Runtime:
95 minutes
Directed
by: Sean S. Cunningham
Starring:
Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor, Harry Crosby, Kevin Bacon, Betsy
Palmer
From:
Paramount
Runtime:
87 minutes
Directed
by: Steve Miner
Starring:
Amy Steel, John Furey, Kirsten Baker, Stuart Charno, Lauren-Marie
Taylor
From:
Paramount
I
was thinking about watching something of high regard today, due to it
being Memorial Day and all. But then I changed my mind and decided to
watch a pair of cheesy but fun movies that I've watched both when I
was a youngster and as an adult. The films are low-budget and goofy,
but most of these Friday the 13th movies are great
entertainment.
You
know the plot of the first one... in the late 50's a young mongoloid
named Jason Voorhees drowns in a lake at Camp Crystal Lake (or so was
thought) as the people who were supposed to watch him were having sex
instead, and the next year a pair of counselors are killed. After
some more oddities happen at the camp, it is closed down until 1980,
when it is reopened. Several people are killed and it turns out... it
is Jason's mom Pamela Voorhees, who has gone crazy ever since the
accident happened.
I
agree that the movie is slow at times, but otherwise it is still
entertaining to watch, and to think that this little effort launched a big franchise and made a big hulking dude who ended up wearing a hockey mask into a popular pop culture figure. It is amusing to see some of the characters
act rather horny (and I don't think any of the ladies at camp were
wearing bras) and do things like smoke some pot, and lol to Kevin
Bacon being in this. There are some wacky and cool minor characters,
like DORF the strait-laced cop who appears in one scene, Sally the
old waitress, and Enos the truck driver. Bing Crosby's son Harry
appears in this, and well, the popular story is that in real life old
Bing was a mean old drunk who treated his kids poorly. That's
unfortunate.
The
final battle between Alice (King) and Ms. Voorhees (Palmer) was what
I'd call “realistically awkward” but it ended greatly and the
gore effects by Tom Savini were great; I saw the unrated version for
the first time and it only has some more footage for a few of the
deaths, but it is still nice to see those deaths in their original
format. If only they could do the same for the rest of the series
(the MPAA really raked the sequels over the coals) but I understand
that if the cut footage survives, it's in horrid quality and can't be
fixed to include it in any unrated cuts of the sequels. A shame.
I
then watched the sequel, where 5 years later (and that time
difference messes up the timeline for the series; I've seen several
different timelines for when the movies actually take place) a camp
near Camp Crystal Lake opens, and turns out that Jason never died and
he's lived in the woods since then. He saw his mom get killed so that
caused him to put on a sack over his head and start killing people at
that camp.
I
say that this film isn't as strong as the first one, but it's still
entertaining. You have some quality kills and a bunch of horny
teenagers, their horniess being quite amusing. My favorite bits were
Mark (the dude in the wheelchair) being asked by Vickie (a cute
brunette) if it's just his legs that are paralyzed (see what I mean
about them being hormonal?) and when she goes to her room to get
ready for sex, she sprays cologne on her body... including her
vagina! There were some pretty ladies in the cast, I say.
I
do have to say that the long opening prologue brings up a number of
questions as to how Alice was discovered, but it's hilarious that
after the kill, you see the teakettle taken off the stove, as if
Jason decided to have some tea!
And in real life, I have a sad tale
to tell about Marta Kober, who played Sandra. She seemed to vanish
for years and a few years ago she reappeared and went to a few horror
conventions and besides the fact that the past 25 or so years hadn't
been kind to her, unless she put on an elaborate act just for her own
amusement, she is dealing with mental health issues; in interviews
she made really bizarre and nonsensical comments and it was just sad
as she obviously wasn't right in the head. No matter the specific
mental problem, it is unfortunate and while I haven't heard anything
from her since those horror conventions, I hope she has gotten help
for those issues.
I'll
be back Wednesday night.
No comments:
Post a Comment