Friday the 13th countdown, Day 9
May. 11th, 2005 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendi(previous entries can be found over here)
Yes, we're down to the final three. Today's entry is the best of the first five, which were the straightforward slasher flicks.
Yep, we're talking Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter*
Concept: Chris didn't really kill Jason, nor did the paramedics do their job very well in declaring him dead, and Jason leaves the morgue to wreak more havoc, this time on a group of partying teenagers. Those teenagers have decided to rent a cabin for a weekend and party the entire time, and (better yet) on the way there, they meet hot teenage twins! The only other cabin nearby belongs to a single mother and her two kids, a daughter who practically has "Final Girl" tattooed on her (or would, if it weren't for the fact that Final Girls don't get tatoos), and a son who's obsessed with horror makeup.
Killer: Human Jason (although some folks suggest that his miraculous recovery indicate that this is actually Zombie Jason).
Kills: Jason kills 13 (ha!) folks before biting it himself.
Really Bad Kills: None.
Really Good Kills: Lots. The opening kill is great, not just for the fact that a guy named Axel dies long before Eddie Murphy and Guns'n'Roses had taught us to appreciate how much we could hate someone with that name, but because it's just solid -- a hacksaw to the neck, thanks to some superb Savini F/X, is a great way to kick things off.
As a guy, I still cringe at the death of Paul. The poor kid had pissed off his girlfriend by flirting with one of the twins at the party. The girlfriend swims out to the middle of the lake to pout (and get stabbed to death by Jason), and when Paul follows her, he finds her dead body on a raft, and swims like crazy towards the shore. Just as he's getting to "safety," Jason pops up out of the water and spears him in the groin.
Twin Tina gets points for being the first defenestration death in the series. Post-coitus (of course), she peeks out the second-story window and sees that her sister's bike is still in the driveway. As it sinks in that something is wrong, Jason (who's always had an impeccable sense of timing), reaches through window, grabs Tina, and flings her into the air and onto the roof of a car.
And, of course, there's the rapid-fire deaths of the final three partiers -- horndog Ted, and lovebirds Doug and Sara (who would have been Final Girl material if she didn't sleep with Doug) are great. Ted's killed when the stag film he's watching is cut, and while he stares at the camera, Jason stabs Ted through the movie screen from behind. Doug's head is then crushed in the shower, and when Sara finds the body, she runs, pounds on the front door, trying to get out, only to have Jason fling an axe through the door and into her chest.
(And yes, Sarah and Tina's deaths relied on some major coincidence -- what if Sarah had gone to a different door, etc? -- but they're just too damned fun to really complain about).
But none of these compare to my favorite death in the entire series. I'm talking about the murder of Jimmy, the "Dead Fuck." After finally getting laid (with Twin Tina), he's downstairs, ready to celebrate with his buddy Ted, and grabs some wine. He then utters perhaps the greatest final words in Friday the 13th history: "Where the hell's the corkscrew?" Jason, always helpful, stabs Jimmy in the hand with the corkscrew. He then figures, logically, that the next thing that Jimmy was going to ask for was a meat cleaver, so he slams that into Jimmy's head. This death has everything -- humor, great f/x, and Crispin Glover getting a meat cleaver to the face. What more could you ask for? Click here to see Glover with a face full of cleaver.**
Celebrities: Aside from Crispin Glover, we also get Corey Feldman as Tommy, the little kid who kills Jason. Then there's Peter "Doug" Barton, who was Matthew Star on The Powers of Matthew Star and a star of any number of soaps. Alan "spear to the groin" Hayes wasn't technically a star, but he was one of the leads in Neon Maniacs, which is still one of my all-time favorite movies. Lawrence Monsoon, who plays Ted the horndog, was the lead in The Last American Virgin, a true obscure classic of the '80s. And Bruce Mahler, who plays coroner and first victim Axel, is best known as Fackler in the Police Academy movies and as Rabbi Glickman on Seinfeld.
Denouement: After Trish and Rob (a man who is hunting Jason because he killed his little sister back in Part 2) find Jason (and Rob dies), the traditional Final Girl sequence ensues, with the added bonus of creepy little kid Tommy, who has just read a thousand newspaper articles on Jason, and uses a nice variation of the psych trick in Part 2, this time using makeup to make himself look like a young Jason. Just when it looks like Jason has overcome the psych trick and will kill Trish, Tommy stabs him with a machete, and Jason is, once and for all, truly dead.
Miscellany: Many of Jason's wounds from the last two movies have vanished. Go figure.
Overall: Okay, this one's dreadfully low on plot, but it's still a damned fine slasher films, possibly one of the best of its breed. We've got almost every '80s teen sex comedy cliche in this film (I'm pretty sure that this one has more nudity than any other film in the series, in fact), we've got multiple post-coital deaths, some innovative stuff on the part of the killer, humor, and a really nifty and twisted ending. Sure, there are some annoyances (why would Jason, after killing Jim, go outside and climb to the window to defenestrate Tina without taking care of Ted first?), and some improbabilities (throwing an axes through a door), but this is a movie that begs you to check your brain at the door, and to sit back and enjoy the mayhem.
*Chapter might not actually be final. See store for details. Also, the title never actually mentioned "Part IV," but this is, indeed, the fourth film in the series.
**Note: In case you were skimming, this refers to Crispin Glover being brutally murdered, not Glover performing cunnilingus on Barbara Billingsley.
