I Just Watched Every Friday the 13th Movie

Yes, all of them

You may have noticed that this past Friday just so happened to land on the thirteenth day of the month. Did you know there was once an entire movie franchise dedicated to that particular occurrence? It’s true! It was called Friday the 13th, and it was (mostly) about a guy in a hockey mask killing teenagers. I’m obviously being a little facetious here. Friday the 13th and its antagonist, Jason Voorhees, is one of the most well known horror franchises of all time. Now to say something a little controversial: I’m not the biggest fan of the franchise. I think of it as being pretty hit-and-miss with some good ones, some okay ones, and some absolute stinkers. Because of that, I rarely revisit many entries in the franchise save for a couple that I especially enjoy. I decided this year that I should do a sincere deep dive into the franchise and see how it grades out, so I watched all of them. All twelve films in the series. In (mostly) one sitting. I burned through the first ten on Friday, and I finished the final two the following Saturday. Now you get to (have to?) hear what I think of each and every one of them. Spoilers ahead for all twelve films.

Friday the 13th (1980) directed by Sean Cunningham

The film that birthed a franchise! Kinda. This movie is rather infamous for being a shameless attempt at cashing in on the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween from 1978. That film about a masked killer stalking and killing teenagers on a spooky holiday made a ton of money ($70 million at the box office on a budget of $350,000), so director and producer Sean Cunningham decided to try and replicate that success with his own movie about a killer stalking and killing teenagers on a spooky holiday. He even placed an ad in Variety for Friday the 13th as soon as he came up with the title and the script still in the early draft stages. The finished product is a perfectly fine (if a bit generic) slasher flick. The film takes place at a summer camp in New Jersey called Camp Crystal Lake where a group of horny teenage camp counselors are slowly picked off one by one by an unseen killer. Who is the culprit? Probably not the one you’re thinking of if you only know about these movies because of Jason Voorhees. The killer in this one is a middle aged lady in a sweater (played by Betsy Palmer). She is Pamela Voorhees, and she’s taking revenge on these camp counselors because her son Jason (who is presented as being deformed and having mental disabilities) drowned in Crystal Lake because a couple of camp counselors were too busy having sex to notice that he needed help. Whoopsie. The highlights of the film are the excellent practical effects from the legendary Tom Savini and some creative kills. Also, Kevin Bacon is in it.

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) directed by Steve Miner

It should come as no surprise that a sequel to Friday the 13th was released less than a year after the original hit theaters. The first film made $59.8 million at the box office on a $650,000 budget, so of course Paramount would want to churn out a sequel as quickly as possible. The speed at which it was made definitely shines through. It’s mostly a retread of the first one, but it’s much less suspenseful. The original’s whodunnit mystery elements and killer point of view shots helped elevate it a bit from its more generic trappings. Those elements are mostly missing here. This time around we know pretty much immediately that the killer is Jason Voorhees who apparently didn’t drown after all and is now getting revenge on the new batch of camp counselors for the death of his mom. That said, we still don’t have the famous hockey mask. Jason (played by Steve Daskewisz when masked and Warrington Gillette when unmasked) sports a burlap sack over his head in this one. It’s not exactly an iconic look, but it’s creepy enough for the most part. The best bit of this film is the reveal that Jason has been keeping his mom’s severed head as part of a shrine he has made for her. It adds a level of derangement to the proceedings that was very much needed to separate itself from other slashers. Ultimately, this one is still pretty skippable in comparison to some of the other entries in the series.

Friday the 13th Part III (1982) directed by Steve Miner

This one is the most difficult film in the series for me to properly judge. There are elements that I really like, but there are other elements that I hate with every ounce and fiber of my being. Let’s start with the positives. In my opinion, this is the first film in the series where Jason (played by Richard Brooker) is actually scary. There are genuinely creepy scenes of him stalking people in the shadows that are reminiscent of the original Halloween. Two scenes that immediately come to mind are when he is lurking among some hung up laundry at night early in the film and when he is spotted staring out of a window at the remaining final girl at the end of the film. They both make my skin crawl. This is also the first time Jason wears the iconic hockey mask, so it earns bonus points for that as well. Jason also looks incredibly creepy without the mask in this one thanks to the makeup effects by Doug White.

