystal Lake is insane. It's not like he fell off a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean - he's in a tiny-ass lake. Has there ever been a drowning victim in a closed body of water that hasn't been able to be recovered? I mean, hell - what kind of mother would Mrs. Voorhees be if she didn't insist on being able to lay her child to rest? Surely not the kind of fiercely devoted mother that we're supposed to believe she is.

What I'm saying is that the conundrums of the Planet of the Apes and Terminator series look as rudimentary as a child's arithmetic homework next to the brain-exploding impossibilities presented by the Friday the 13th series. But that's what happens when you take a sequence that could have only been a dream (Jason's leap from the lake at the end of Friday the 13th) and try to refer to it as being real.

Audiences at the time went along with Jason's return without a fuss and I think that's simply because the final shock of Friday the 13th was so incredible that people just wanted to see more of that character, period. Realism was not going to get in the way of a good boogeyman. It didn't matter that it made no sense that Jason could be alive and be a full-grown adult. The myth that Part 2 lays out is that Jason saw his mother beheaded and subsequently sought out his revenge on anyone coming into his woods. Simple. Easy to understand. Except if you thought about it for even the slightest micro-second.

But hey, in case you hadn't gotten the memo, there's a frightened retard on the loose.

Look, there he goes now!

Back when I first saw Part 2, I thought the sight of Jason's dilapidated shack was so creepy. Looking at it now, my main thought is that this is an awfully big place for a single dude. And again, by having Jason living in a handmade shack they're playing it as though Jason has been living in the woods for years like some cretin hillbilly but...that...doesn't...make...sense...

Of course, it's the body count that matters in a Friday the 13th film, not logic, and Jason dutifully scrubs as many of the film's young counselors as he can, putting up big numbers to match his mother.

It's well-known that the MPAA clamped down hard on this film, causing most of Carl Fullerton's make-up work (most famously, the scene of two lovers impaled by a spear) to disappear into legend before ever seeing the light of a movie screen. At the time, it was disappointing enough to know of the cut footage but today the lack of graphic kills stands out even more. In '81, gore FX were fighting to be seen across the board so even with its truncated bloodletting, Part 2 still kind of delivered the goods. After all, it wasn't every day that you saw a guy get a machete buried in his face. Today, though, in the wake of a decade where the Saw series, the Hostel films, and any number of other bloodbaths - from The Passion of the Christ to the most recent Rambo installment to the 3-D Piranha remake - all skated by the MPAA with ease, Part 2 looks laughably tepid.

Just as it was difficult in 1981 to watch the films of earlier decades and understand how some of them were ever considered shocking, it's sweetly sad to watch Part 2 now and remember that this was notorious fare back in the day. How is it possible that this movie - and, really, the entire early '80s slasher cycle - has now become an example of more innocent times? That's crazy, is what it is.

I don't have to remind any horror fan that Part 2 is the one where Jason sported a burlap sack before he upgraded to a hockey mask. Count me in among the many sack supporters out there. Everyone always cites The Town That Dreaded Sundown as the inspiration for Jason's look here and, hey, it's a real good look to emulate if you want to scare the crap out of people. The hockey mask is what turned Jason into a slasher superhero but the sack with its one eye hole cut out - that's just creepy. I think he rocked that look better than anybody - even better than Joseph Merrick. But that's a close race, I'll grant you.

I doubt if anyone, even very young viewers, who watch the early Fridays for the first time today finds any of them to be scary in the least but those who saw them when they first came out still remember the impact they had and while I think Parts 3, 4, and 5 all managed to produce some decent scares, Part 2 was the last time that the series was truly frightening.

I mean, just the imagery of Jason's candlelit shrine to his mother was so grandly ghoulish - putting the movie, if peripherally, in the company of films like Psycho and Deranged. The subsequent Fridays never approached anything like it.

As someone who was scared shitless by Friday the 13th Part 2 way back when, it's a curious thing to rewatch it now and see it through much different eyes. Other films of similar vintage still hold up today and even if they don't scare me quite as much as they used to, I can still get a buzz of adrenaline from Alien, Halloween, The Fog or even - to a lesser extent - the original Friday the 13th.

Part 2...eh, not so much.

That said, there's still a lot to like about this entry. The sack fits Jason like a glove, Amy Steel was the best Final Girl the series ever had (and it's had a few great ones), and the climatic chase remains exciting.

Horror sequels were once reserved for classic monsters, like Godzilla or Dracula, or for blockbusters like Jaws, not slashers. Even Psycho, the godfather of the modern slasher, never had a sequel until Friday the 13th kicked opened the floodgates. Once both Friday the 13th and Halloween saw their first sequels appear in '81, it was a sign that a new era had arrived. Thirty years later, it's a kick to watch Friday the 13th Part 2 and be reminded of those simpler days. Happy Friday the 13th!

