HALLOWEEN 2K18: A Review of "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge"

Since Jason Voorhees decided to come out of a short-lived retirement and counter A Nightmare on Elm Street with Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, which was a complete and utter shit-sandwich with extra dick sauce on the side, Freddy realized he had to return for another sequel. He might as well, the deus-ex-machina ending for the first movie was kind of weak for an otherwise stellar slasher movie. So out of seemingly infinite possibilites for a sequel, we get A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. A movie that teaches us you don't have to make sense to be a good movie, as long as you throw Freddy in there, morons are bound to buy into it's crap.

An unused Tums commercial, c. 1985

Five years after Freddy Krueger's apparent defeat at the questionable ending to A Nightmare on Elm Street, the Walsh family has moved into the Thompsons' former home. It's like Halloween, where the Strode home is now the Thompsons' home. Buy one house and be cursed for an entire movie. Their teenage son, Jesse (Mark Patton), has a nightmare about being stalked by a burnt-faced sweater-wearing killer driving a school bus. He wakes up and attributes the dream to the unusual heat in the room. Jesse goes to school with his friend Lisa (Kim Myers), whom he is interested in romantically, but is too shy to flirt with her. I really relate to this Jesse guy, even if he acts like a tool throughout the whole movie. After getting into a fight with a boy named Grady (Robert Rusier) during gym class, Coach Schneider (Marshall Bell) makes them stay after class and they become friends. Lisa comes to visit Jesse after school and they discover a diary from Nancy Thompson detailing her nightmares, which are strikingly similar to Jesse's. Heather Langenkamp couldn't be bothered to return, she was on to bigger and better things... or so she thought. Small fires happen around the Walsh's house, which culminates in the spontaneous combustion of their pet birds. Why is it getting hotter in the house? Who knows, but it serves the plot, so let's roll with it.

I thought I told you brats to sit down!

The following night, Jesse has a nightmare where he encounters Freddy (otherwise there wouldn't be a movie, would there) who tells Jesse to kill for him. The dreams grow more intense and Jesse unsuccessfully attempts different measures to keep himself awake. He eventually begins wandering the streets at night. One night, Jesse is caught by Schneider when ordering a drink and is made to run laps at school as punishment. Isn't that weird? Imagine swearing in a grocery store, only to round the corner and run into your gym teacher, who takes you back to the high school to run laps. Would you go? Fuck no, you wouldn't, but this is 80's slasher screenwriting, so anything goes! After sending Jesse to the showers, Schneider is attacked by an unseen force that drags him to the showers. Jesse vanishes into the steam and Freddy emerges, killing Schneider by slashing his back. Later, Jesse is horrified to see the glove on his hand. He is escorted home by police after being found wandering the streets naked, and his parents begin to suspect that Jesse may be on drugs or mentally disturbed. Hell, I'd come to the same conclusion. Lisa takes Jesse to an abandoned factory where Fred Krueger worked, but they find nothing there.

Hang on, Jesse. You got something on your nose.

The following night, Jesse goes to Lisa's pool party and kisses her in the cabana. Afterwards, his body begins to change and he leaves in a panic. He goes to Grady's house, confesses to killing Schneider, and instructs Grady to watch him as he sleeps and to stop him if he tries to leave. When Grady eventually falls asleep, Freddy emerges from Jesse's body and kills Grady. The special effects for this scene are pretty gruesome and epic, so definitely some points for the flick there. Freddy then changes back to Jesse, who finds himself looking at Freddy's reflection in Grady's mirror. He flees before Grady's parents enter the room. Returning to Lisa's house, Jesse tells her what is going on. Lisa realizes that Jesse's terror is giving Freddy his strength, but he cannot stop fearing him and transforms again. Boy, they're really rolling with this "fear gives him strength" thing aren't they? I guess I'll play along then. Freddy locks her parents in their bedroom and attacks Lisa, but realizes he cannot harm her due to Jesse's influence. He goes outside, where he begins to slaughter the partygoers, in one of the silliest but coolest scenes in the movie. "You are all my children now", Freddy quips. In a humorous moment, after slaughtering a couple guys, another guy walks up to Freddy and tells him to "calm down". I laugh every time. Anywho, Lisa's father emerges with a shotgun, but Lisa stops him from shooting Freddy, who escapes in a ball of flame. She drives to the factory, facing sudden nightmares and having to control her fear before confronting Freddy. How is she having nightmares when she's awake? Great question.

Jesse doing an impression of me watching this movie

She pleads with Jesse to fight Freddy, but Freddy's hold is too strong. When Lisa confesses her love for Jesse and kisses Freddy, Jesse begins to fight back. Freddy combusts and turns to ash, from which Jesse emerges. So I guess being ripped open and having another full-bodied man climb out of you doesn't kill you after all. Later, as Jesse, Lisa, and Lisa's friend Kerry (Sydney Walsh) are taking the bus to school, Jesse begins to notice similarities to his original nightmare and panics. After Lisa calms Jesse down, Kerry says that it is all over just before Freddy's clawed arm bursts through her chest. Freddy laughs as the bus drives into the field, just as in Jesse's first nightmare. So... nothing was accomplished. Hooray.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge does have some interesting story elements, but ultimately ends the same way it started, with open story and loose ends so more sequels can be made. Plus, when Freddy's not around or nobody's dreaming, which is rare, I might add, the movie's pretty damn boring. The stuff with just Jesse isn't interesting at all, coach Schneider is more creepy than he is funny and Freddy's influence doesn't really get to showcase itself until about halfway through. Luckily the movie's short, otherwise this'd be like trying to sit through a root canal. It's alright, but definitely one of the weaker ones.