Now for the elements I did not enjoy so much. This film was shot in 3D with the intention of releasing it in 3D at cinemas. That means virtually every scene includes a moment where an object comes at the screen in order to justify the gimmick. I cannot overstate how much I hate this. There are scenes where characters are juggling, playing with yo-yos, and carrying poles solely so that it can look like those objects are coming at the viewer if they’re wearing their 3D glasses. It undercuts the tension in the film by constantly reminding the audience that it’s a silly 3D movie. I genuinely think this could have been one of the best entries in the series had it not been completely ruined by this shoehorned gimmick. As it stands, this film sits near the bottom of my list of favorite Friday the 13th movies.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) directed by Joseph Zito

Now we’re talking. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is when this franchise really hits its stride. The premise is what we’ve all come to expect: a bunch of horny teens are killed off one by one by Jason. What separates this one from the previous three is the execution (pun intended). First of all, we have real characters in this movie. You may have noticed that I’ve barely mentioned any characters in the previous three films aside from Jason and his mom. That’s because they’ve mostly been completely interchangeable stereotypes along with some obnoxious “comic relief” characters that produce more groans than laughs. This one is different. While there are certainly some walking cliches in this one, we also get some genuinely interesting characters as well. Corey Feldman is a standout as a child named Tommy Jarvis who is obsessed with monster masks. His older sister Trish (played by Kimberly Beck) is one of the best final girls in the franchise. Most importantly, we are blessed with Crispin Glover as Jimmy Mortimer. I actually feel like that’s a little misleading. This feels more like Crispin Glover playing himself. He’s just so weird at all times in this film, and I love it so much. His bizarre performance is best exemplified by his unhinged dancing as he parties with the other teenagers in his friend group.

This film is also buoyed by the return of Tom Savini as the makeup effects artist. The gore looks great throughout, and Jason looks great when he’s unmasked. Most importantly, the scares are actually well crafted and shot in a way to really build suspense. Zito proves to be a skilled director who understands what makes for a good slasher. This has been my favorite Friday the 13th movie since the first time I saw it, and that has remained true upon this rewatch.

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) directed by Danny Steinmann

Not only was the previous entry not the final chapter in the franchise, but the next chapter would hit theaters less than a year later. Despite the very short passage of time in the real world, this film takes place a significant amount of time after the events of the previous film as Tommy Jarvis is now an adult played by John Shepherd (though the film does open with a dream sequence where Tommy is played by Feldman). The trauma from the events of the previous film leads to him being sent to some kind of halfway house for young adults with mental health issues? I guess? It’s strange. Anyway, one of the other guys at the halfway house chops another guy into a bunch of pieces with an axe. That’s the inciting incident of the film for some reason. The rest of the movie is spent watching the rest of the occupants of the halfway house getting murdered one by one by someone dressed just like Jason Voorhees except he was killed at the end of the last movie, so how could that be?! It turns out it’s actually not Jason but the dad of the guy who got murdered at the halfway house at the beginning of the film. He just happens to be wearing a hockey mask to make people think he’s Jason. Fair enough. The film also features one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen where a guy is taking a dump in an outhouse and singing with his girlfriend who is standing just outside the outhouse.

Why is this in the movie?! Baffling. If it isn’t clear by now, I’m not a big fan of this movie. These last three films have really been a rollercoaster. I loathed the third film, loved the fourth film, and went back to loathing the fifth. Will the sixth entry be another peak? Or will it continue barreling downhill?

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) directed by Tom McLoughlin

We are so back. And by “we” I mean Jason Voorhees. What’s fun about the premise of this one is how it makes such a hard left turn from the previous five. Jason is supposedly dead at the end of each film, but he just comes back after each one anyway except for the fifth one. The easy thing to do would be to just say he’s back and wasn’t really dead, but that’s not the direction this one goes. Tommy Jarvis (this time played by Thom Mathews) decides to dig up Jason’s corpse in order to cremate the body to make sure he never returns. I guess I can appreciate wanting to be thorough considering how often he has returned in the past. He and a buddy dig him up in the middle of a storm, and a lightning bolt somehow reanimates his rotting corpse like he’s Frankenstein’s monster. Now you have an undead zombie Jason who is impervious to most weapons. Good going, Tommy. Jason (played by C.J. Graham) then begins terrorizing Crystal Lake (now renamed Forest Green) and its residents. This movie is great. McLoughlin clearly understands that the slasher genre had become almost a parody of itself at this point, so he fully embraces the camp (pun once again intended). There are so many funny self-aware moments in the movie, but they aren’t so over the top as to be distracting. I think this is best exemplified by the opening title sequence.

