FRIDAY THE 13th: From Crystal Lake to Manhattan, Part 1

Remember when video box sets were big, bulky affairs that took up half the space on any video shelf? Well, the video labels and retailers didn't like them any more than you did, what with the extra cost of manufacture, storage and shipping. When Cinescape first broke the news last Fall that Paramount would be releasing the first eight movies in the FRIDAY THE 13^th series in a special DVD box set, everyone expected it to be a monster in more ways than one. Now, thanks to innovations in digital and packaging technology, the whole thing is less than an inch and a half thick. The widescreen features fit on four single sided discs, with a fifth disc full of extras included, and they're all housed in slim keepcases fitting snugly in a nice looking cardboard case. Neat, huh?

This handsome package gives fans a chance to track how bogeyman Jason Voorhees rose from campfire legend to full fledged Famous Monster of Filmland.

Jason (Ari Lehman) barely appears onscreen in the original FRIDAY THE 13^th, though his climactic unveiling gives the film its best moment. Inspired by the success of HALLOWEEN, other filmmakers rushed to get similar holiday-themed entries in the newborn "slasher" genre, including Sean S. Cunningham, producer of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. Fortunately, June of 1980 offered the perfect opportunity: another holiday that folks are afraid of (though the film itself was released a full month before 6/13/80).

On a Friday the 13^th in 1957 (September has one a little late in the camping season but still viable), a boy drowned at Camp Crystal Lake, the son of the camp cook. A tragedy, but not enough to close the camp permanently. However, on the following year's Friday, June 13, two camp counselors were brutally murdered. The crime was never solved, and every attempt to reopen the camp met with some disaster. But young new owner Steve Christy (soap star Peter Brouwer) means to dispel the "curse" on the camp and reopen it.

Bad move. On Friday the 13^th, 1979, Christy's staff arrives to fix up the camp, but are picked off one by one by a mysterious killer (notably, future star Kevin Bacon is among the group falling to the film's "quality kills"). The only clue we're given to the unseen killer's identity is that it's someone well known to locals.

The public recognized immediately that F13 was a knock-off of the innovative HALLOWEEN, but crowds embraced it anyway. If anything, the flick's campier flavor made it more popular audiences could laugh at it while enjoying the few genuine shocks. Folks came back to see it again with friends, chuckling in anticipation every time director Cunningham brought another sharp object into frame. F13 may have been a joke, but it made viewers feel like they got their money's worth.

But there were some things Cunningham had that John Carpenter lacked: the massacre in a summer camp setting (borrowed in part from Mario Bava's BAY OF BLOOD). Also, Tom Savini's amazing makeup f/x. And over the years another distinction arose - FRIDAY THE 13^th's sequels enhanced rather than detracted from the aura of the original film.

FRIDAY THE 13^th PART 2 (1981) starts off with a reprise of the previous film's climax, courtesy of the nightmares of spunky survivor Alice (Adrienne King). Since they show the villain's onscreen decapitation, surely it's safe for campers to return to Crystal Lake, isn't it? Or are suggestions that the Crystal Lake Killer didn't act alone more than just rumors? The opening sequence established a slasher movie tradition: surviving stars of the previous film are brought in just long enough to be knocked off in the sequel.

Ginny (Amy Steel) takes over as the most level-headed camp counselor, winning over audience sympathy by standing up for herself and not doing anything too stupid. What's that? No, they didn't dare try to re-open "Camp Blood", but every summer camp has a rival camp across the lake, right? Though warned to stay clear, the horny young counselors waste little time in snooping around the neighboring area, leading them to be killed in interesting ways. Savini opted out of the sequel, but those that took up his bag of tricks faithfully reproduce his work while adding a bit more gore. Director Steve Miner invests the proceedings with more of a sense of fun the characters are more humorous and the murders more thrilling. Adding to the attraction, there's more nudity. Throughout the film, characters speculate as to whether Jason Voorhees (Warrington Gillette) survived his apparent death, what he'd be like if he did, and whether he still stalks the woods. When the killer is finally shown, his face is covered by a hood, but was there ever really any doubt about his identity?