A Toast To Friday the 13th Part 2

For my Summer Shocks selection from 1981, I went with Wes Craven's Deadly Blessing as I think that's a movie that just doesn't get enough love. However, I have to say that my most beloved film from the summer of '81, and maybe - just maybe - my all-around, all-time favorite horror movie is Friday the 13th Part 2. I know that admitting this it doesn't say good things about me or my ability to appreciate the finer things in life but when it comes to Sack-Head Jason vs. Amy Steel, it's hard not to gush like a BP oil leak.

Part 2 was my first Friday the 13th, seen on late night HBO on a sleepover, and I'll never forget my friend and I daring to sneak a peek at the end of the earlier showing that night, at a time when his parents hadn't gone to bed yet. We already had our plans to watch the 2:00 am show - late enough when we knew no one else would be up - but our curiosity got the best of us at around 11:25 or so and we switched from Madame's Place or whatever to the final couple of minutes of Part 2. We put it on just in time to see Paul (John Furey) open the cabin door to reveal the adorable pooch Muffin and then for Jason to explode through the window behind Ginny (Amy Steel).

After that, we both lunged forward to change the channel. As a taste of what was in store for us, Part 2 looked freakin' intense! Maybe the new plan was to not watch the movie at all. But even though Part 2's opening with Jason exacting his revenge on Alice (Adrienne King) was scary enough to make us again reevaluate our decision to stick with the movie, we made it through to the end. After that, I was a Friday fan for life.

With any long-running series, whether it be Bond or Godzilla or Friday the 13th, I think fans are always loyal to whatever film in the series they first encountered and that's definitely true for me and Friday the 13th Part 2.

Nostalgia aside, I can decisively argue for Part 2 as the being best of the Fridays. Amy Steel is the best Final Girl of the series (I suspect a lot of the appeal of Part 2 stems from the fact that Steel never went on to have the movie career that many thought she should've had); Sack-Head Jason is way scarier than Hockey Mask Jason because he seems like just some real-life psycho holed up in the woods instead of an over-the-top super slasher; the make-shift shrine Jason has with his mother head on an altar and bodies of victims piled around it is a creepier sight than anything the other Fridays have offered (the nasty toilet Jason apparently shits in is pretty hair-raising, too); the Part 2 girls are the cutest of the series; Part 2 has my favorite kill in the series (the machete across the face to wheelchair-bound Mark, followed by his backwards tumble down the stairs); Stu Charno as Ted goes where no practical joker in the series has gone by actually surviving; and director Steve Miner delivers the best final chase of the series, a long sequence that kicks off with Ginny memorably exclaiming "There's someone in this fucking room!" And finally, there's a clever final stand-off being Jason and Ginny as she uses her child psychology education to play with Jason's head - I love that!


Oh, and there's some ambiguity at the end as we don't know quite what happened to Paul between Jason's jump through the window and the arrival of the paramedics and police. I guess the truth is that Miner and co. just didn't film a scene or a line of dialogue that they were supposed to but as a kid it seemed kind of artsy to me to leave it with Ginny deliriously asking "where's Paul?" as she's being loaded into an ambulance. I mean, shit - what did happen to Paul?

Also, Part 2 was the last Friday filmed on the East Coast (not counting the Times Square scene in Jason Takes Manhattan) and as someone born and raised in Massachusetts, I was always attracted by the unmistakable East Coast atmosphere of the first two Fridays. Sorry, but the woods in California or wherever just aren't the same as the woods in Connecticut or Jersey.

I might be too in love with Friday the 13th Part 2, I know. But that's just the way it is. It's a movie as familiar to me as my own face.

Crystal Lake Countdown Day 11: Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

Friday the 13th fans tend to favor the movie that they started off with no matter what. For me, that means loving Friday the 13th is always going to come back to Friday the 13th Part 2. Luckily, this first sequel really is the best of the series. Some view Part 2 as an odd-man-out entry because Jason is sporting his Elephant Man sack here (a look also reminiscent of the hooded killer in The Town That Dreaded Sundown) rather than the iconic hockey mask but that sack has always worked for me. Sack head Jason forever! With Part 2, Steve Miner took over as director from Sean Cunningham after serving as associate producer on the original and in his first feature directing gig he brought his A-game and turned the surprise success of Friday the 13th into a series to be reckoned with.

