Friday the 13th Countdown, day 8
May. 10th, 2005 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendi(Previous entries, as always, can be found here)
Yes, we're up to the origin of Zombie Jason:
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
Concept: It's a well-known scientific fact that if you stab a corpse with a metal pole, and the pole gets struck by lightning, that the corpse will come back to life. In spite of this, Tommy Jarvis, last seen re-institutionalized at the end of Part V, has been released, and the first thing he does is grab a buddy to go stab Jason's corpse with a tent pole during a storm. Lightning strikes, Jason wakes up, and Bad Things start to happen (starting with Tommy's buddy getting his heart ripped out), as Jason heads to a local summer camp, wreaking havoc en route. Tommy has trouble convincing the small-town sheriff that Jason is really alive (because small-town sheriffs never believe that there's a monster), but manages to seduce the sheriff's slutty daughter (also a camp counselor), who sets him free, but not before Jason has killed all the other counselors, the cops, and a few other other folks.
Primary Killer: Zombie Jason.
Kills: Jason adds eighteen more notches to his machete this time.
Really Bad Kills: I'm not a big fan of the triple decapitation, simply because it's just not very believable (and is just there to up the body count). But that's really the only issue I've got.
Really Good Kills: The first kill, with Jason punching through Allen's chest and grabbing his heart, is a nice example of how much more powerful Zombie Jason is (and was swiped as an MO for Michael Myers in the later Halloween movies). Silly as it is, Nikki's death, with her face leaving an impression on the side of the van, is great fun. And the deaths of Lizbeth (stabbed by Jason while running in the mud after watching her boyfriend die) and Sheriff Garris (bent in two, broken back) are slow and nasty, the sorts of deaths that make you realize just how scary this world is.
Celebrities: Chock full of 'em. Allen, our opening victim, was Ron "Horshack" Palillo on Welcome Back, Kotter. Michael Swan, who plays the cop who gets his head crushed, has starred in a zillion soaps. Alan Blumenfield, one of the three corporate warriors who gets decapitated, is the Rabbi on Gilmore Girls. Tom Fridley, who plays Cort and gets a hunting knife in the skull, is John Travolta's nephew. Reneé Jones, who gets her head twisted off by Jason, is now a star of Days of Our Lives. Darcy "Nikki" Demoss was a castmember in tons of borderline porn (T & A Academy 2, for instance), and was a star of the Playboy Channel series Eden. Jennifer "Megan" Cook was the little girl on V: The Series, and went on to found Celestial Seasonings (no, I'm not kidding -- you'd think they'd be smart and release a flavor called "Friday the ThirTEAnth, but do they listen to me? No). She also co-starred with Demoss in the aforementioned T & A Academy 2. And, of course, no B-movie fan can forget Thom Matthews, who plays Tommy in this film, and also starred in the first two Return of the Living Dead flicks.
Denouement: Megan and Tommy lure Jason out onto Crystal Lake, and a combination of fire, an outboard motor, and a chain cause Jason to be buried at the bottom of the lake again.
Miscellany: In Part V, we were told that Jason's body had been cremated. The opening scene here proves that pretty damned wrong. The movie was filmed in Covington, GA, not too far from Atlanta. As of this movie, the town of Crystal Lake has been renamed "Forest Green" to attract more tourists.
Overall: Sure, this one's cheese, but it's such fun cheese. From the James Bond parody in the opening credits to the Alice Cooper songs, it's just a camp fest (in every sense). For the first time, we get to see the camp counselors actually having to take care of kids (and failing miserably). We see the traditional Final Girl candidate (Paula) hacked to pieces in her cabin, while the slutty, perky blonde (and therefore, traditionally, doomed) character comes out the heroine. We get some great lines, like one camper asking another, "so, what were you gonna be when you grew up?" And the classic foreshadowed death -- the drunken caretaker looks at his bottle, says, "Darling, you're going to be the death of me. But what a lovely way to go," and then tosses it away, only to have Jason grab it, smash it, and slice his throat up.
It's not perfect -- we have some victims (like Steven and Annette, killed together on a motorcycle) or the paintballers, who seem to be there just for the sake of the body count. And, like too many films from the late '80s, this was bowdlerized by Jack "Tool" Valenti's MPAA, so it's not a very gory film. In at least some cases (notably the murders of Sissy and Darren), there's clearly some great stuff on the cutting room floor, but we can't give credit for stuff that's not in the film itself. Still, this film is a blast, easily the campiest Jason film to date, and one that belongs in any fan's collection.
Tomorrow: We're looking at the top three, now.
Yes, we're up to the origin of Zombie Jason:
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
Concept: It's a well-known scientific fact that if you stab a corpse with a metal pole, and the pole gets struck by lightning, that the corpse will come back to life. In spite of this, Tommy Jarvis, last seen re-institutionalized at the end of Part V, has been released, and the first thing he does is grab a buddy to go stab Jason's corpse with a tent pole during a storm. Lightning strikes, Jason wakes up, and Bad Things start to happen (starting with Tommy's buddy getting his heart ripped out), as Jason heads to a local summer camp, wreaking havoc en route. Tommy has trouble convincing the small-town sheriff that Jason is really alive (because small-town sheriffs never believe that there's a monster), but manages to seduce the sheriff's slutty daughter (also a camp counselor), who sets him free, but not before Jason has killed all the other counselors, the cops, and a few other other folks.
Primary Killer: Zombie Jason.
Kills: Jason adds eighteen more notches to his machete this time.
Really Bad Kills: I'm not a big fan of the triple decapitation, simply because it's just not very believable (and is just there to up the body count). But that's really the only issue I've got.
Really Good Kills: The first kill, with Jason punching through Allen's chest and grabbing his heart, is a nice example of how much more powerful Zombie Jason is (and was swiped as an MO for Michael Myers in the later Halloween movies). Silly as it is, Nikki's death, with her face leaving an impression on the side of the van, is great fun. And the deaths of Lizbeth (stabbed by Jason while running in the mud after watching her boyfriend die) and Sheriff Garris (bent in two, broken back) are slow and nasty, the sorts of deaths that make you realize just how scary this world is.
Celebrities: Chock full of 'em. Allen, our opening victim, was Ron "Horshack" Palillo on Welcome Back, Kotter. Michael Swan, who plays the cop who gets his head crushed, has starred in a zillion soaps. Alan Blumenfield, one of the three corporate warriors who gets decapitated, is the Rabbi on Gilmore Girls. Tom Fridley, who plays Cort and gets a hunting knife in the skull, is John Travolta's nephew. Reneé Jones, who gets her head twisted off by Jason, is now a star of Days of Our Lives. Darcy "Nikki" Demoss was a castmember in tons of borderline porn (T & A Academy 2, for instance), and was a star of the Playboy Channel series Eden. Jennifer "Megan" Cook was the little girl on V: The Series, and went on to found Celestial Seasonings (no, I'm not kidding -- you'd think they'd be smart and release a flavor called "Friday the ThirTEAnth, but do they listen to me? No). She also co-starred with Demoss in the aforementioned T & A Academy 2. And, of course, no B-movie fan can forget Thom Matthews, who plays Tommy in this film, and also starred in the first two Return of the Living Dead flicks.
Denouement: Megan and Tommy lure Jason out onto Crystal Lake, and a combination of fire, an outboard motor, and a chain cause Jason to be buried at the bottom of the lake again.
Miscellany: In Part V, we were told that Jason's body had been cremated. The opening scene here proves that pretty damned wrong. The movie was filmed in Covington, GA, not too far from Atlanta. As of this movie, the town of Crystal Lake has been renamed "Forest Green" to attract more tourists.
Overall: Sure, this one's cheese, but it's such fun cheese. From the James Bond parody in the opening credits to the Alice Cooper songs, it's just a camp fest (in every sense). For the first time, we get to see the camp counselors actually having to take care of kids (and failing miserably). We see the traditional Final Girl candidate (Paula) hacked to pieces in her cabin, while the slutty, perky blonde (and therefore, traditionally, doomed) character comes out the heroine. We get some great lines, like one camper asking another, "so, what were you gonna be when you grew up?" And the classic foreshadowed death -- the drunken caretaker looks at his bottle, says, "Darling, you're going to be the death of me. But what a lovely way to go," and then tosses it away, only to have Jason grab it, smash it, and slice his throat up.
It's not perfect -- we have some victims (like Steven and Annette, killed together on a motorcycle) or the paintballers, who seem to be there just for the sake of the body count. And, like too many films from the late '80s, this was bowdlerized by Jack "Tool" Valenti's MPAA, so it's not a very gory film. In at least some cases (notably the murders of Sissy and Darren), there's clearly some great stuff on the cutting room floor, but we can't give credit for stuff that's not in the film itself. Still, this film is a blast, easily the campiest Jason film to date, and one that belongs in any fan's collection.
Tomorrow: We're looking at the top three, now.