March 13th, 2001"WHO WAS THAT MASKED MAN?"
With the National Hockey League trade deadline today, and with the impending JASON X on the way (I've seen Jason's new design, looks pretty cool); it's only appropriate that we pick three of the Friday The 13th movies that will give you a night of slashing, warp through the woods, nekkid women and immortal hockey masked killer fun. [Remember the original and part two don't count as the mask didn't show until part three]. Friday The 13th:The Final Chapter [1984] is perhaps this series grandest moment. Sure, by now the plots had become one and the same (teens go out in the woods to party and are killed in gory little ways by a quite alive Jason) but this one had the advantage of a neat opening that had Jason (axe in head and all) being presumed dead, going on a hospital massacre and settling back into the old mold of killing promiscious teenage party animals. Plus this had the advantage of a young Corey Feldman as the video game/make-up geeky kid who faces-off with him in the finale and it also features returning make-up effects by Tom Savini and a Jason death that's nothing if not the best of the series. Throw in Joseph Zito at the helm - this guy knows how to do gore murders even if I wasn't a fan of Prowler when I saw it years ago (perhaps a re-watch is in order). Friday The 13th VII:The New Blood [1988] has been described as Jason vs. Carrie. Lar Park Lincoln stars as a girl with psychic powers who has some teens partying next door to her for the summer. Well she ends-up befriended by them and it's not too long until Jason decides to cut a path of gore through them all. That is until the final telekinetic battle. This one isn't to be taken too seriously, and it does have some fun deaths (it's weird saying any death in a movie is fun) as one girl is killed by a party horn in the eye and the other is used as a sleeping bag pinata. And this one is where Jason really started to take to the decomposed look with one neat scene that has his mask splitting in the middle to reveal the grotesqueness beneath. Friday The 13th VII:Jason Takes Manhattan [1989] was Paramount's swan song with this series (before New Line took it on) and is probably one of the most argued sequels in the series among fans. There's those who dislike it very much and others that see it for the unserious little flick it was. Let's not mention the lame complaints about Jason only spending a third of the movie in Manhattan though. Jason is aboard a cruise ship with a bunch of lucky teens who are heading to "New Yawk" for vacation. Well you know, since he's undead and all, and his disposition isn't exactly the greatest; our hockey masked boy starts to kill away. If you're able to forgive some of the "yeah right" deaths (such as the sauna and boxing ones) along with a poor melt-down finale; then you should be entertained if you aren't taking it seriously (but who really has taken a movie in this series seriously in a long time anyway?). Favourite moment: the punk rockers and their ghetto blaster - quite a good laugh. |