Well before I saw Part 2, I saw the cover of FANGORIA issue #12 that featured a pic of Mrs. Voorhees' severed head in the refrigerator (this was back when FANGORIA was proudly sold at my local Jane Alden convenience store - those were the days!). That cover blew me away and I couldn't wait to see the movie. At the time I hadn't even seen the first Friday yet but my best friend had just gotten cable installed in his neighborhood and so our day was coming.

Shortly after Part 2 made its pay cable premeire, we chose a weekend to do a sleepover when we knew Part 2 would be airing. Because his parents would know we were up watching something we shouldn't be if we watched the earliest scheduled show of the night, we had to wait till the 1:00 am showing. Around 12:20 or so, our curiosity got the best of us and we decided that we had to take a peek at the ending of the movie. We were paranoid about being heard so we got right up on top of the TV with the volume low. It was the scene towards the end where Ginny and Paul are back in their cabin and they hear a scratching at the door. Ginny holds a pitchfork in front of her, braced for whatever may burst in as Paul whips open the door to reveal an adorable little puppy. Just then Jason explodes through the window behind Ginny. My friend and I leaped back at least ten feet in the air, then scrambled back to the TV to shut it off. It was then that my friend and I started to have serious second thoughts about watching the rest of the movie.

When 1:00 am came and we put the TV back on, we were a little less sure about our decision then we had been earlier in the night. And the opening sequence did nothing to put us at ease. Even knowing ahead of time that Mrs. Voorhees' head would be in the refrigerator, the pre-title sequence had me cowering. I even jumped at the cheap scare of a cat jumping through the window. And the clips from the original Friday were terrifying, too, as we hadn't seen any of that movie yet. By the time the titles came up, we were convinced that if the movie began like this and ended with the scene we saw earlier, then this had to be the scariest movie either of us had ever seen.

By 2:30 or so, as the credits rolled over a freeze frame of Mrs. Voorhees' head, I don't know if we still thought we had seen the scariest movie ever - as it turns out, save for the wheelchair death of Mark, the beginning and the end were by far the best parts of the movie - but we sure as shit had enjoyed ourselves. From that night on, I was a diehard Friday the 13th fan. As much as the series has had its ups and downs over the years, I can't shed my affection for it. As for how Part 2 holds up today, I think that in almost every way, it's an improvement over the original (even though it's impossible to best the climatic decapitation of Mrs. Voorhees and Jason's leap from the lake). Working in Part 2's favor is the fact that Miner's a sharper director than Cunningham, the cast is a little more polished (without being overly slick) and the pace is quicker than that of the original without being as rushed as the later entries of the series would become. Miner also avoids the more overt corniness of the original (no Strip Monopoly here) and his lead actress, Amy Steel, is hands-down the best of the Friday girls. I love Adrienne King as Alice but Steel's Ginny really has it all. She has such a natural appeal - she's tough, beautiful, resourceful, and athletic. Had Steel stuck with the series for another outing (or had done another horror film that was stronger than 1986's April Fool's Day), I think she'd be more widely appreciated as a classic Scream Queen.



While I think Ted White's Jason from The Final Chapter takes the golden machete for Best Jason, I love Steve Dash's Jason too (with his signature lopping run) and Part 2's overall depiction of Jason as a resourceful - but not indestructible - backwoods psycho is my favorite handling of the character. The concept of Jason keeping his mother's head on a candle-lit shrine (surrounded by the bodies of the victims he claimed in her name - including Alice's decayed corpse with the ice pick still in her skull) was perfect and it said all that ever needed to be said about him. I also think that make-up man Carl Fullerton's design for Jason (as worn by Warrington Gillette) remains the best that's been done, looking grotesque without going over the top. Truly a face only a mother could love.

The final chase between Jason and Ginny is still the best in the series. Miner squeezes a lot of excitement out of this long sequence (that begins when Ginny detects the crouched figure of Jason moving towards them in the dark of the main cabin - "Paul, there's someone in this fucking room!"). And Ginny's stand-off with Jason as she uses her child psychology training to get into Jason's head is a classic moment, giving Dash a chance to deliver more of real performance than other Jasons as he bows before the image of his approving 'mother'.

In a perfect world, the MPAA wouldn't have forced Miner to excise the now-legendary FX footage of Sandra and Bill's shish-ka-bob demise but that's just the breaks (and in a slightly more just world, Paramount would've reinstated the footage by now). Part 2 is still solid without it, though, and whatever it's faults Part 2 earns the distinction of being the film that turned Friday the 13th into a successful franchise. Had Miner and co. made different choices with this film - had they not gone with the idea of introducing Jason as the killer, had they abandoned the formula of the first film instead of striving to refine it, then we wouldn't still be going back to Camp Crystal Lake all these years later.