A friend has lent me their box set of Friday The Thirteenth movies 1 through 8. They've also lent me a separate DVD of part 9. I already own part 10 (the only one I'd seen prior to the decision to watch them all). So the only one I need to acquire is "Freddy Vs Jason", possibly one of the most high rated of the lot. (There's also the Michael-Bay-produced 2009 remake, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here...)
Before I begin....( Read more... )Friday The 13th (1980)
It was interesting watching this. It doesn't have a particularly good narrative structure and the characters are mostly characterless. Still, it does set up some horror movie staples. The townsfolk are worried for cheery campers going to what they locally refer to as "Camp Blood", the local police officer is judgemental of teenagers instantly presuming they will be getting into trouble and doing drugs, the film takes some cues from Hitchcock through its use of music, and there's also an interesting use of long takes where the camera follows (or stalks) the characters. That last element is probably not at all original, but it seems to be most obviously drawing from the opening scene of "Halloween".
( Read more... )Friday The 13th - Part II (1981)
Okay, now THIS surprised me. I had wondered how this was going to follow up from the last movie and any mentions of the figure "Jason" seemed to make absolutely no sense bearing in mind what we had seen (or perhaps more importantly
hadn't seen) so far. The whole way that Jason is shoehorned in makes absolutely no sense, yet strangely by the end I was buying into it. There's a great moment in the final act that makes it all work.
( Read more... )Friday The 13th - Part III (or 3D) (1982)
Oh my goodness. Well needless to say watching a 3D film in 2D is always going to be problematic. Just in the opening scene we have long drawn-out shots of sheets blowing out at us, we have a pole pointed out at us, we have the camera focussed in on foreground cans on the coffee table and we have a TV aerial being adjusted so that it points out at us.
( Read more... )Friday The 13th - The Final Chapter (1984)
I was very nearly excited about this one. Crispin Glover (the dad from "Back To The Future") and Corey Feldman (Billy's friend in "Gremlins" and one of the neighbours in "The 'Burbs") are both starring in this, which seemed like a good sign. (Recognisable actors? Really?) And admittedly there does seem to be a real subplot with the characters in this one. Sadly not a terribly good one, in spite of a brilliant performance from Crispin Glover. The biggest problem is that the whole side-plot with the- well, not even campers, just people who've turned up around the lake- is that it jars with the whole main premise of the film of a supernatural murderer coming to kill them. They don't seem to know much about the murders and even the locals (who in the first movie seemed to be all upset about the whole place) don't seem to know much about it either.
( Read more... )Some final observations...( Read more... )![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