Thus far, Jason Voorhees' legend has been growing with each film, though he's not yet fully formed. In the first film, he's only seen fleetingly as a scrawny, scarred kid. PART 2 shows him to be fully grown, but not too big to be mistaken for any red herring cast members under his mask, at least until his final shot. Little Ginny is able to square off with him using a chainsaw (one of Miner's many homages to other horror flicks). But though the monster isn't all there yet, the F13 series had already established itself at the center of the slasher genre. As such, this look back can also serve to dispel some slasher movie myths perpetuated by both critics and fans. For example, there's the bunk that these movies are misogynist the victims are generally split evenly between the sexes. Jason is not judgmental he'll kill anybody. There's also the myth that sexually active teenagers are the main target. Sure, Jason kills some conveniently distracted horny teens, and Mrs. Voorhees was angry that Jason 'drowned' while the counselors were having sex, but the sex and killing are only connected in the mind of the viewer.

Jason (now played by former circus trapeze artist Richard Brooker) only begins to 'flower' fully in 1982's FRIDAY THE 13^th PART 3. This is the one that took the series over the top by indulging in the then current trend toward 3-D movies, which never really got off the ground. The main disappointment with this box set is that Paramount chose not to include the 3-D version. Bummer, for horror and 3-D fans alike. Perhaps they still have in mind a separate 3-D special edition DVD. They try to make up for it by providing a commentrak with Brooker and several other genial cast members, which is enjoyable, but no replacement for 3-D in a movie shot specifically to showcase 3-D tricks. In fact, they spend a lot of time talking about how much cooler the movie is in 3-D.

Even without 3-D, PART 3 is much more technically impressive than its predecessors. With the F13 movies proven money makers, Paramount poured more cash into the production. It's still a relatively low budget picture, but it has a more polished, fuller look to it, with returning director Miner taking full advantage of the bigger bag of tricks. Of course, not much more went into the plot, which is again just a setup for quality kills. The ending of PART 2, rerun at the beginning of 3, left no doubt that Jason is still alive and ready for another sequel, and he finishes off the owners of a country store right away. A van load of heedless, carefree teens heads up to the lake to vacation in a farmhouse near the closed camp. Well, almost carefree. Pretty Chris (Dana Kimmell) can't get close to boyfriend Rick (Paul Kratka) because of memories of a previous attack by Jason. Stocky Shelly (Larry Zerner) feels he's too homely to have a girlfriend. While everybody spends a lot of time wandering around the camp engaging in uninteresting antics, Jason keeps the blood flowing by knocking off a trio of leather-clad thieves, before heading back to camp to continue his hunting.

The famous hockey mask makes its first appearance 56 minutes in, as jokester Shelly apparently brought it along just to scare somebody. Well, it does its job better than he thought, scaring people for over 20 years. The first time we see Jason, he's donned the mask to shoot a spear through someone's eye, indelibly registering his classic image in pop culture history. Incidentally, he's also much bigger and more imposing than in PART 2. The character would continue to grow with each feature. We also get more of an inkling that there's something supernatural about him, as by the end Jason has recovered from drowning, stabbing, hanging, and an axe to the head.

Perhaps thinking that the series had run its course, the next installment was released as FRIDAY THE 13^th: THE FINAL CHAPTER. Studio publicity claimed that it would be the last sequel, though it's doubtful anyone believed it, except for Tom Savini, who was lured back to provide makeup f/x with the promise that he'd get to kill off Jason (Ted White) for good. What the series really needed was a few more interesting characters in the cast. Rob Dire (Erich Anderson) is introduced as the brother of one of victims from PART 2, who is hiking around the area hunting Jason. A hot young actor named Crispin Glover gives an interesting performance as one of a group of teens spending a party weekend at a lakeside house. They even add a set of identical twins to the cast.

Though the teenage victims are a more interesting lot this time around, there's no holding off the exploitation rule that anybody can die at any time. Jason's real stumbling block turns out to be little Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman), a neighboring boy genius fond of creating his own creature feature f/x, and his big sister Trish (Kimberly Beck). The climax has Trish distracting the Camp Blood Killer by smashing away at him with a variety of weapons, while Tommy reasons that the best way to defeat Jason... is to become Jason.

Notes: A tombstone puts the death of Pamela Voorhees at 1979 (though June 13 wasn't a Friday that year), so it may be possible that the first three sequels all take place throughout a very busy 1984. Also, a news report places Crystal Lake in Wessex County, though it's not shown whether this is the one in Wisconsin, North Carolina or even in Canada. However, the cars have New Jersey license plates, and director Joseph Zito (THE PROWLER) has gone on record as wanting to keep it as an imaginary location in New Jersey. A more interesting aspect of the series is Jason's fastidiousness. Even after his bloodiest crimes, he always seems to remove the body and clean up after himself.

To be continued...