I did this last week for Jason Voorhees, so I’m going to do it again with Freddy. I reached back into my stash of vintage Fangoria magazines and pulled out a few that had covers and articles about A Nightmare on Elm Street or Freddy Krueger.
The first issue I found was Fangoria #62 from 1987. It has a cover story on A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and the reunion of Nancy and Freddy. It was probably published a few months after the release of the movie.
This issue also featured the Friday the 13th Part 6 article about the gory scenes cut out of that film that I featured last week.
Here’s the cover article about Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3.
It’s an okay, mostly fluff article about what the new movie is supposed to be about. There are a lot of good photos, though, as Fangoria was always really good about including those in their main articles. No really good inside info, though.
Week 3 of AWESOME-tober-fest 2012, day 2 of Freddy Krueger Week. Today I continue my look at the dream master in pop culture with the late 80s TV show, Freddy’s Nightmares.
Freddy’s Nightmares began airing in syndication in 1988. It was a horror anthology TV series hosted by Freddy Krueger. The show’s premise worked in much the same way as other hosted anthology shows like Tales from the Crypt (The Cryptkeeper) or Twilight Zone (Rod Serling).
The first episode, No More Mr Nice Guy, was directed by horror legend Tobe Hooper and featured an origin story for Freddy. Freddy is tried for killing children but gets off because he was not read his Miranda rights. The town forms a mob, catches up to him and burns him to the ground inside his hideout in an abandoned power plant. Throughout the series Freddy would begin and end the episode as the “host”. Some of the episodes of the series featured Freddy as the antagonist, but many of them only featured him tangentially or not at all.
The show ran for 2 seasons and has not been released on DVD in the US. However five episodes of the series were released on VHS in the mid-90s. The first three episodes were released on DVD in the UK, however, due to poor sales, all subsequent episode releases were canceled.
Here’s the intro to the show:
Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.
In 2009, New Line and Platinum Dunes released Friday the 13th. It was a reboot/re-imagining of the horror movie franchise from 1980.
I’m a big fan of Jason Vorhees and the Friday the 13th franchise. I enjoy most of the installments but my favorite ones are Part VI: Jason Lives and Part III in 3D. I also enjoy Jason X because it’s balls out crazy with Uber Jason. So I’m a fan going in and that means I have the potential to hate everything about this reboot. Let’s see if I do.
The story starts with a mother going crazy and killing all the counselors (except one) at Camp Crystal Lake after her son drowns. Unknown to the mother, the son, Jason, was still alive and watches her get beheaded by the last surviving counselor. Years later, Jason is surviving off the land and lives in the tunnels hidden underneath the camp. A group of partying kids stumble upon the remains of Camp Crystal Lake and Jason does everything he can to protect “his turf” against the interlopers. Now, that synopsis is decidedly biased towards Jason, but that is essentially what happens. Overall, the story follows a typical Friday the 13th structure. Teenagers partying, stumble upon abandoned camp, show boobies, incur the wrath of Jason, get killed.
Check out the trailer:
However, when you delve into the details of this movie, it is slightly different than the formula. Most especially with the behavior of Jason. The movie turns Jason into a survivalist. He isn’t just killing to kill. It is implied that Jason has lived on the grounds of old Camp Crystal Lake for years by himself. He only becomes “active” when someone “invades his area”. He’s protecting his ground in the most egregious way possible. They’ve also made this Jason leaner, faster and more calculating. He’s actually laying traps for his victims. I for one love this portrayal of Jason and I love that we see his lair and that he can get around camp underground in the tunnels without being seen. I always wondered how this giant murderous dude in a hockey mask walked around the wide open camp without being seen except at the last moment. Jason knows this camp like the back of his hand, so this combined with the tunnels is a great solution.
Now, I guess, let’s discuss the teens. They were what they were. You have the hot, horny party chicks. The prude chick. The douchebag guy. The sweet guy. The stoner. The black guy. They are all there and they all serve their purpose, to be killed off in a spectactular fashion. For instance, Jason scores a sweet bow and arrow kill on a guy around the 45 min mark. Yes, he actually shoots an arrow with a bow into a guy’s head that is driving a boat on the lake. BAD. ASS. Jason also stabs one of the horny blondes in the head from above. So the kills are pretty good and imaginative.
As for the hot girls, the movie delivers. For me, the hottest chick in the movie was Bree, who is played by Juliana Guill (see pic below). Followed very closely by Amanda, played by America Olivo with Willa Ford as Chelsea a close third. All three of these chicks are smoking hot and make a fine addition to the Friday the 13th babe museum. And all three show boobs (BONUS).
Hello, I’m Bree and I’m incredibly hot. And drunk.
So, overall, this reboot isn’t that bad. I really like what they did with Jason and I liked a lot of the kills. I also enjoyed how Jason started off with the sack over his head for the first few kills in an homage to the original Part II. Jason Vorhees didn’t get the hockey mask until the mid point of Part III so this version also doesn’t get the mask until mid-way through the movie. That was a nice touch. And the black and white intro that replayed the climatic scene of Mrs Vorhees getting beheaded was also really well done. I liked what this movie did with the Jason mythos and I would enjoy seeing more of this Jason on the big screen. However, it’s unclear whether we are actually going to get a sequel, even though this movie made pretty good money.
Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.
In 1993, Topps acquired the Friday the 13th comic book license. Their first release was a comic adaptation of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. Then, in 1995, Topps released a crossover comic called Jason vs Leatherface.
The three issue miniseries featured the first meeting between Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th and Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The book was written by Nancy Collins and drawn by Jeff Butler.
The story is a little weird, as is how this comic is supposed to fit into the established chronology of either series. The story begins with Jason chained to the bottom of Crystal Lake where he was left after Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. Jason is liberated by someone dredging the lake with the intent to drain it and build a corporate headquarters. The lake has been polluted with toxic waste by the company so the lake water is collected in giant steel containers and shipped by train to some disposal facility. However, en route, Jason escapes, gets off the train and starts killing people. He meets up with one of the members of the chainsaw family and is taken back to their house. At the house he joins the family for dinner and becomes friends with Leatherface. It’s a dysfunctional good time, but as always happens, there’s a disagreement, then a misunderstanding and so Jason and Leatherface actually fight. Jason winds up leaving and returning to Crystal Lake.
Like I said, it’s an odd story. And, also like I said, it doesn’t fit continuity. Since Jason begins this comic where he ended up at the end of Jason Lives, then the story should take place in the 90s. However, two of the family members Jason meets in Texas are “Hitchhiker” and “Cook”. The character “Hitchhiker” died in the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre which takes place in the 70s. The “Cook” character dies in the second Texas Chainsaw Massacre which happened in the 80s. Neither family member should have been alive when this comic happened. Another problem involves a flashback to Jason’s childhood. We see his father, Elias, who has only been mentioned in the Part VI novelization. We see Elias beat Jason and then Jason’s mother kills Elias to protect the child. That’s fine, I guess, but Elias calls Jason’s mother Doris for some reason when her name has been established since the first movie in 1980 as PAMELA. Weird. But I guess that just goes to prove that this is a horror “Elseworlds” tale.
I enjoyed this comic. The art was over the top and funny. Perfect for the story. The covers are really good, as you can see. It’s definitely a fun, interesting read. Give it a shot, but be prepared, because it’s a little on the goofy and weird side.
Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.
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.
Cavalcade of Awesome 