Friday the 13th Part 2 1981 Paramount   Buy It Now

For years, when walking through my local video store, I would see a film called The Town That Dreaded Sundown, and it would scare me.  I never rented it, I'm not quite sure why, but the cover was enough to freak me out...  On it was a simple image of a man wearing a cloth bag over his head, with eye holes cut out; but something about the angle of his head and the dark depths of the eye holes, that didn't betray where he was looking, was quite unsettling.  Was he looking down at the ground?  Maybe his eyes were closed...maybe they were looking at me...  Regardless, I had built up an entire idea of what the film was about without ever having seen it; simply from my musings and imaginations spawned from that cover.

Years later, recently in fact, I finally had the chance to view the film, and I was sorely disappointed.  The film, based on the true, unsolved murders of a serial killer in Texarkana, TX in the late 1940s, was a horrible blend of true crime and horror that lost both with it's liberal usage of the facts and the infuriating comic relief moments.  But still there was something about that damn bag.  

Perhaps that bag is the one saving grace to Friday the 13th Part II.  In this sequel to 1980's gritty slasher flick, it is all about Jason Voorhees, who is much scarier with a bag over his head, as is the case here, than with a freaking hockey mask.  Of course, we all know that Jason didn't get a chance to do the hack-and-slash in the first film, as mommy dearest did the honors in his name; but not so here.  It seems that Jason did not drown in the lake as was originally thought.  But being a deformed, retarded child who survives a traumatic experience has a way of screwing with a guy, and Jason finds himself living in the Crystal Lake woods; living off animals that he kills and hiding his horrifically twisted countenance from the world (his outfit in this film is a replica of the overalls and cloth bag mask from The Town That Dreaded Sundown, except for the fact that Jason's deformed face needs only one eye hole...more efficient and freakier looking to be sure).  Of course, he still watched the goings on at Camp Crystal Lake from afar, and thus witnessed first hand the death of his mother.

This, as it would most of us, really burns Jason up...even in his small-minded world, seeing his mother being beheaded was not on his list of fond memories.  So now it is time for a bit of revenge...disfigured retard style.  After finishing off the girl who dispatched his mother, Jason simply lies in wait for the next group of suckers to set foot around Crystal Lake.  Lucky for him, it doesn't take too long.  It seems there is another camp opening up across the way, and a stern warning is delivered to the counselors: Do not venture over to "Camp Blood"!  Of course a couple of them do, and of course they are summarily dispatched.  And lucky for all the rest of them, Jason is all too eager to make house calls.

Friday the 13th II is a movie based on copying.  The outfit of the killer from The Town That Dreaded Sundown finds its way on screen as Jason's new duds.  The skewering death of a pair of fornicating counselors is taken right off the celluloid of Reazione A Catena (aka: Twitch Of The Death Nerve, Bay Of Blood, Bloodbath, etc).  The fact that Jason now kills at the bequest of his dead mother, whose head rests on a shrine in Jason's abode, is a translation of Norman Bates' (Psycho) relationship with his mother.  But Friday II does have elements that are all its own...

One thing that this installment of the Friday the 13th series contributed back to horror, instead of "borrowing", was the unique take on leading the audience.  In most horror films, in fact nearly every single horror flick I can think of, there are two characters.  There are those that: get naked, get high, get drunk, talk dirty, have sex, be a bully, be a comedian, and nearly anything else that is a typical teenager.  These characters will die.  Horribly.  And we know this the whole time.  The other characters are the ones that do nothing bad: they stay on the dock when the other are skinny dipping, they go to bed early when the others stay up to watch porn, and they are generally the ones delivering the line, "Guys, I don't think this is such a good idea...".  This character lives.  Right?  I mean they go through some harrowing experiences to be sure, but in the end, these are the ones who live and quite possibly get to deliver that one last tag line before offing the villain.  "Die you bastard!"  

But in this film, and several Fridays to follow, this was not always the case.  The wheelchair bound fellow, for instance, in this film, is a likeable guy.  He isn't a pervert, or drug user, or mean jerk-off, but instead is just a nice, quiet, unassuming guy...immediately likeable for his personality; not to mention the fact that he is in a wheelchair!  Geesh!  Killing off people in wheelchairs is not a common thing in any genre of film, but you can bet your ass that this guy gets it good in Friday Part II; in fact he takes his like a trooper, with a machete to the face and a backwards roll down a flight of stairs! The series has always been remarkable for me simply because it establishes so many likeable characters, and invests time in them, only to slit their throat or lop off their heads.  Great stuff that adds an element of surprise to an otherwise predictable genre.

I did mention that Jason's hooded look was one of the only saving graces to this movie, and the skewed take on the characters is the only other.  Overall this is one of the worst written Friday's.  For starters, there are far too many genre-fueled clichés present: cars don't start when you need them to; the girls now get naked for absolutely no reason...not just for sex; shorts are shorter than I have ever seen; the kids are even stupider than in the first and wander aimlessly through darkened woods where many have died before (hear this infamous quote: "This place is spooky", and then watch as the speaker wanders off alone; and in perhaps the worst move a horror film can ever make, there is a lot more comedy.  Ugh.  When a shot of a dog quick cuts to a close up of a hot dog on a grill, I just can't take it anymore.

All of this is still no excuse to avoid watching Friday II.  It is by far one of the scariest Fridays visually, and delivers much in the way of shock scares.  If you enjoy Michael Myers' brand of lurking in shadows or sitting up at inopportune moments...you will enjoy Jason's antics in this installment.  But before you go out and grab yourself a shiny new copy of this DVD, don't expect much besides the movie.  Just as in the first film, Geneon has deemed one of the top grossing and the longest running horror franchise to be unworthy of any extras.  And yes, I will be saying that in the reviews for Friday III, IV, and V.

-aaron-
 

Directed By: Steve Miner   Written By: Ron Kurz   Cast: Amy Steel John Furey Adrienne King Kirsten Baker Stuart Charno Warrington Gillette Walt Gorney

DVD Features: Widescreen Dolby Digital Dual Language: English & French English Subtitles Theatrical Trailer       All Images From: