Greetings, all. Ambush Bug here with another AICN HORROR: ZOMBIES & SHARKS column. Above and beyond any other horrors, I am a proud fan of the FRIDAY THE 13TH movie series. Sure they range from great to god-awful, but through the years, I’ve always found something to love about every installment. Since starting AICN HORROR a few years ago, every time a Friday the 13th pops up, I’ve made it a tradition to celebrate the holiday by covering one of the FRIDAY THE 13TH films. So far, I’ve covered Parts One through Three and the remake which popped up in 2009. Below are those reviews, as well as additional commentary about what to expect from the BluRay Complete Collection which compiles all twelve F13 films and all sorts of accompanying bells and whistles like a Crystal Lake Camping patch, two pairs of 3D glasses, an accompanying booklet featuring all sorts of snippets from the book and film and an additional DVD filled with more extras.Additionally, I got a chance to talk with writer/director Daniel Farrands and producer Thommy Hutson about their documentary CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF FRIDAY THE 13TH a seven hour long doc delving deeper than ever before into the series. The doc is released today and Daniel, Thommy, and I geeked our big time over all things F13. So sit back, put on your hockey masks (or burlap bags if you prefer) and enjoy this celebration of the birthday of Pamela Voorhees’ little boy Jason!
(Click title to go directly to the feature)
FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)/FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981)
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 (1982)
Bug Interviews Daniel Farrands & Thommy Hutson on CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES!
FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)
Directed by Sean S. CunninghamWritten by Victor Miller & Ron Kurz
Starring Adrienne King, Betsy Palmer, Walt Gorney, Kevin Bacon & Ari Lehman as Jason
FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)
Directed by Marcus NispelWritten by Damian Shannon, Mark Swift, & Mark Wheaton
Starring Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Aaron Yoo, Julianna Guill, and Derek Mears as Jason
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
Pardon me while I wax nostalgic for a moment.I know it’s going to sound weird, but the magic of movies wasn’t introduced to me by Walt Disney or George Lucas or Stephen Spielberg like most of the other guys who write on this site. For me it was something much darker. Sure I spent long afternoons and even longer nights watching Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing on horror movie shows on TV, but I distinctly remember one summer when it all changed. It had to be the summer of ‘84. My father had rigged our television with tin foil and a coat hanger in order for us to get Showtime. I know stealing cable was illegal, but we were a family of meager means and since my father passed away a year later, I feel this indiscretion is inadmissible now. Anyway, I distinctly remember playing war with my brother in my backyard and being called in because it was getting dark outside. After much belly-aching, my brother and I sat down in front of our TV to see what was on. What was on would shape me for the rest of my life. What was on was FRIDAY THE 13th.
It wasn’t at that moment that I realized the magic though. The next summer day, my brother and I continued to “ooo” and “ahhh” at the creepy goodness of the original, re-enacting the lines and all of the cool scenes. That night, when we were called in at dark, we sat in front of the television and were witness to FRIDAY THE 13th PART 2. Holy shit! “What form of magic was this?”, we thought. Another night—the second movie!!! How cool was that!?!? The next night, we saw PART 3. The final fourth night was a Thursday. Looking for our magic window into hell expecting another FRIDAY film, what we saw instead was a preview for FRIDAY THE 13th PART FOUR: THE FINAL CHAPTER! Yes, we were too young to be watching this. Yes, there was something wrong with my parents resulting in the grown-up ghoul I matured to be. But I’ll be damned if my brother and I didn’t convince my parents to see FRIDAY THE 13th PART FOUR THE FINAL CHAPTER on the first night it was released that very Friday. A horror fan was born that week, all because of a piece of tin foil, a coat hanger, and a curfew at dark.
Since then, I’ve watched all of the F13 films more times that I can count. I can name the kills in order in most of the first seven, at the very least. Above my bed as a teen, I had a pair of real machetes in an X with a hockey mask of my own design in the middle looking like a modern skull and crossbones and though I haven’t lived there in almost twenty years, that homemade homage to my favorite horror film series is still there in my childhood room. And my very next tattoo is going to be that same image of the hockey mask and crossed machetes as soon as I save up the cash.
Yep, I’m a F13 fanatic.For the foreseeable future, I’m going to be looking at all of the F13 films eventually every time a Friday the 13th rolls around. Scoff all you want, movie snobs. I don’t really care. Even the worst F13 has some redeeming qualities in my eyes. But with Make / Remake being the theme of the week, I figured we’d start out by looking at the first and the last.