So now that both Freddy and Jason have had back-to-back garbage entries, both killers would return to their corners before they'd both come out swinging again, only this time with two of the best slasher movies in each man's respective series....

HALLOWEEN 2K18: A Review of "Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning"

Freddy Krueger has entered the show and made quite a dynamic and spooky entrance, at that. Now you're Jason Voorhees. The ball is in your court. You have the notoriety and a couple more years of experience under your belt, but you've decided to simply retire your franchise because four movies in five years was a tad overkill. So you're out of the game and now, some burnt-faced schmuck in a red and green sweater is stealing your limelight by killing people in their sleep. What do you do? Well, simply unretire your franchise after no more than a year's rest! Yes, after the cinematic lie that was Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Jason decided to answer Freddy's arrival with another sequel of his own. Here is Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, a movie that teaches us that continuity doesn't have to matter if you're going to lie to your audience the whole time in the whole movie throughout. Let's dive into this turd and rip it to shreds like it deserves.

Thumbs up if you applauded at Junior's death

A few years after the events of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, the youngest survivor Tommy Jarvis (John Shepard) awakens from a nightmare of him witnessing two grave robbers digging up Jason Voorhees's body. Jason rises from the grave and murders the grave robbers before advancing towards Tommy. Upon arriving at Pinehurst Halfway House, a secluded residential treatment facility, Tommy is introduced to director Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman) and Dr. Matt Letter (Richard Young). In his assigned room, Tommy also meets Reggie (Shavar Ross), a boy whose grandfather, George (Vernon Washington), works as the kitchen cook. Other teens (By that of course we mean this movie's "Killing Gallery") introduced are redhead Robin (Juliette Cummins), gothicViolet (Tiffany Helm), shy Jake (Jerry Pavlon), short-tempered Vic (Mark Venturini), and compulsive eater Joey (Dominick Brascia). The sheriff brings in two more residents, lovers Eddie (John Robert Dixon) and Tina (Debbie Sue Voorhees), after catching them having sex on neighbor Ethel Hubbard's (Carol Locatell) lawn. Ethel Hubbard and her son Junior (Ron Sloan) show up and threaten to have the house closed down if the teens do not stop sneaking onto their property. Why you'd choose to have sex on another person's front fucking lawn as a joke is beyond me.

The funniest damn scene of the 1980s

This movie gets started off hilariously (and I do mean laugh out loud hilariously) when, for no fucking reason whatsoever, Vic kills Joey with an axe after Joey offers him a chocolate bar. Vic, rightfully so, is subsequently arrested. The body is discovered by attending ambulance drivers Roy Burns (Dick Wieand) and Duke (William Caskey Swain). Roy is saddened by the death, as it's later revealed that Joey was his son, but Duke believes that the murder was a harmless prank. Yes, that's right. A harmless prank. That evening, greasers Vinnie (Anthony Barrile) and Pete (Corey Parker) are murdered by an unseen assailant after their car breaks down. The following night, Billy (Bob DeSimone) and his girlfriend Lana (Rebecca Wood) are killed with an axe. Panic begins to ensue, but the mayor refuses to believe the sheriff's claim that somehow Jason Voorhees has returned, because you know, this the 80s. Serial Killers don't just unnecessarily return for more sequels. That's preposterous.

The next day, Tina and Eddie sneak off into the woods to have sex (They're dead). Ethel's farmhand Raymond is killed while spying on the pair. While Eddie leaves to go wash off in the creek, Tina is murdered. Eddie returns to find her dead and is also killed. Meanwhile, Tommy and Pam accompany Reggie to visit Reggie's brother Demon (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) and his girlfriend, Anita (Jere Fields). While there, Tommy gets into a fight with Junior and runs off. After Reggie and Pam leave, Demon and Anita are murdered. At the Hubbard farm, Ethel and Junior are both killed as well. I'm just having trouble trying to keep track of everyone here.

Look at the twist! Just look at it!

Pam leaves Reggie at the halfway house to look for Tommy. After Reggie falls asleep, the killer enters and murders Jake, Robin, and Violet. Reggie awakens just as Pam returns before they discover the dead bodies in Tommy's room. The killer, revealed to be wearing Jason's hockey mask, bursts into the house and chases them out into the rain after discovering the bodies of Duke, Matt, and George. Pam rushes toward the barn, chased by Jason, but he is struck by a tractor driven by Reggie. They run into the barn and hide as Jason comes to find them. Tommy comes shortly after and believes Jason to be a hallucination until he is attacked. Together, they get Jason to fall out of the loft window, and he is killed upon landing on a harrow below. The killer is revealed to have not been Jason, but was Roy Burns all along. SURPRISE. JASON VOORHEES ISN'T EVEN IN THIS MOVIE. ARE YOU JUST SO HAPPY WITH THAT REVEAL? Goddammit.

Jason stalks not-Corey Feldman

At the hospital, the sheriff tells Pam that Joey was Roy's son. After seeing him slaughtered, Roy lost his sanity and adopted Jason's identity to kill everyone at the house, apparently blaming them all for Joey's death...even though Vic was the only one to blame and hilariously, the only one to not die. Roy really fucked this up, didn't he? On top of that, how was the nurse able to gauge Roy's motive here just by staring at his body? What is she psychic? I would say that's too far-fetched, but oh... just you wait. Anywho, Tommy, after waking up from a nightmare, has another hallucination of Jason, but he faces his fears which makes Jason's hallucination disappear. He hears Pam approaching and throws his bed through the window to appear that he has escaped. When Pam rushes in, Tommy appears from behind the door and seemingly attacks her, wearing Roy's hockey mask and wielding a kitchen knife. What a... twist?