The production value on this one is also pretty strong. It had the highest budget of any film in the franchise at that time with a whopping $3 million. It was the jolt the franchise needed following the mess that was the fifth entry.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) directed by John Carl Buechler

You would think that after the success of the previous film that a seventh would be pumped out the very next year like we typically saw with this franchise, but Paramount showed some restraint by giving the filmmakers two years. The previous film ended with Jason being chained to a big rock and being sunk to the bottom of Crystal Lake where he would never hurt anyone ever again. How do you bring him back? Easy: you have Carrie White from Stephen King’s Carrie use her telekinetic powers to bring him back to the surface! What’s that? You’re not able to secure the rights to Carrie for your $2.8 million slasher film? In that case, you have the legally distinct telekinetic character Tina (played by Lar Park Lincoln) do it instead. Yes, this movie was initially conceived as a “Jason vs. Carrie” crossover. That’s a really cool concept. Jason is an unkillable zombie monster, so pitting against a final girl with telekinesis would make for an interesting showdown. Unfortunately, the movie is mostly a pretty generic slasher until the third act when the super powers come into play. Buechler was known as a special effects guru, so you would expect some truly gruesome and inventive kills. These were supposedly shot, but the MPAA came down hard on the movie and forced most of the gore to be cut. Such a bummer. That said, what we do get is the coolest looking Jason we’ve ever had. He truly looks like a rotting corpse with bones exposed while still having a muscular frame. When he is unmasked in the final act, the practical effects on his face look phenomenal. He looks truly terrifying.

That brings me to the other standout in this movie: Kane Hodder as Jason. Hodder’s background is as a stuntman, and he really puts that experience to good use in this film. He’s constantly getting knocked through walls, strung up by his neck, and set on fire throughout the course of this film, and it looks fantastic every time. Hodder is generally regarded by fans as the best actor to portray Jason, and I really gained an appreciation for why that is by watching all of these movies in a row. He brings a physicality to the role that just looks and feels different from any previous portrayal of the character. He comes across as legitimately intimidating and scary. The final act really does feel like a title fight between two heavyweight champions. This entry wasn’t very high on my list going into this marathon, but I came away with a much greater appreciation this time around.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) directed by Rob Hedden

This movie sucks. I’ve tried to be constructive with my criticism with all of these films, but I was miserable watching this one. For starters, the title of the film is incredibly misleading. You would think that this movie takes place in Manhattan, but you would be wrong! The very end of the movie is set in Manhattan, but the majority of the movie takes place on a boat. This should have been called Friday the 13th Part VII: He’s on a Boat in This One. I guess they just didn’t have the budget to actually have this one set in New York City. Oh wait! This one had the biggest budget of any movie in the series thus far at $5.5 million. Where did the money go?! It certainly didn’t go to the makeup effects on Jason because he looks awful (especially in comparison to the previous film).

I should probably explain the plot of this one because it is pretty preposterous. It’s basically about a class field trip set aboard a cruise ship that is going from Crystal Lake to Manhattan that Jason sneaks aboard to cause mayhem. You read that correctly. Crystal Lake is somehow connected to New York and is large enough that a cruise ship can travel through it. Of all of the things that have happened in this franchise, this is somehow the most unbelievable. Keep in mind that this franchise is now about an undead zombie serial killer. Anyway, the one bright spot in this film is Kane Hodder reprising his role as Jason Voorhees. He has a few fun moments with the best (and most memorable) being when he kicks some kids’ boombox on the streets of New York City.

It’s impossible not to chuckle at that moment.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) directed by Adam Marcus

This one is quite the departure from every previous entry in the franchise. It’s the first film to be made by New Line Cinema instead of Paramount Pictures, and it had a longer gap between film releases (four years) than any previous entry. With a new studio, we got a new direction with a young director looking to take a big swing. Let me tell you: this is a BIG swing.

The premise of this movie is that Jason Voorhees isn’t just some undead zombie. He’s actually some kind of supernatural parasite that jumps from body to body, but he can only manifest himself in his true form by jumping into the body of a blood relative. What a wild premise for a Friday the 13th movie. The movie has a genuinely clever opening sequence where a girl lures Jason out into the open so that a bunch of heavily armed FBI agents can blow his ass to Hell. Unfortunately, he “survives” when the coroner eats his heart and becomes possessed by him. Hate when that happens. The rest of the movie is about him jumping from one body to another by vomiting up a wormlike parasite that crawls into an unsuspecting victim’s mouth…or other opening. Fortunately, there is a man (played by Steven Williams) who is somehow an expert on this newly introduced lore and intends to stop him. It is a wild movie that eventually implies that Jason is a Deadite from the Evil Dead franchise and concludes with a tease for a future crossover with Freddy Krueger from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series.

I have complicated feelings about this film. On the one hand, it’s arguably the most gruesome film in the series with a lot of fun sequences and some self-aware comedic moments. It also has Kane Hodder return as Jason (for the few scenes when he is on screen). On the other hand, this just isn’t a Friday the 13th movie. It’s an interesting twist on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but that’s not what people want from their Friday the 13th movies. I applaud the originality, but it just doesn’t belong in this franchise.

