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I have a cool mom. Let me just put that out there right now. I had one of those mom’s that would let us kids watch horror movies before my brother and I hit double-digits in age. As a child of the 80s I grew up during the greatest run of horror movies, in particular, the SLASHER FLICK, dun-dun-DUNNNN!
Of course there are people out there of different generations than mine who will say that the greatest horror/slasher movie run was in the 90s or 2000s. Those people are dead wrong. I will give people a pass with the Star Wars movies as far as which trilogy is the best. A lot of people pick the trilogy they grew up with. For example, a nephew of mine prefers the prequel trilogy. Why? Well, first of all, he’s insane, and second, he grew up on Jar-Jar Binks. But I will never accept the generational argument when it comes to horror and slasher movies. The 80s were the golden age, period!
The 80s gave us four big names in horror, at least for me: Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. Each character has their legions of fans who engage in never-ending debates over who is top dog. For me, It’s Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th fame.
As of this writing, there have been a total of twelve Friday the 13th movies with the latest one released in 2009. Some say the franchise needs to stay permanently retired while I will watch any and every Friday the 13th movie that comes out so long as Jason is in it…or tease that Jason is in it, part 9!
Jason has been my guy since I first saw him in part two when I was about 8 years old (thanks mom!). My routine as a child watching scary movies was always the same: look down or close my eyes during the early scary bits and as the movie progresses, I slowly build up the guts to watch the rest without looking away. That was my routine every time I watched an early Friday the 13th movie. It didn’t matter if I had watched a particular installment many times already. For example, I would still look down when Jason killed the nurse in the hospital in The Final Chapter but by the time Tommy cut Jason’s mask off I was glued.
I love Jason and the Friday the 13th franchise so much that I own the entire collection on blu-ray, DVD, some on VHS and a 3D version (although it doesn’t really work) of part 3. And we cannot talk about these lovely slasher movies, especially F13 without also mentioning the lovely female victims and oddball male victims. Let’s half-ass Jason!
“Look what you did to him!”
Mrs. voorhees
FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)
My Rating: 8/10
CEREAL: A couple of camp councillors were busy screwing each other’s brains out as a young deformed camp attendee drowns in the lake, causing his mother to lose her shit and go on a killing spree.
GRAPE JUICE: Betsy Palmer as Pamela Voorhees is so damn good! A lot of female AND male actors today can learn from her performance. Much like the first Jaws movie, F13 part one’s scares are mostly based on what you don’t see. I wish I was in the theater when it was revealed that the killer was a woman. And she was awesome. A young Kevin Bacon appears in this movie and has a great death scene.
“Jason’s out there.”
Paul
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2
My Rating: 9/10
CEREAL: Jason Voorhees goes on a murder rampage at Camp Crystal lake to avenge his mother’s death.
GRAPE JUICE: First and foremost, my overall favorite Jason Voorhees look is the potato sack with overalls look he has in this movie. I love the hockey mask but the sack feels more scary to me. This is also where the classic, “Jason’s out there” campfire story takes place and where we see the shrine Jason built for his mother. This one also started the Jason face reveal which was something many including myself always waited for when we saw a new F13 movie.
“Is that all you’re gonna do this weekend? Smoke dope?“
shelly
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3
My rating: 8/10
CEREAL: Just when Jason Voorhees thought he was done killin’, a fresh crop of victims head up to Camp Crystal Lake to totally not get slaughtered, accompanied by a woman who had a run-in with Jason previously.
GRAPE JUICE: The debut of the iconic hockey mask takes place here. Undoubtedly the best thing that came from this movie because it sure wasn’t the 80s electric disco soundtrack. This movie was also released in 3D in theaters back in the day but I was too young to go see it. They never released the 3D version on video until the 90s and it didn’t work, at least for me. The kills get more graphic here and I dare say this is when F13 converted into more slasher than horror.
“Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!”
TOMMY JARVIS
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 4: THE FINAL CHAPTER
My Rating: 10/10
CEREAL: Jason Voorhees just can’t catch a break as yet another batch of potential victims have planted themselves on his turf.
GRAPE JUICE: Mostly universally agreed to be the best movie in the entire franchise. I always say that Jason from part two in this movie would have made part 4 even better. Great kills and great gore effects by Tom Savini. This was also the last time that I gave a crap about the potential victims. It felt like all of them were given enough character for you to want them to live through everything. Crispin Glover and Lawrence Monoson have excellent chemistry as Ted and Jimbo and I was one of those people who believed Corey Feldman was going to be the new Jason going forward. I can’t think of anything wrong with this movie.
