Over the last few months, reviews from various quarters have popped up on the Labs for that 'Friday The 13th Parts 1-8' boxset, so when I saw it going cheap I thought "what the heck, haven't seen 'em in yonks." So last Sunday / Mon I binged all of them back to back, only taking a breather overnight. I was actually quite impressed that I still had it in me to watch that many in a row. Anyway, all that aside, allow me to produce the results of my investigation, beginning with:
FRIDAY THE 13TH – The start of it all. After decades of gimmickry and one-upmanship, many of the first wave slashers seem nondescript these days; it’s hard to imagine a time when all you needed was a few traumatised college kids and an anniversary. ‘Friday The 13th’ is as bare-bones as they come, but what impresses now is the dead straightness. This is from before all the weird detours and played-for-laughs that arrived later in the series, just a very basic horror story with its heart clearly in the darkness of the previous decade’s grindhouse. Aside from the “You’re all doomed” guy, there’s very little to laugh at. The accent is on dread, not cheese. Young Americans get slaughtered like it’s not funny. Even if it takes a while, even if the kills are not high grand guignol (sorry Tom, not these days), even if it all feels a bit flimsy and we’ve seen some of its peers do it better, there’s still the shift in atmosphere that comes with the second half. The rainswept / blustery / storm lashed finale seems as if it might have been a staple of the series as a whole, but this must be its most claustrophobic instantiation. There’s a feeling of something closing in, of the inevitability of death, the inescapable annihilating presence. “You’re all doomed,” after all. Dread, not cheese. Betsy Palmer is terrifying, flashing those teeth. There’s the brilliance of that final shock. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer the series when it hits peak silliness. But there’s something to be said for deadly serious. I still find the shot of Adrienne King’s face as it fades out into the lake at the end eerie in a way I can’t really explain.
Friday The 13th Part 2 – This is not my favourite sequel. I’ll give it, or Steve Miner, credit for a certain wit, and for crafting a few sequences and images that hit me in a certain way… the mummified head that sits surrounded by candles atop its flickering shrine, for example. That one always revs me up. “Why can’t the rest of the film be as good?” I ask myself, pointlessly. Because the meat of it is more of a competent run-through than the inspired shockfest I wanted. It’s a victim of its time more than anything. The first one had been a success, the audience wanted more product, but even though the slasher boom had peaked, the formula had not yet escaped its own critical mass. This one feels a bit like everything else on the market from around the time. Jason needed a gimmick – he’d get a few of those, fast, but here he’s just a murderous guy. Even the one from ‘The Final Exam’ had a green coat. I’m being unfair, we do get to see him in a ‘Dark Night Of The Scarecrow’ rip-off bag and we catch a glimpse of freakface. None of this would matter that much if it didn’t take so long to get going. Like the first, it’s serious, but adds ponderousness to the equation. Bad move. I like slow, I like atmosphere, but ‘Part 2’ needed something heavier than it offers. Shame really. For me, it's the least of the lot. And it’s not bad, in some ways it’s quite satisfying, but it’s just average. My opinion might be marginal as some hold this one in higher regard than the original. The strange thing about ‘Part 1’ and ‘Part 2’ is that, particularly in the case of ‘Part 2’, they’re such typical slashers that they’re the least typical ‘Fridays’.
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