Yes, we're down to the final three. Today's entry is the best of the first five, which were the straightforward slasher flicks.
Yep, we're talking Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter*
Concept: Chris didn't really kill Jason, nor did the paramedics do their job very well in declaring him dead, and Jason leaves the morgue to wreak more havoc, this time on a group of partying teenagers. Those teenagers have decided to rent a cabin for a weekend and party the entire time, and (better yet) on the way there, they meet hot teenage twins! The only other cabin nearby belongs to a single mother and her two kids, a daughter who practically has "Final Girl" tattooed on her (or would, if it weren't for the fact that Final Girls don't get tatoos), and a son who's obsessed with horror makeup.
Killer: Human Jason (although some folks suggest that his miraculous recovery indicate that this is actually Zombie Jason).
Kills: Jason kills 13 (ha!) folks before biting it himself.
Really Bad Kills: None.
Really Good Kills: Lots. The opening kill is great, not just for the fact that a guy named Axel dies long before Eddie Murphy and Guns'n'Roses had taught us to appreciate how much we could hate someone with that name, but because it's just solid -- a hacksaw to the neck, thanks to some superb Savini F/X, is a great way to kick things off.
As a guy, I still cringe at the death of Paul. The poor kid had pissed off his girlfriend by flirting with one of the twins at the party. The girlfriend swims out to the middle of the lake to pout (and get stabbed to death by Jason), and when Paul follows her, he finds her dead body on a raft, and swims like crazy towards the shore. Just as he's getting to "safety," Jason pops up out of the water and spears him in the groin.
Twin Tina gets points for being the first defenestration death in the series. Post-coitus (of course), she peeks out the second-story window and sees that her sister's bike is still in the driveway. As it sinks in that something is wrong, Jason (who's always had an impeccable sense of timing), reaches through window, grabs Tina, and flings her into the air and onto the roof of a car.
And, of course, there's the rapid-fire deaths of the final three partiers -- horndog Ted, and lovebirds Doug and Sara (who would have been Final Girl material if she didn't sleep with Doug) are great. Ted's killed when the stag film he's watching is cut, and while he stares at the camera, Jason stabs Ted through the movie screen from behind. Doug's head is then crushed in the shower, and when Sara finds the body, she runs, pounds on the front door, trying to get out, only to have Jason fling an axe through the door and into her chest.
(And yes, Sarah and Tina's deaths relied on some major coincidence -- what if Sarah had gone to a different door, etc? -- but they're just too damned fun to really complain about).
But none of these compare to my favorite death in the entire series. I'm talking about the murder of Jimmy, the "Dead Fuck." After finally getting laid (with Twin Tina), he's downstairs, ready to celebrate with his buddy Ted, and grabs some wine. He then utters perhaps the greatest final words in Friday the 13th history: "Where the hell's the corkscrew?" Jason, always helpful, stabs Jimmy in the hand with the corkscrew. He then figures, logically, that the next thing that Jimmy was going to ask for was a meat cleaver, so he slams that into Jimmy's head. This death has everything -- humor, great f/x, and Crispin Glover getting a meat cleaver to the face. What more could you ask for? Click here to see Glover with a face full of cleaver.**
Celebrities: Aside from Crispin Glover, we also get Corey Feldman as Tommy, the little kid who kills Jason. Then there's Peter "Doug" Barton, who was Matthew Star on The Powers of Matthew Star and a star of any number of soaps. Alan "spear to the groin" Hayes wasn't technically a star, but he was one of the leads in Neon Maniacs, which is still one of my all-time favorite movies. Lawrence Monsoon, who plays Ted the horndog, was the lead in The Last American Virgin, a true obscure classic of the '80s. And Bruce Mahler, who plays coroner and first victim Axel, is best known as Fackler in the Police Academy movies and as Rabbi Glickman on Seinfeld.
Denouement: After Trish and Rob (a man who is hunting Jason because he killed his little sister back in Part 2) find Jason (and Rob dies), the traditional Final Girl sequence ensues, with the added bonus of creepy little kid Tommy, who has just read a thousand newspaper articles on Jason, and uses a nice variation of the psych trick in Part 2, this time using makeup to make himself look like a young Jason. Just when it looks like Jason has overcome the psych trick and will kill Trish, Tommy stabs him with a machete, and Jason is, once and for all, truly dead.
Miscellany: Many of Jason's wounds from the last two movies have vanished. Go figure.
Overall: Okay, this one's dreadfully low on plot, but it's still a damned fine slasher films, possibly one of the best of its breed. We've got almost every '80s teen sex comedy cliche in this film (I'm pretty sure that this one has more nudity than any other film in the series, in fact), we've got multiple post-coital deaths, some innovative stuff on the part of the killer, humor, and a really nifty and twisted ending. Sure, there are some annoyances (why would Jason, after killing Jim, go outside and climb to the window to defenestrate Tina without taking care of Ted first?), and some improbabilities (throwing an axes through a door), but this is a movie that begs you to check your brain at the door, and to sit back and enjoy the mayhem.
*Chapter might not actually be final. See store for details. Also, the title never actually mentioned "Part IV," but this is, indeed, the fourth film in the series.
**Note: In case you were skimming, this refers to Crispin Glover being brutally murdered, not Glover performing cunnilingus on Barbara Billingsley.