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning is where you can tell the idea behind the "excess of Friday the 13th" was getting out of hand. It was pretty clear this movie was made without a decent story, compelling characters or even semi-interesting kills in place, but they knew they had to get one out so as to stay relevant. Boy. The 1980s were a bitch to motion pictures and original, competently, well-thought-out movie productions. It's just all around dumb, dumb, dumb. It's entertaining with how unrealistic and over-acted it is, but don't expect any intelligence beyond that. So there you have it, Jason retaliates with a shit-bomb, so kind of a "glancing blow" of a comeback there. Don't worry though, Freddy's about to counter with a shit-bomb of his own...

HALLOWEEN 2K18: A Review of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984)

I couldn't come up with a non-rapist caption for this

While Jason Voorhees was "wrapping up" his box office dominance early on in the year with Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, another spooky supervillain of motion picture horror was being conceived by the well-known filmmaker Wes Craven. Craven, by then who had done a few terror flicks to his credit, was creating something truly imaginative and original for the time. Enter Freddy Krueger, the child killer of Springwood who was chased and killed by the angry parents who sought to keep anymore children from being killed. After his murder, he later returns in a different form entirely, able to stalk and murder people in their sleep, hosting people's own nightmares and creating truly uniquely horrific scenarios for which people to die in. The first entry, 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street, remains a classic to this day.

Heather Langenkamp's dream comes true

The film opens, showing fifteen-year-old Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) being stalked through a boiler room and attacked by a disfigured man wearing a blade-fixed glove. She awakens from the nightmare, but her mother points out four mysterious slashes on her nightgown. The same ones she got in her dream. The following morning, Tina is consoled by her best friend, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), and Nancy's boyfriend, Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp...no, don't Google It is that Johnny Depp). Later, Nancy and Glen sleep at Tina's following her mother's out-of-town departure; the sleepover is interrupted by Tina's boyfriend Rod Lane (Nick Corri). Falling asleep, Tina sees the burnt man and runs. Awakened by Tina's thrashing, Rod witnesses her being fatally slashed by an unseen force. He flees as Nancy and Glen find Tina, mistakenly blaming Rod. Nancy tells her father, Lieutenant Don Thompson (John Saxon), of Tina's death.

Wes Craven decided to incorporate his original concept art
for Freddy into the movie somehow

The next day, Rod is arrested by Don, despite his pleas of innocence. At school, Nancy falls asleep in class and finds the burnt sweater man, calling himself "Freddy Krueger", chasing her in the boiler room. Nancy burns her arm on a pipe and then awakens, disrupting a rather "riveting" study session in her classroom. She notices the burn mark on her arm and becomes horrified. At home, Nancy falls asleep in the bathtub and nearly gets drowned by Freddy. Nancy goes to Rod, who tells her what happened to Tina, and Nancy believes Freddy is responsible for Tina's death. That night, Nancy has Glen watch over her as she falls asleep. She tries to find Freddy and sees him preparing to kill Rod. He turns his attention on her; she runs and wakes up when her alarm clock goes off. Nancy and Glen go to the jail and discover Rod dead in his cell in an apparent suicide hanging. The special effects for the sheet moving around Rod's neck aren't half bad, even today. At Rod's funeral, Nancy's parents become worried when she describes the man in her dreams. Her mother Marge (Ronee Blakley) takes her to a dream clinic. In her dream, Nancy is attacked again and grabs Freddy's hat. When the staff wake her up, she has a gash on her arm and Freddy's hat in her possession, realizing she can pull items out of her dream into the real world. By now you're probably beyond confused on how this is possible, even in a fakey-fake horror movie realm such as this, but I promise you... it doesn't get explained, but you'll still have fun anyway.

He isn't quite as cool as Dr. Loomis in Halloween

At home, Marge bars the windows and begins drinking heavily. She tells Nancy that Freddy was a child murderer released on a technicality. Ain't it always the way? In a form of vigilante justice, the parents in the neighborhood of Elm Street burned him alive. Realizing that Freddy has manifested himself in the form of a dream stalker and that he desires revenge, Nancy convinces Glen to help her kill Freddy once and for all. She plans to take Freddy into the real world, and sets up booby traps in her house Home Alone style. Concerned over her influence, Glen's parents prevent the two from meeting. Glen falls asleep at their appointed hour, and in the most gruesome and chilling scene in the movie, Freddy kills him and releases his blood in a large fountain in his room, which is witnessed by Glen's mother. Just before this, Freddy calls Nancy through her phone and tells her that "he's her boyfriend now".

Tasked with fighting Krueger alone, Nancy puts Marge's drunk ass to bed and asks her father Don, who is across the street, to break into the house in twenty minutes. In her sleep, she locates Freddy at the last second and pulls him out of the dream. In the real world, Nancy runs from Freddy, who trips on the booby traps. She lights him on fire, locks him in the basement, and rushes to the door for help. The police arrive, and they realize Freddy has escaped the basement. In Marge's bedroom, they see a still-burning Freddy smother her. After Don puts out the fire, Freddy and Marge have vanished. Despite her father's words, Nancy believes she is still in danger.

