October | 2012 | Cavalcade of Awesome

Archive for October, 2012

AWESOME-tober-fest 2012: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives by Simon Hawke (1986)

Posted in books, Halloween, holiday, movies, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2012, Book Report, books, Friday the 13th, Halloween, holiday, Jason Voorhees, Movie Novelizations, movies, pop culture, reviews on October 10, 2012 by Paxton

Today, we are going to look at a novelization for one of my favorite entries in the Friday the 13th franchise, Part VI: Jason Lives.

This novelization was written by Simon Hawke and published during the original release of the movie in 1986. Hawke would go on to write novelizations of the first three Friday the 13th movies in 1987 and 1988. Hawke’s novelization of Part III would be the second novelization for that film. I reviewed both novelizations in yesterday’s article. And I don’t know about you, but that book cover is AWFUL. I don’t know why they didn’t just use the awesome poster for the movie.

This would have been a much better book cover.

This particular novelization, like many of the other F13 and Nightmare books, has become very hard to find. Again, I want to thank my friend Jason for loaning me them for the purpose of this review.

This novelization is a very good adaptation of the movie. Not much new in so far as cut scenes. However, what Hawke does here that he would carry over into his novelizations of Parts I-III is to go into the heads of not only the main characters, but also Jason himself. There are many passages in which Jason questions his undying existence and wonders about his constant blood lust. It makes the story more interesting and adds an extra depth to the mute Jason. These inner monologues are used to fill in backstories for many of the other characters as well like Sheriff Garris and Tommy Jarvis.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2012: Review of two Friday the 13th Part 3 novelizations

Posted in books, Halloween, holiday, movies, pop culture, reviews with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2012, Book Report, books, Friday the 13th, Halloween, holiday, Jason Voorhees, Movie Novelizations, movies, pop culture on October 9, 2012 by Paxton

And so continues our second week of AWESOME-tober-fest 2012. Last week was Norman Bates/Psycho week. This week is Jason Vorhees/Friday the 13th week. Let’s start off this week with TWO novelizations written for the same movie; Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3-D.

Yes, there were two novelizations written for Friday the 13th Part 3. The first was by Michael Avallone and published the same year as the movie’s release in 1982. This particular novelization was the first published for any of the Jason movies.

Right away, the cover for this novelization is pretty awesome. First of all, the hockey mask isn’t the standard Jason mask. However, Jason didn’t actually get the mask until Part 3, so the Jason hockey mask was not the iconic symbol when this book was published that it is today. Also, I love that they included the 3-D moniker in the title. Like the book is actually written in 3-D (IT SHOULD TOTALLY BE WRITTEN IN 3-D!!!).

For most of the book, the story sticks pretty close to the movie. A few deviations here and there, nothing really to mention. However, that is, until the end. This novelization is interesting in that it features an alternate ending from the one used in the actual movie. In this ending, Chris, who is in the canoe in the lake, hears her boyfriend’s voice back at the lake house. She gets out of the lake and runs back up to the house and opens the door only to have Jason decapitate her. This is vastly different than the “it was all a nightmare” ending that was actually used.

This novelization would go out of print and become fairly hard to find until Paramount decided to publish Friday the 13th novelizations for the release of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2012: Fangoria magazines featuring Jason Voorhees

Posted in Friday the 13th, Jason Vorhees, movies, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2012, Fangoria, Friday the 13th, Halloween, holiday, Jason Voorhees, magazine, magazines, movie posters, movies on October 8, 2012 by Paxton

I was a big fan of Fangoria in the mid-to-late 80s. I still have most of my issues I bought back in the day. So I went into the archives here at the Cavalcade HDQ and found issues of Fangoria that featured the movie maniacs I’m talking about this month. I was able to find issues featuring all of them. So, today, I’m looking at Fangoria #68 from 1987. It featured a cover story about Jason Voorhees.

This is also the issue which featured the movie maniac beach party comic strip I posted on Day 1 of AWESOME-tober-fest.

The Jason cover story is an investigative interview with the actors who portrayed Jason in the first six installments of the Friday the 13th franchise. It’s called The Six Faces of Jason and features some cool behind the scenes pics of the making of the franchise up to that point.

Here are the first 4 pages of the article. You can click these images to see them BIGGER on Flickr.

Unfortunately, this is a two part article so they only cover the first three movies in this issue. I assume Parts 4-6 are covered in the next issue, which I don’t have.

The actors interviewed in this particular issue are:
1. Ari Lehman who played the child Jason in the original Friday the 13th.
2. Warrington Gillette who played the unmasked Jason at the end of Part 2. However, this article doesn’t mention that Steve Daskewisz played “bag head” Jason throughout the rest of the movie.
3. Richard Brooker who played the first Jason to get the hockey mask in Part III.

