Saturday, February 9, 2013

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III (1982)

Hell yeah!!!  FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III is awesome.  Taking up immediately where Part 2 stops (when Paul and Ginny leave Jason's shack, not the dream sequence afterwards), we see Jason get up and wander off.  He shows up at a shitty roadside store, kills two people then steals some clothes.  Apparently, Jason got in a few sets of shrugs while he was out in the woods cause his traps are fucking massive!!!  Ol' boy must have been out there curling tree stumps and eatin' some high protein beaver meat cause he's huge!  Looks like he gained 50 pounds from the day before.  Anyway, after getting his flex on, he wanders over to a nearby barn to take a power nap.

His regenerative sleep is cut short when some no good bikers start stomping around the joint.  Clearly, Jason wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and being a grumpy goose before he can get his first cup of coffee, he goes crazy and starts killing the fook out of everybody.  It's awesome.  But the most awesome part (and the part that made me shit my Ewok Underoos when I was a kid) was when somebody actually manages to hang Jason on a rope and he pulls himself off the noose and smiles!!!  As a little kid that was terrifying as shit.  Hell, it's still scary when you think about it.

Tons of legendary kills, Jason getting flexed as fuck, really attractive main chick, the secondary chick ain't nothing to scoff at either, brief topless scene, spear gun to the eye, 80's clothing, Jason knocking a door right off the fucking hinges(!), zombie mom, desperate nerd begging for pussy, cheesy 3D effects...Part 3 is great.

I've seen it dozens of  times and I'll watch it dozens more before I retire to that great Camp Crystal Lake in the sky.  Highly recommended.

Part 1 - Friday the 13th (1980)
Part 2 - Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
Part 4 - Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
Part 5 - Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
Part 6 - Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)
Part 7 - Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
Part 8 - Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
Part 9 - The Final Friday: Jason Goes to Hell (1993)
Part 10 - Jason X (2001)
Freddy vs Jason (2003)
Remake - Friday the 13th (2009)

Friday, February 8, 2013

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981)

Now we're starting to get somewhere.  After the kinda slow (but still mandatory) Part 1 the series finally gets to the good stuff in Part 2 with some pretty cool kills, nudity, counselor hijinks and most importantly: Jason!!!

Five years after the events in Part 1, some genius starts up a counselor training program next door to the still closed Camp Crystal Lake.  It doesn't take long for Jason to show up and start kicking ass...with a hammer, a machete, a butcher knife, whatever...he doesn't give a damn.  That's really about it.  The characters are all likeable, but I was especially fond of Terry who blessed my childhood with those short shorts and a brief nude scene.  You also got the wheelchair guy who's post-death roll down the stairs has become legendary and the two lovers stabbed through with the spear.

I've seen some people list the body count as 10, but I think it's actually 9.  First, let's remove Alice from the equation since she wasn't actually killed during the lake massacre, so now we are down to 8.  Some people include Paul, but I believe that the window scene at the end was actually a dream.  That's backed up by the opening scene of Part 3 (showing Jason still at the shed) and the news report in Part 3 saying there were 8 murders.  Simple enough.

One of the better early 80's slashers.  There's even a moment that made me think of RASHOMON.  Recommended.

Part 1 - Friday the 13th (1980)
Part 3 - Friday the 13th Part III (1982)
Part 4 - Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
Part 5 - Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
Part 6 - Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)
Part 7 - Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
Part 8 - Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
Part 9 - The Final Friday: Jason Goes to Hell (1993)
Part 10 - Jason X (2001)
Freddy vs Jason (2003)
Remake - Friday the 13th (2009)