Before he knew how to sell his body to Disney for money

Freddy finds and attacks Nancy once again. Realizing he is powered by his victim's fear, just completely out of the blue, she calmly turns her back on him, reducing him to nothingness. My guess is that Wes Craven wrote himself into a corner and needed a quickie method of killing Freddy so the movie could just end, because this seems a bit cheap. Thought, somehow, it makes more sense in Freddy vs Jason, so go figure. After "killing" Freddy, Nancy steps outside into a bright morning where all of her friends and mother are still alive. She gets into Glen's car to go to school when the top comes down and suddenly locks them in. The top sports Freddy's sweater pattern and colors. As the car is driven uncontrollably down the street, Marge is grabbed through the window of their front door by Freddy's gloved hand and is dragged through it to her apparent death.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Freddy Krueger isn't the wise-cracking funny guy he'll become in later sequels, he's the straight, stone-cold dream stalking killer. He's got some one-liners, but they're more chilling than hilarious. Nancy's a great a protagonist and Glen's a great sidekick, except for the fact that he's lazy half the time. John Saxon is fun, but stern as Nancy's dad Don. All-in-all, a fantastic start to a franchise that would, like many of the things from the 1980s, get worse and worse with all the excess that it was bound to partake in. Upon A Nightmare on Elm Street's release, Jason realized he'd have to share the box office dollars with another icon, and came out of his short retirement to revive his franchise...

HALLOWEEN 2K18: A Review of "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter"

Joel Schumacher recruits Corey Feldman for The Lost Boys, c. 1984

Oh boy, Final eh? Pretty gutsy calling your movie The Final Chapter. Not just retrospectively speaking, either. Like you have to be absolutely sure that you don't want to make any more movies in this franchise. Something we all know now for a fact that they weren't sure of. Perhaps this was just a cheap gimmick to boost ticket sales, like you must see this final installment or else you'll miss out. Yeah, let's just go with that. Also, they skipped a year for this one. That's right, out of the ten years that start with '198-', only 1983 didn't have either a Friday the 13th movie nor a A Nightmare on Elm Street movie in it. Kudos 1983, you were probably the only creatively charged year of that period (lol). Any who, this is Friday the 13th: The "Final" Chapter.

Even your HMO can get the axe

The night after the events of Friday the 13th Part III, police clean up the grounds and Jason Voorhees's body, believed to be dead, is taken to the morgue. At the hospital, Jason spontaneously revives and escapes from the cold storage, murdering the coroner Axel (Bruce Mahler) with a hacksaw and gutting Nurse Morgan (Lisa Freeman) with a scalpel, all while Axel watches some strange fucking workout video. I don't know, I guess that's what he likes to watch. He isn't even working out, so I don't get it. The following day, a group of teenagers drive to Crystal Lake for the weekend... which they should know after three murders and three massacres is never a good idea. At this point, the US Government should just carpet bomb Crystal Lake and start over again. Or these movies should stop trying to follow each other and just be like standalone entries... like James Bond. The group... excuse me "Killing gallery"... consists of Paul (Alan Hayes), his girlfriend Sam (Judie Aronson), virgin Sara (Barbara Howard), her boyfriend Doug (Peter Barton), socially awkward Jimmy (Crispin Glover), and jokester Ted (Lawrence Monoson). On the way, the group comes across Pamela Voorhees's tombstone... okay seriously. She's either lying on the dock, in Jason's hut, in Crystal Lake, or buried. You can't have her in four different places. Get it together, Friday the 13th. They also come across hitchhiker (Bonnie Hellman), who is soon killed by Jason. Thank you, ma'am, your cheque's in the mail.

Cause this is THRILLER!!
... wait

The teens arrive and meet neighbors Trish Jarvis (Kimberly Beck), her twelve-year-old brother Tommy (Corey Feldman), their mother (Joan Freeman), and the family dog Gordon (some dog). While going for a walk the next day, the teens meet twin sisters Tina (Camilla More) and Terri (Carey More), and go skinny dipping with them. Kudos to The Final Chapter for at least going through enough trouble to hire actual twins. Come on guys, you never go skinny-dipping. That's like Jason's calling card. Trish and Tommy happen upon the scene, and Trish is invited to a party to take place that night. Afterwards, when their car breaks down (Take a shot), Trish and Tommy are helped out by a young man named Rob (E. Erich Anderson). They take him to their house, where Tommy shows Rob several monster masks he made himself before Rob leaves to go camping. Tommy's monsters are on par with Ray Harryhausen, one wonders how a kid like that can do it.

Later that night, the teens begin the party. Actually they think it's a party, but what it actually is a ritual dance the Native Americans conceived to summon a hockey-mask killer from the woods to slaughter them all. A jealous Sam sees Tina flirting with Paul and leaves. She goes out to the lake where Jason impales her from under a raft. When Paul goes out to look for her, he is stabbed in the groin with a harpoon gun. Ouch. Terri tries to leave the party early, but before she can get on her bike Jason stabs her with a spear. After sleeping with Tina, Jimmy goes downstairs to get a bottle of wine. Jason pins his hand with a corkscrew before striking him in the face with a meat cleaver. Tina looks out a window upstairs when she is grabbed by Jason and thrown to her death, crashing on the car. While a stoned Ted watches vintage stag films with a film projector, he is stabbed in the head with a kitchen knife from the other side of the projector screen. Jason then goes upstairs where Doug and Sara finish making love in the shower. After Sara leaves, Jason kills Doug by crushing his head against the shower tile. When Sara screams upon finding Doug's body, she tries to escape only for Jason to drive a double-bit axe through the front door, killing her. You know, after all this, I think I finally figured out what Jason's weakness is... being in a group. Literally everyone who dies here is wandering off alone. If you go to Crystal Lake, stay in a group and do everything together. Yes, even sex and pot. You will be guaranteed survival.