Presumably, in the second part of this article in the next issue, they would interview:
4. Ted White who played Jason in The Final Chapter.
5. Tom Morga who played Jason in a hallucination in Part 5.
6. CJ Graham who played Jason in Jason Lives.

The most famous Jason, Kane Hodder, wasn’t a part of this article because he didn’t play Jason until 1988’s Part VII: The New Blood. The article is an interesting look back at the previous movies and gives small insight into actor experiences and casting. One piece of trivia I learned from this article was that only one of these six men were offered the chance to play Jason a second time. And he refused. The article in this issue didn’t mention who specifically, so I have to assume it’s one of the last three guys.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2012: Gus Van Sant’s Psycho remake (1998)

Posted in Alfred Hitchock, movies, Norman Bates, pop culture, Psycho, reviews with tags Alfred Hitchcock, AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2012, Halloween, holiday, movies, Norman Bates, Psycho, reviews on October 5, 2012 by Paxton

In 1998, Gus Van Sant set out to film a remake of Hitchcock’s classsic, Psycho. Van Sant used a shooting script from the original movie which included notes from Hitchcock himself.

Psycho remake

I saw this remake when it hit video for the first time. Being a huge fan of the original, of course, I was set to not like it from the beginning. Honestly, at the time, I didn’t hate it, it just felt superfluous. Like why even bother? So I filed it away and really never thought of it again.

So now that I’ve decided to have this Psycho week, I decided to rewatch this remake (as well as the original). I still feel the same. Even more so after watching this right after the original. Why bother, Van Sant? It’s so close to the original there is literally NO NEED to watch this movie. Sure, Julianne Moore tries to bring a little different to the Crane sister character and Vince Vaughn definitely plays Bates a little different, but not enough to warrant watching this. Anne Heche does NOTHING different with Marion Crane which makes her performance even less. You not only get nothing new out of this you are also watching an almost literal copy of the dialogue and scenes from the 1960 original. SO WHY NOT JUST WATCH THE ORIGINAL?

Like I said, I don’t hate this remake. It just makes me sad. It has to be one of the most useless movies ever made. When Van Sant was asked why he did it, he just said that he did it so no one else would have to. NO ONE ELSE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF DOING IT, DUDE. He must have been high off his big 1997 hit Good Will Hunting and thought he was invincible. Apparently not.

Here’s the trailer:

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2012: Bates Motel TV movie (1987)

Posted in 80s, Alfred Hitchock, movies, pop culture, Psycho, TV shows with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2012, Halloween, holiday, movies, Norman Bates, Psycho on October 4, 2012 by Paxton

In 1987, Universal commissioned a 2 hour television movie called Bates Motel as a spin-off of Psycho.

Bates Motel TV series

The TV movie was also a “backdoor pilot” for a possible television series. However, the ratings were so low that Universal scrapped the idea of the ongoing TV series.

The plot of the movie was about a mentally disturbed youth, Alex West, who is committed to an asylum for murdering his step father. While inside, Alex befriends a rehabilitated Norman Bates. They remain friends for 20 years and after Bates’ death, Alex discovers that he has inherited Bates Motel, which has been vacant since Bates’ arrest many, many years ago. With the help of a teenage runaway, Willie, Alex attempts to reopen the Motel. Shortly before opening, the occupants experience several strange occurances which leads Alex to wonder if the hotel is haunted by Norma Bates.

The show starred Bud Cort as the adult Alex West. It also starred Lori Petty as the teen runaway, Willie. Other stars include Jason Bateman and Robert Picardo. Anthony Perkins did not return to play Norman Bates for this movie. Bates was instead played by Kurt Paul who was Perkins’ stunt double in Psycho II, Psycho III and Psycho IV.

Perkins was upset with this series as it interferred with the timeline of Perkins’ Psycho III movie from the previous year. Psycho III was about Bates after he was released from the asylum while the TV series said Bates died while still inside.

(Via ETOnline.com)

Like I said, the show received dismal ratings and was scrapped. However, Universal recently announced that they have changed their minds. There will be a brand new TV series called Bates Motel. It will star Vera Farmiga as Norma Bates and feature the formative years of a young Norman Bates and how his mother shaped and molded Norman into the man he would become in Hitchcock’s classic movie. This TV series is coming due to Universal’s happiness with the big screen movie Hitchcock starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as the titular director. The movie is about all the behind the scenes machinations in getting Psycho made back in 1960. I personally am looking forward to both of these projects.

The 1987 Bates Motel movie was never officially released on DVD in the US. But you can watch the show in it’s entirety on YouTube.

Here are the first three parts (of ten) of Bates Motel:

Part 1: