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AWESOME-tober-fest 2012: A review of Friday the 13th (2009)

Posted in Halloween, holiday, movies, pop culture, reviews with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2012, Friday the 13th, Halloween, holiday, Jason Voorhees, movies, pop culture, reviews on October 12, 2012 by Paxton

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.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2012: Topps’ Jason vs Leatherface comic book (1995)

Posted in comic books, Friday the 13th, Halloween, holiday, Jason Vorhees, Leatherface, movies, pop culture, Texas Chainsaw Massacre with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2012, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, Friday the 13th, Halloween, holiday, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, movies, Texas Chainsaw Massacre on October 11, 2012 by Paxton

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.

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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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