I always think the blood in this shot is just Jason's
messed up hairdo

Trish and Tommy return from town and discover the power outage. While looking for their mother, who had been killed by Jason earlier, Trish goes to find Rob for help. It is revealed that Rob is actually the brother of Jason's victim Sandra from Friday the 13th Part 2. That's... an unnecessary and useless twist. Rob further explains to her that Jason is still alive and he came to Crystal Lake to get revenge for the murder of his sister. Why he couldn't be bothered to avenge his sister during the events of Friday the 13th Part III is anyone's guess.

Worried for Tommy's safety, Trish and Rob return to the house. They then go next door to investigate and discover the teens' bodies. Gordon flees, and Rob is killed by Jason in the basement as Trish runs home, taking Rob's machete with her. Way to avenge your sister sir. Your cheque is... actually you don't get one. You're dead. Trish and Tommy barricade the house, but Jason breaks in and chases them into Tommy's room. Trish lures Jason out of the house and escapes, then returns home and is devastated to learn that Tommy is still there. Okay, that was confusing when I wrote that out. It made sense in the movie, but writing it out confuses the shit out of me. She senses Jason behind her (like a Jedi, I guess) and tries to fight him off with the machete but is overpowered. Tommy, having disguised himself to look like Jason as a child, distracts him long enough for Trish to hit him with the machete, but she merely whacks off his mask. How Tommy's plan works is... well you get the gist. As Trish stands horrified at Jason's deformed face, Tommy takes the machete and strikes it in the side of his skull, causing him to collapse to the floor and split his head upon impact. When Tommy notices that Jason's fingers are slightly moving, he continues to hack at his body screaming, "Die! Die!" while Trish repeatedly yells out his name.

Hello? Hello? Anybody home? Think McFly!

At the hospital, Trish is visited by Tommy. He rushes in, embraces her, and gives a disturbed look while staring ahead. This is most certainly a throwback to "Thriller" by Michael Jackson, because that's exactly how it looks. I suppose they're trying to hint that Tommy will grow up to become the new Jason, but that isn't expanded on at all.

Despite the gripes, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is actually one of the better ones. It actually tries to throw some story elements in there and, as stated, throws back to Part 2 with that brother/sister connection. It obviously goes nowhere and does nothing, but it was a nice touch to know they tried. It had a couple future stars in there, like Crispin Glover (George McFly in Back to the Future) and Corey Feldman (The Goonies, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The 'Burbs, The Lost Boys) and a bunch of regular Friday the 13th style actors who were nobodies before and remained nobodies after. Funny enough, they only stuck with the notion of this one being the Final Chapter for a whole six months, as the next one was probably already well on the way.

But during Jason's short sabbatical, another challenger would enter the fray to challenge his box office dominance....

HALLOWEEN 2K18: A Review of "Friday the 13th Part III"

I think it's fun to watch the movie on 3-D mode without the 3-D glasses.
Now that's a trip.

Three years, three movies. Despite the lackluster critical reception for Friday the 13th Part 2, nobody seemed to care. Off into production probably while Part 2 was in theaters was Friday the 13th Part III. Terror comes out of the screen as this movie was filmed in what was back-then a very expensive and gimmicky format...3-D. The full title used to be Friday the 13th Part III in 3-D or Friday the 13th Part 3-D but the movie has since been replaced when people realized the 3-D sucked. Too bad none of the intentionally 3-D specific shots changed. So many things in this movie come close to the screen as an obvious point to try the 3-D effect, but without glasses and the right format, it just looks awkward. Even the credits look horrible.

Rub some Advil on that. You'll be fine.

A day after the events of Friday the 13th Part 2, a heavily wounded, unmasked Jason Voorhees goes to a lakefront store for a change of clothes. While there, he murders the store owner Harold with a meat cleaver slammed into his chest, and his wife Edna is impaled through the back of the head with a knitting needle. Jason just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I guess. Meanwhile, Chris Higgins (Dana Kimmell) and her friends travel to Higgins Haven, her old home on Crystal Lake, to spend the weekend. The gang... I mean, the "killing gallery" includes pregnant Debbie (Tracie Savage), her boyfriend Andy (Jeffrey Rogers), prankster Shelley (Larry Zerner), his blind date Vera (Catherine Parks) and stoners Chuck (David Katim) and Chili (Rachel Howard). I guess "Cheech & Chong" were unavailable. After running into a man named Abel (David Wiley), who warns them to turn back, the gang meets Chris' boyfriend Rick (Paul Kratka) at their destination. I guess "Crazy Ralph" wasn't available. He probably had other star-studded blockbusters to star in that year.

"Hey guys, I got the mask now! Am I iconic yet?"

At a convenience store, Shelley and Vera get into a confrontation with bikers Ali (Nick Savage), Fox (Gloria Charles), and Loco (Kevin O'Brien). You know...typical names for bikers. Shelley gets in the car and knocks down their motorcycles, impressing Vera. Later, the bikers show up at Higgins Haven, where they take the gas out of the van and attempt to burn the barn down to get even. Jason, who has been hiding in the barn, murders Fox and Loco with a pitchfork before beating Ali unconscious with a pipe wrench. That night, Chris and Rick head out into the woods. Chris tells Rick the main reason she returned is to confront her fears, and she explains about how she was attacked by a deformed man two years earlier, causing her to leave Crystal Lake in order to escape the trauma. That must've been in Friday the 13th Part 2 1/2, the one that couldn't see the light of day because it was just so bad.