Jason X (2001) directed by James Isaac

What do you do when you’ve tried just about everything in a slasher franchise? You set the next one in outer space. Obviously. This one picks up right where Jason Goes to Hell left off, and by that I mean it completely ignores everything that happened in that movie. It opens with Jason (once again played by Kane Hodder) in captivity at some kind of research facility. The lead researcher (played by Lexa Doig) wants him to stay put, but some shadowy government figure played by legendary horror director David Cronenberg wants him transferred. In a development no one could have predicted, Jason gets free and starts murdering everyone. The researcher manages to freeze him in some kind of cryogenic stasis, but she is frozen as well. The two get thawed out 450 years later, and the rest of the movie takes place aboard a futuristic spaceship as Jason goes around killing everyone. As you might have guessed, this movie does not take itself too seriously. Tongue is planted firmly in cheek for the duration of the film as Jason commits hilariously over the top acts of violence. It’s so dumb, but I can’t help but enjoy it. It’s pretty much the definition of a guilty pleasure.

Freddy vs. Jason (2003) directed by Ronny Yu

Ten years after being teased in Jason Goes to Hell, two of the most iconic horror villains in cinema history finally come face to face. And let me tell you: it’s fine. I know. You’d hope that it would be a film that a horror nerd like me would love, but it never really lives up to the hype. Part of that is due to the extremely dated looking CGI in the film. I’d much rather see the practical effects used in the previous films, but that just wasn’t what you got from big studio horror films in the 2000s. This movie had a $30 million budget, and that money was going to be spent on the best CGI effects they could afford.

The basic premise of this one is that Freddy (played once again by the great Robert Englund) is sad that everyone has forgotten about him, so he’s no longer to attack people through their dreams. He comes up with a brilliant plan to fix this: sending Jason’s undead corpse (played this time by Ken Kirzinger) back from Hell to start murdering teens and making them think it’s the work of Freddy. If enough people remember him, he’ll regain his power and begin killing kids in their dreams again. Foolproof plan. As you probably guessed, Jason gets a little too good at killing and starts pissing off Freddy for stealing his kills. The two end up fighting to death. Kinda. I mean one is basically a zombie and the other is essentially a ghost, so I’m not sure how one can actually “win” such a fight. Watch the movie to see for yourself if they actually deem one the victor or if they cop out and make it a tie.

I think want to reiterate that this movie isn’t bad. It just doesn’t quite live up to the hype. Part of my issue with it is that Jason is just an unwitting pawn for most of the runtime with Freddy pulling all of the strings. It makes him less scary. Jason has never been a genius in any of these films, but he at least has agency. This puppet version just doesn’t do it for me. On the plus side, he does get some pretty gnarly kills in it.

Also, there’s a character in this movie who is just straight up Jay from Kevin Smith’s “Jay and Silent Bob” characters except he isn’t played by Jason Mewes.

So strange.

Friday the 13th (2009) directed by Marcus Nispel

We’ve reached the end of our journey. The last movie to be released as part of this franchise was a remake that hit cinemas in 2009. Well, it’s presented as a remake of Friday the 13th. The truth is it’s more of a remake of the first three films in the series. The film opens with a “flashback” to what is essentially a remake of the end of the original. Pamela Voorhees is beheaded as a young Jason watches from the woods. What follows is a pretty standard Friday the 13th plot. A group of young adults head out to the woods to go camping (and also search for a rumored crop of marijuana?). They start getting picked off one by one by Jason (played by Derek Mears) who is wearing a burlap sack over his head like in Friday the 13th Part 2. After closing in on the last remaining girl (played by Amanda Righetti), the film cuts right before she is murdered to the title of the film. Yes, the entire first twenty-one minutes of the film is just a cold open to introduce the title of the film before the real story begins. I remember laughing in the theater along with the rest of the audience at that reveal. It’s honestly a perfect little Friday the 13th short film. Unfortunately, it’s the best part of the movie.

The rest of the film revolves around another group of young adults who are staying at a house near Crystal Lake. You can probably guess how that goes. There is also a subplot where the brother of the final girl in the opening sequence (played by Jared Padalecki) is searching for his missing sister. A bunch of predictable kills happen, Jason finds a hockey mask to wear, and we get a somewhat surprising final girl by the end. It’s mostly just boring, and that’s the worst sin a remake could commit. The film is saved from being completely forgettable by that opening sequence, but that’s the best thing I can say about it.

Okay. I’ve given my thoughts on all twelve of these films, so it’s only fair that I give you my rankings.

1. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

2. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

3. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

4. Jason X (2001)

5. Friday the 13th (1980)

6. Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

7. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

8. Friday the 13th (2009)

9. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

10. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

11. Friday the 13th Part III (1982)

12. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

There you have it. My definitive rankings for the franchise. Should I embark on a similar journey with another franchise like A Nightmare on Elm Street or Hellraiser? Could I even survive another one of these? Only time will tell.