Bounding Into Halloween Night 3 Has Twice The Bad Luck In ‘Friday the 13th’ (1980) And ‘Friday the 13th Part 2’ (1981)
It’s the first Friday of October, and this year only gave us one measly Friday the 13th to celebrate. To make up for this, I have taken it upon myself to unofficially declare this as the unauthorized, unacknowledged bonus day of unluckiness that we so richly deserve. That’s why we’re taking it back to where this ancient day of misfortune became the ultimate campfire story that created a new legend, and the underrated follow-up that deserves a little more appreciation.
Friday the 13th (1980)
Get ready, campers! Because we’re heading back to Crystal Lake.
From director Sean S. Cunningham, this story begins in 1957 at Camp Crystal Lake, and it’s about a young boy whose destiny would forever tie him to that large patch of New Jersey forest. His name was Jason Voorhees, and he was never a good swimmer. One day, a group of other kids were tormenting Jason, and they pushed him into the lake while the counselors were off bumping uglies.
He would drown (experiencing death for the first of many times), and Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) went insane from grief. She murdered two counselors the following summer without getting caught, and the camp closed down afterward.
Twenty-two years pass, and a thirty-something guy named Steve Christy buys the land to renovate for reopening. Despite all the warnings from the locals that the place has a “death curse” and that he’s making a big mistake, Steve holds steadfast to his goal of having it open in time for the season. He enlists a group of late-teen-somethings to help him flip the place.
They get to work while also trying to ignore what happened there all those years ago, and the fact that their friend, Annie (Robbi Morgan), still hasn’t arrived. As soon as things get comfortable enough for them to do the horizontal mambo, Ned (Mark Nelson) goes missing, and then Jack (Kevin Bacon) gets an arrow through the throat, and then Marcie (Jeannine Taylor) catches an axe to the face.
And then one of the first horror franchises was born. It was also one of the first independent horror movies to get distribution from a major studio, and grindhouse purists will forever use that as an excuse to diminish it. The pacing might cause those with shorter attention spans to tap out before the halfway point, but that’s their problem.
Even though this was a catalyst for many copycats to come throughout the 80s, it’s still a cut above the rest, and most of that can be attributed to the up-and-coming makeup artist, Tom Savini (Dawn of the Dead, Creepshow, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter). Friday the 13th is available through multiple streaming platforms, but all of them require a subscription, and AMC+ is one of them. Watch the trailer below:
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
It has been two months since the lone survivor of the last feature, Alice (Adrienne King), beheaded the mass-murdering Mrs. Voorhees in a final showdown before getting dragged into the lake by a resurrected juvenile Jason (Ari Lehman). She’s already trying to move on with her life, but that gets permanently interrupted when a somehow fully-grown, fully-dried Jason (masked: Steve Daskewisz/unmasked: Warrington Gillette) arrives at her apartment with an ice pick that’s dying to meet her temporal lobe.
And somehow, he manages to drag her body all the way back to his domain without getting caught.
Things go quiet for another five years, but then another unwary idealist (John Furey) decides he wants to open up a counselor training facility right next to the abandoned Crystal Lake property. He tells the trainees about the murders that took place next door, and how Jason came back to life for revenge after seeing his mother decapitated right before leaving them to their deaths, so he can go to the bar with his girlfriend, Ginny (Amy Steel).
Wearing a potato sack over his deformed head, Jason takes it upon himself to act as camp supervisor, and he has absolutely ZERO tolerance for premarital copulating in his woods.
Story-wise, it’s not much different than the previous movie, or the several to follow, but some of the death scenes rank among the best in the franchise. They’re very Giallo in execution, and one impalement scene in particular is a direct homage to Mario Bava’s 1971 proto-slasher, A Bay of Blood.
Then there’s Mark (the late Tom McBride), and his famous “reverse-wheelie” down a flight of stairs. Friday the 13th Part 2 is a worthy sequel, and an entertaining prelude to the next two installments, where Jason becomes the legend we know today. It’s also available with an AMC+ subscription.
Here’s the trailer:
NEXT: Bounding Into Halloween Night 4: ‘Friday The 13th Part III’ & “Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter’