I'll be your angry 80's biker chick for this movie.

Back at Higgins Haven, a scorned Shelley scares Vera with a hockey mask and then wanders into the barn, where Jason slashes his throat. In the scene that every Friday the 13th fan waited for, Jason takes Shelley's hockey mask to conceal his face and emerges from the barn, shooting Vera in the eye with a speargun. One of those crappy 3-D shots that probably still looked like shit in 3-D. Jason enters the house and strikes down a head-standing Andy with a machete. Debbie finishes her shower and rests on a hammock, where Jason thrusts a knife through her chest from beneath. That's right, Friday the 13th had the balls to kill a pregnant woman. You just... don't do that in a movie, man. You just don't. When the power goes out in the house, Chuck goes downstairs to the basement only for Jason to hurl him into the fuse box, electrocuting him. Chili is then impaled with a hot fire poker. Jason sure makes quick work of these people in these movies. No wonder these movies have trouble breaking ninety minutes in run time.

Oh wow, they really were going for
Cheech & Chong, weren't they?

When Rick's car dies (another common trope in these movies) Chris and Rick are forced to walk back to the house to find it in disarray. Rick steps outside to search the grounds, but Jason grabs him and crushes his skull with his bare hands. Jason then confronts Chris, who narrowly escapes the house and tries to flee in her van. The van breaks down (See what I mean?) and Chris makes her way to the barn to hide, but Jason attacks her again. Inside the barn, Chris hops in a tractor to run, but it breaks down too... alright that one I made up, but I probably got you. She actually strikes Jason over the head with a shovel, and hangs him from the rafters. He remains conscious and unmasks himself temporarily to free himself from the noose, where Chris recognizes him as the man who attacked her two years ago. He sort of mugs at her, like one would to tease someone. A revived Ali tries to attack Jason, but he is quickly dispatched. The distraction allows Chris to strike Jason in the head with an axe. Jason staggers momentarily towards her before finally collapsing. Exhausted, Chris pushes a canoe out into the lake and falls asleep.

Chris has a nightmare of an bloody, unmasked Jason running towards her from exiting the house before disappearing, which then the decomposing body of Pamela Voorhees, with her head attached, emerges from the lake to pull her in. How her body went from the docks, to Jason't hut, to the lake... is quite frankly not worth trying to figure out. The following morning, the police arrive and escort a traumatized Chris from Higgins Haven. Jason's body is shown to still be lying in the barn as the lake is shown at peace once again. Surprisingly un-anti-climactic.

Friday the 13th Part III is your usual Friday the 13th level of intelligence in your usual Friday the 13th setting with your usual kind of Friday the 13th characters. It's still fun and the kills are gruesome enough to keep ticket and rental sales at optimum levels. It's just that even by now, the Friday the 13th shtick was getting old and nobody really had any clue how to do something creative. The 3-D was a nice touch, but without the glasses or even the right copy then things just come out of the screen at you unnecessarily and it's awkward and looks awful.

HALLOWEEN 2K18: A Review of "Friday the 13th Part 2"

I wonder what made producers responsible want to make a sequel to Friday the 13th? What would you make it about? Well, they found a way. Already with like six bodies on its conscience, the franchise was gearing up to make the 1980s one memorable decade. Just shy of a year later, not even a full year, and Friday the 13th Part 2 came out in theaters, and boy, this is when the movies started descending into the realm of hilarious Hollywood trash. Interesting to note, these movies weren't released in the Fall, like you'd expect. No, these movies were coming out in Spring. I don't know who dictated horror movies' release schedules but I sure hope they got fired.

These two would be in a serial killer Hallmark card

Two months after the Camp Crystal Lake massacre, sole survivor Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) is recovering from her traumatic experience. In her apartment, she wakes up to take a shower. As Alice opens the refrigerator to get her cat some food, she finds the decapitated head of Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) in her refrigerator and is murdered by an unseen adult Jason Voorhees (Steve Daskawisz) with an ice pick to her temple. Jason walks around in flannel and overalls, sporting a burlap sack over his head with a single eye-hole cut out. Not yet the infamous iconic Jason look we'd soon get. He doesn't even carry a machete, yet. This Jason carries an axe. For having a set picture in our head of what Jason Voorhees looks like, this franchise sure took a while to get there.

Jason picks Alice's brain
*ba dum tss*

Five years later, camp counselor Paul Holt (John Furey) hosts a counselor training camp near Camp Crystal Lake. The camp is attended by Sandra (Marta Kober), her boyfriend Jeff (Bill Randolph), troublemaker Scott (Russell Todd), tomboy Terry (Kirsten Baker), wheelchair-bound Mark (Tom McBride), sweet-natured Vickie (Lauren-Marie Taylor), jokester Ted (Stu Charno), and Paul's assistant Ginny Field (Amy Steel), as well as many other trainees. These moronic children will be the shooting gallery for the evening. Kindly don't get emotionally attached to any of them because they're bound not to last long. Around the campfire that night, Paul tells the counselors about the legend of Jason, of how he survived his drowning, grew up living in the woods, and is now seeking to kill any intruders to avenge his mother's death. That's a far different legend than the one we got just one movie ago, about just how Jason drowned and the Camp is cursed. Oh well, I'm sure legends change as frequently as Star Wars does. As Ted appears with a mask and a spear, Paul reassures everyone that Jason is dead and that Camp Crystal Lake is off limits. You know what means! Time to infiltrate it and have sex! That night, Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) wanders onto the property to warn the group but is garroted from behind a tree by Jason. I thought it'd be hilarious if Crazy Ralph became a trope of the films, but it turns out he was a two-trick pony. The following day, Jeff and Sandra sneak off to Camp Crystal Lake upon finding a carcass, before getting caught by Deputy Winslow (Jack Marks) and returned to the camp. Later, Winslow spots Jason and chases him into the woods before he is killed with a hammer claw.

Jason's stylistic table and dinnerware set from Sears

Back at camp, Paul offers the others one last night on the town before the training begins; only Ginny and Ted accept his offer. Jeff and Sandra are forced to stay behind as punishment for sneaking off. At the bar, Ginny muses that if Jason were still alive and witnessed his mother's death, it may have left him with no distinction between life and death, right or wrong. Valid deduction Ginny, but too bady anybody with a brain stem could've told you that. Paul dismisses the idea, proclaiming that Jason is nothing but an urban legend. Despite two murders since his drowning and a massacre just five years prior. But yeah, Jason's probably just made up local-talk mumbo-jumbo. Meanwhile, the legend of Jason appears at the camp and kills the counselors one by one. Scott has his throat slit with a machete while caught in a rope trap, and Terry is killed off-screen upon finding his dead body. Mark gets the machete slammed into his face and falls down a flight of stairs. Jason then moves upstairs and impales Jeff and Sandra with a spear as they have sex (make a Friday the 13th drinking game and see how many times you have to drink when people die having sex), and also stabs Vickie with a kitchen knife. FUN FACT: The actress who played Sandra was underage when she filmed her full-frontal nudity scenes, and naturally the studio got in huge trouble so the footage was permanently destroyed and never released. Why is that a fun fact?... uh, I have no clue. So, you know what? WEIRD FACT.

She's cosplaying as "indiscriminate
slutty slasher movie victim #1"

Later, Ginny and Paul return to find the place in disarray. In the dark, Jason ambushes Paul and then chases Ginny throughout the camp and into the woods, where she comes across his shack. After barricading herself inside, she finds an altar with Pamela Voorhees' head on it, surrounded by a pile of Jason's victims (the sheriff, Terry, and a decomposing Alice) with the machete that killed his mother placed on the altar. Ginny puts on Pamela's sweater and tries to psychologically convince Jason that she is his mother. Jaosn, like a dumbass, falls for it. "Oh hi, woman-who-looks-nothing-like-my-DEAD-mother. I guess you're my mother". Thankfully, the ruse fails when he spots his mother's head on the altar, because I guess Ginny in her infinite wisdom forgot to fucking hide the real head, and Jason attacks Ginny. Paul appears and attacks Jason, but he is quickly overwhelmed. Just as Jason is about to kill Paul with a pickaxe, Ginny picks up the machete and slams it down into his shoulder, seemingly killing him.

Paul and Ginny return to the cabin. They think that Jason has followed them, but when they open the door, they are greeted by Terry's dog, Muffin. Suddenly, an unmasked Jason bursts through the window from behind and grabs Ginny. She then awakens to her being loaded into an ambulance and calls out for Paul, who is nowhere to be seen and his fate left ambiguous. Ah, yet another "twist ending" undone by the "It was all a dream" bullshit. Back in the shack, Pamela Voorhees' head remains on the altar as Jason is nowhere to be seen. So... there you go. Nothing got accomplished.

Friday the 13th Part 2 is when the franchise hit the skids. Obviously, it's still dumb popcorn entertainment, but you really have to lower your intelligence when you watch this movie, or really any movie in this franchise. The characters are stock, the story is recycled and the ending is a complete copy of the last movie's ending, with Jason being seen and then not being seen at all. CONFUSING. The kills are what makes the movie, as will be the case with all of these movies, but still, don't expect groundbreaking horror here.

HALLOWEEN 2K18: A Review of "Friday the 13th" (1980)

Jason trying to collect Alice's student loan payments

Happy Octoberfest once again. I hope you have your reading glasses on because I've got eighteen, count 'em, EIGHTEEN Halloween posts coming your way. It's time for our Friday the 13th vs A Nightmare on Elm Street showdown. Let's get started, because we've got a lot to cover.

Following the success of Halloween in 1978, the slasher film genre was born. A "slasher movie" is any horror movie defined with a large body count. While Halloween's was only four bodies, it started the wave of horror movies to start casting sexy girls as dumb damsels with big yams who get axed because they can't pay attention while some schmuck is giving them a good boning in a dank forest cabin. While Halloween invented the notion of these events occurring as a trope, a commonplace, a very foundation piece of the genre, another series took them and made them household gags. This is Friday the 13th, a movie that teaches us it is not okay to have premarital sex because odds are you'll get a harpoon through the chest during. A movie that the director even admitted was nothing more than a cash-in on Halloween's success, and not only was it too a box office success, it would spawn NINE fucking sequels. Do you think that's enough?

Crazy Ralph could've been the killer

The movie opens in the summer of 1958 at Camp Crystal Lake, two counselors named Barry and Claudette sneak away from a campfire and into a storage barn. They prepare to have sex before an unseen assailant enters and murders them. Literally right from the get-go, the entire franchise is letting us know what we're going to be seeing repeatedly happen for the next decade.

