What I Liked: Instead of a straight ahead Friday the 13th they went for something new altogether. Jason gets blown up in the opening by a SWAT team but his heart seduces the coroner and the spirit of Jason takes over his body. He can pass to any person via a giant slimy mouth worm and continues this trick until he can be reborn by invading the body of a blood relative. While the story initially seems bonkers keep watching because it slowly wins you over and eventually finds its groove about half way through.
Part of what makes this entry enjoyable is how action packed
it is. There’s little down time in
between “Jason” knocking off teens, passing his worm along to others, people
busting out of jail and the many fights in various locations. The second half turns into a total Terminator
picture with “Jason” constantly charging after his niece and her child so
they’re always on the move and battling him wherever they go. The diner scene is a highlight where they
employ nice gunplay, slow motion, moody blue lighting and naturally they put
the deep fryer to good use.
The effects are a bit of a mixed bag but holy shit the
melting scene. In one part the Jason
worm jumps to a new body causing the old body to convulse and horrifically melt
away. The guy’s shaking all over the
room and blobs of his skin stick to the wall and floor until he completely
liquifies. It’s unbelievably nasty to
witness and fuckin’ badass as hell.
Our hero (John D. LeMay (Friday the 13th: The
Series)) is a nerdy guy with a short haircut and glasses who wears a letter
jacket and I like the subversion of expectations. This is not at all what your lead in an
action/horror movie looked like in the early 90’s. He’s totally up for fighting Jason though and
never shies away from the seemingly impossible task so he definitely proves his
worth.
*Slight spoiler here* They totally deliver on the
whole going to hell angle with demon arms shooting up from the dirt grabbing
Jason as he struggles to stay on earth. And what a cute touch to have Freddy Krueger nab
Jason’s mask from under the ground like “I think you forgot something buddy”. I remember hearing about that at the time in
school and thinking it was the coolest thing.
What I Didn’t Like: There’s a certain cheapness to the production that’s slightly unfortunate. The all-knowing all-wise Duke character (Steven Williams (The X-Files, Birds of Prey)) is pretty cartoony and convenient, the music uses a lot of poor sounding synth horns and strings that was popular at the time on lower budget productions, while there’s plenty of effects work in general they don’t use the regular Jason in full makeup very much and his mask has a sort of plasticky sheen.
Speaking of Duke, I wish they had found a way to incorporate
this character better. He’s introduced
in the beginning as having all this knowledge about Jason and his family (we
don’t know how he acquired this) and then he kind of disappears until the
ending so he can tell the protagonists how to defeat Jason. He’s important to the story and should’ve
been fleshed out more and given more to do.
Overall Impressions: To give a little background this
is the first film to be made after New Line Cinema purchased the rights to use
Jason (everything else associated with the series was off limits like the name “Friday
the 13th”and any other characters).
And Sean Cunningham (director of the first movie) returned as producer
and meticulously oversaw the production.
So that’s why this has a different vibe.
Writer/director Adam Marcus has talked in recent years about
how he came up with a fascinating new backstory when he wrote this movie that
Jason is actually a deadite from the Evil Dead universe. Jason’s mother got ahold of the book of the
dead and used it to turn her son into a killer zombie. This would explain why he keeps coming back
in all the sequels and can’t be destroyed by conventional means. However, NONE OF THIS IS IN THE FILM. Only a quick shot of the Necronomicon in the
old Voorhees house provides the connection. But what a neat idea!
Over the years I’ve always had a soft spot for this one due to
its weirdness, elements of body horror, quick pacing and largely likeable
characters. It might be like the third
best one, top half of the list for sure.
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