“You don’t set a place for a dead person!”
jake
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 5: A NEW BEGINNING
My Rating: 7/10
CEREAL: Tommy Jarvis is now a man and is shipped to a “looney bin” for troubled youth due to his ordeal with Jason only to find that someone dressed as his past has arrived at the looney bin to haunt him.
GRAPE JUICE: Part two of what’s known as the Tommy Jarvis trilogy. Thank God The Final Chapter wasn’t actually the final chapter! This is one of the lower ranked movies in the franchise since it’s an angry dad dressing up as Jason to avenge his son’s death but the characters totally make this movie for me. Who doesn’t love Edna and her idiot man-baby son! Reggie the reckless and his Michael Jackson wannabe brother. Violet the emo girl, Jake the loveable studderer and of course, Dudley from Diff’rent Strokes. Not really Jason but it was someone pretending to be Jason and that’s all I needed.
“Jason belongs in Hell, and I’m gonna see to it that he gets there.”
tommy jarvis
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 6: JASON LIVES
My Rating: 7/10
CEREAL: Tommy Jarvis accidentally brings the real Jason back to life and has to bring him back to death.
GRAPE JUICE: The finale of the Jarvis trilogy. The director went more for wacky horror here and I am ultimately fine with it since by the time this installment was released I was cheering for Jason anyway. Be that as it may, not my favorite in the series but not the worst. I remember recording this on VHS back in the day and watching it over and over. I even remember the orange and black sticker on the side of the VHS tape. Perhaps it’s because I watched it endlessly that it became dry and not one of my favorites but still great with great kills.
“What do you think of ‘Starlacon’?”
EDDIE
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 7: THE NEW BLOOD
My Rating: 7/10
CEREAL: Jason is accidentally brought back to life by a woman who can use the Force.
GRAPE JUICE: I wanted to at least give this one an 8 out of 10 because of the SUGAR but I can’t. I love this one. I like how Jason looks and this is the first time Kane Hodder played the role. I like the kills. I like the babes. I like the characters. But the whole mind powers thing and Jedi powers vs zombie at the end….I know bringing Jason back to life via lightning and a pole in A New Beginning was a little cuckoo but that is more believable to me than using the Force outside of a Star Wars movie. Still not the worst in the series but come on. The SUGAR and the woman who played Maddy helped this movie a lot for me. Diana Barrows had a scream that rings your ears like a coach blowing a gym whistle in your face. She was great and her fear was great.
“Better swim, Rennie, before Jason pulls you down.”
peter
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 8: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN
My Rating: 4/10
CEREAL: Jason stowaways on a college graduate cruise ship and ends up in New York City.
GRAPE JUICE: I remember being a young teen or almost teen boy, hearing about this movie and being so excited. I had to wait for it to come out on video since I was still too young to see it in theaters. I remember hearing a radio ad for this movie while browsing Bandito Video one day and hearing, “Remember me?” in the ad. I thought to myself, “Jason’s gonna talk? Awesome!” Nope. He didn’t talk. As dumb as I now think that would’ve been it would’ve been a lot better than what we got. I think the main problem is having to wait till the third quarter of the movie to get to New York City. And the SUGAR. Big problem there, too. Still not the worst.
SUGAR: None. Put a gun to my head and I’ll pick the Asian girl but there is no gun to my head. No hotties + waiting till Q3 for NYC = Booooo!
“I’ll take a Voorhees burger and a side of Jason fingers.”
CREIGHTON DUKE
JASON GOES TO HELL (F13 PT 9)
My Rating: 2/10
CEREAL: Jason, in slug form, finds out that he has a sister and he can crawl up her vagoo to use her body to regenerate back into normal form.
GRAPE JUICE: I was pumped when I heard about this. I was even old enough to see it by myself in the theater but I waited to rent it on VHS. There was no internet back then so I never heard any spoilers leading up to my first time watching this one. This one was fucking stupid. Not regular stupid, FUCKING stupid. They teased us in the beginning with a badass looking Jason only to kill him off in the first 5 minutes, so then we have to watch him in slug form crawl into various mouths so he can make his way to his sister, for fuck’s sake, crawl up her vagoo and become normal Jason. He can only become normal Jason again if he inserts himself into a relative so they gave him a sister. When he crawls up the vagoos or pukes himself into the mouths of the unrelated he simply takes over their bodies until he has no use for them and he pukes himself into the mouth or up the vagoo of someone else. He just needs to enter a hole. And no SUGAR. The only reason for the 2 out of 10 is the Freddy hand at the very very very end.
SUGAR: None. Not even the woman in the tent. Pull the trigger!
“Guys! It’s okay, he just wanted his machete back!”
PROFESSOR LOWE
JASON X (F13 PT10)
My Rating: 5/10
CEREAL: Jason is captured in the present but stupid present day humans screw it up and he ends up getting frozen for hundreds of years until stupid future day humans bring him back to life on a spaceship.
GRAPE JUICE: This was the very first Friday the 13th movie I saw in the theater. I saw it on opening day in a big FAMOUS PLAYERS SILVER CITY cinema. And I was the only one in the theater for that showing. For real. By this time it had been a good number of years since a F13 movie, especially a GOOD F13 movie. Word had been going around about a possible Jason vs Freddy movie but talks hit a snag so they made this one. I don’t hate this one. This was Kane Hodder’s last time playing Jason and he was great. The designs of both normal Jason and Super Jason are great but I wasn’t pumped going into this as I normally was with F13 movies because I was older, Jason Goes To Hell was awful and this was a time when CGI was a nightmare (see my MCU Half-Assed Review). Low on SUGAR, too but a fun one.
“Being dead wasn’t a problem, but being forgotten, now that’s a bitch.“
freddy krueger
FREDDY VS JASON (F13 PT11 & ELM STREET PT WHATEVER)
My Rating: 7/10
CEREAL: Freddy Krueger in the dream world uses Jason Voorhees in the real world to kill so he can return to people’s nightmares, but you can’t tame a wild Jason.
GRAPE JUICE: The fight we were waiting for. I, of course, was cheering for Jason. It takes a while to get to the actual Freddy vs Jason content but the journey there is fine. I’m not the biggest fan of the Jason Mewes wannabe character or many of the others but they could get worse (and they do!). Once we do get to Jason kicking Freddy’s ass (sorry not sorry, Freddy fans), it’s a nice long and gory battle. Jason wins in the end because fuck Freddy. Robert Englund portrayed Freddy while a guy taller than Kane Hodder played Jason (Half-assed, off the top of my head. You were great, though, brother!). And despite Jason utterly destroying Freddy they left it open for a round two. Some say that they heard from people who heard that Ash from the Evil Dead series could be added. ‘Scut Farkus’ from A Christmas Story has a cool cameo role in this one.
“Kill for Mother…”
PAMELA VOORHEES
FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009 REBOOT; F13 PT 12)
My Rating: 4/10
CEREAL: A series reboot. A bunch of Old Navy mannequins come-to-life and takeover Crystal Lake where Jason Voorhees has a cool underground lair and a captive.
GRAPE JUICE: Maybe it’s my old age but I hated everyone in this movie who didn’t have the last name Voorhees. I even hated the poor girl who was being held captive by Jason and I hated her brother and I hated the girl who was trying to help him find his sister who I hated as previously mentioned. It’s like if you took the cast of Clueless, minus Alicia Silverstone because she was awesome, and put them in a Friday the 13th movie. Just a bunch of beautiful people acting like annoying assholes and doing outdated 90s humor. Jason looked awesome and I even liked the woman who played his mother (Betsy Palmer turned down the role to return). I also liked that we see Jason in a face wrap, slash, sack for the first while. Other than that and cool kills, I hated this one.
SUGAR: Sugar-free. Plastic does nothing for me.
Some would use the word unfortunately when they say that Jason was definitely killed in the awful 2009 reboot. Some would also use that word when they talk about how Hollywood keeps rebooting properties instead of coming up with something new. In the case of Friday the 13th, I say THANK GOD, or for the atheists, THANK BIG BANG they killed Jason off in the 2009 reboot. And THANK GOD BIG BANG Hollywood keeps rebooting properties. Thank them all because it is time for a new Friday the 13th movie, not just because I love the franchise, but because the next one would be the 13th one! Just don’t fuck it up!