Twenty-one years later, on June 13, 1979, newly hired camp counselor Annie Phillips (Robbi Morgan) asks for directions to the reopened Camp Crystal Lake. An elderly man named Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) warns her against going, claiming that the camp has a "death curse." Despite only have one murder in its entire history, the whole camp is cursed now. Seems simple enough. A friendly truck driver named Enos (Rex Everhart) agrees to give Annie a lift halfway to the camp. During the drive, Enos warns Annie about the camp, informing her that a young boy drowned at Crystal Lake in 1957 and about the two murders the following year. Really? Two? We only saw the one... well I guess I'll eat my foot now. After Enos drops her off, Annie hitches another ride from an unseen assailant, who chases her into the woods and slashes her throat. Well, the main character's dead. Time to roll credits...

"I thought I was going to be a small-time actor, then I
took an arrow to the neck" - Kevin Bacon

...wait, she wasn't the main character? Ah nuts. I guess we gotta keep going. At the camp, counselors Ned (Mark Nelson) , Jack (Kevin fucking Bacon), Bill (Harry Crosby III), Marcie (Jeannine Taylor), Brenda (Laurie Bartram), and Alice (Adrienne King), along with the owner Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer), refurbish the cabins and facilities. As a thunderstorm approaches, Steve leaves the campground to stock supplies, leaving his camp counselors to fend for themselves in an otherwise abandoned summer camp. Meanwhile, the killer arrives at the camp and stalks the counselors. Ned sees someone walk into one of the cabins and follows, only to be killed off-screen. Later, while Jack and Marcie have sex in one of the cabin's bunk beds, they are unaware of Ned's body directly above them, with his throat slit. In the film's most iconic scene, Marcie leaves to use the camp bathrooms and during her absence, Jack's throat is pierced with an arrow from beneath the bed. The killer then follows Marcie to the bathrooms and slams an axe into her face. Meanwhile, Brenda hears a child's voice calling for help and ventures outside her cabin to the archery range, only for the range lights to turn on as she is attacked off-screen. Steve later returns to the camp and is confronted by the unseen killer, who stabs him. So, as you can see, these kids are getting whacked one-by-one pretty quickly. I mean the movie is only ninety-five minutes long, so with this many deaths they have to get hacking pretty quickly.

Alice and Bill are worried by their friends' disappearances, and why they've only chosen now to notice is beyond me. They leave the main cabin to investigate, which is... such a bad idea. They discover a bloody axe in Brenda's bed, the phones disconnected, and the cars inoperable. Boy, this killer has been a busy-body, haven't they? When the power goes out, Bill goes to check on the generator and is murdered by the killer. Alice then heads out to look for him. Upon finding Bill's body impaled with arrows to the generator room's door, she flees back to the main cabin to hide only to be traumatized further when Brenda's body is thrown through the window.

Marcie trying the new Axe product...
*ba dum tss*

Hiding inside, Alice sees a vehicle pull up and rushes outside, thinking it is Steve. Instead, she is greeted by a middle-aged woman named Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), who claims to be an old friend of Steve's. As Alice brings her inside, Mrs. Voorhees begins to reminisce that her son Jason was the young boy who drowned in 1957. She blames his death on the counselors who were supposed to be watching him, but they instead were having sex and not paying attention to Jason's drowning. Sex and Camp Crystal Lake do not mix. Having sex at Camp Crystal Lake is a surefire guaranteed way to get yourself killed. If this isn't a PSA for abstinence than I don't know what is. Revealing herself as the killer, Mrs. Voorhees turns violent and rushes toward Alice with a bowie knife, attempting to kill her. THAT's RIGHT! The killer in this movie isn't Jason, but his mom! That's... unexpected for someone who only vaguely knows something about this franchise. In the ensuing chase, Alice finds Annie's body inside Mrs. Voorhees' car, because I guess she just needs someone to talk to on long car trips (though that would smell nasty after about an hour) and Steve's body hanging from a tree. Following a confrontation in which Mrs. Voorhees is knocked out, Alice escapes to the shore. Just as she begins to relax, Mrs. Voorhees finds her and attempts to kill her again with a machete. During the final struggle, Alice ultimately decapitates Mrs. Voorhees with her machete, in one of the silliest slow-motion scenes you'll ever see. Afterwards, a traumatized Alice boards and falls asleep inside a canoe, which floats out on Crystal Lake.

This is the face most dentists make

Just as Alice awakens and sees the police arriving the next morning, Jason's decomposing body suddenly emerges from the lake and drags her underwater. She then awakens in a hospital, where a police officer and medical staff tend to her. When Alice asks about Jason, the officer says that there was no sign of any boy. Alice says, "Then he's still there," as the lake is shown with a single ripple on the open water. This, to me, ruined the ending. The ending to the movie should've been the decomposing Jason coming out of the lake and taking Alice underwater. The bullshit about it being all a dream and then her saying "then he's still out there" shouldn't have been added, but that's just me.

So there you go, the inaugural Friday the 13th. It set up a lot of tropes that would be abused in the future sequels, but considering what we get in future sequels, it isn't really that much of a "dumb" horror movie. It's pretty cheesy, hell what horror movie isn't, but it still works. It's just Halloween, the movie it was trying to cash-in on. It's simple, not really all that gory, a little crude, and overacted as hell. The entire franchise wouldn't start getting "campy" (pun intended) until the sequels would tear it to pieces. Stick around, because Cody's Halloween 2018 Spectacular has only just begun.