I think even those who scoff at the FRIDAY THE 13TH films can acknowledge that the original is a well made, gory thriller. At its heart it's a whodunnit, with the villain only seen from the waist down most of the time making his or her way through the woods and killing campers when they wander off alone. With a relatively small and charming cast, a serene locale, a great FX wizard, and some fantastic music, Sean S. Cunningham struck gold where HALLOWEEN had struck just two years prior. When I first saw the original, I hadn't heard of Mario Bava's BAY OF BLOOD (aka TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE), which FRIDAY THE 13TH and its first sequel borrow from heavily. All I knew was that there was something about this film that struck a chord in me that couldn't be beat.
The film starts out quiet. A POV cam catches a pair of camp counselors leaving a campfire and finding a quiet cabin to have sex. The counselors are disturbed by someone (someone they might recognize) and are brutally murdered. Yes, we've seen these first kills before, but this one sets the stage. It resonates and sets the standard while setting up the mystery; who is this killer? Why do these unlucky camp counselors know this person? Why is this person doing this? Years later, a group of kids try to reopen the camp; including the innocent girl next door Adrienne King (who has all of the final girl qualities; virginal, naïve, yet capable of great strength) and a few others (including Kevin Bacon in his first role). They run into a local crazy man, Crazy Ralph (played by the amazingly creepy Walt Gorney) who warns them that Camp Crystal Lake is jinxed with a Death Curse and are later educated by a local sheriff of the camp's sordid history. Known as Camp Blood by the locals, much death and horror has occurred along the seemingly serene waters of Crystal Lake. Soon enough, the bodies start piling up until one lone girl is forced to go toe to toe with the killer.
Without Henry Manfredini's iconic score, FRIDAY THE 13TH would not be the classic that it is lauded as today. I'm not just talking about the "Ch-ch-ch-ha-ha-ha" sound (or more accurately "Kill-kill-kill-ma-ma-ma!"), which has grown into an entity of its own. I'm talking about the wonderful screeching violin crescendos, the twinkling water drop chimes, and the symphonic crashes indicating frights and built tensions. Unlike today's films which think a fist to a synth board is all you need for a good scare, Manfredini made each second a melodic trip into the unknown, permeating even the lightest scenes with a heavy dose of dread. Look at any of the F13 films after. The ones who use the original score are by far the scariest (more on that later when we get to the 2009 remake).
But Sean S. Cunningham deserves recognition too. He crafted a smart mystery thriller first. Who is this killer? The camp owner set to rebuild the camp? Crazy Ralph? The counselor who lingers a bit too long after slicing a snake to bits in the cabin? The sheriff? Maybe someone we haven’t met yet? That's the question everyone is asking up until the reveal, and even after the reveal, you may continue to question it (could the boy who drowned in the lake be behind some of the killings? We never do see all of the kills…). It may be cliché now, but Cunningham fills his film with an assortment of friends and suspects, throws them in danger, and has a ball with it; making it a real mystery. Sure, the final girl role had made an appearance in many a film before it, but Cunningham brings everything together in the classic ending in an operatic level of slo-mo macabre mastery.
Adding the diabolical talents of FX wizard Tom Savini was the cherry on top here. He made each effect a showpiece. The artistry he used in this film have become clichéd by today's standards, but each of the kills are as much a highlight reel for the master talent Savini possessed back then. A simple slit throat is common place in these types of films, but here with Savini's touch you can actually feel the razor across the skin and imagine how painful and shocking it might be. His work on the drowned boy, Jason Voorhees is iconic as well. Savini warps the young boy just enough to be monstrous and pitiful at the same time. The full body make-up crossed with the subtle acting of Ari Lehman under it all makes that final scene all the more frightening.
In the end, I think it was the fact that the killer is actually a victim too that makes FRIDAY THE 13TH as effective as it is. The rage behind the killer’s madness is somewhat understandable; kids are assholes sometimes. And the way the film caught on and birthed so many sequels is equally understandable given that it plays into the rebelliousness of youth and offers them a boogeyman to fear and root for all at once. But the kids in the original are actually pretty likable compared to the cardboard cutouts that appear in later entries, so you really aren’t rooting for the killer as much here. Unlike the films after it which pretty much use the same formula over and over again, FRIDAY THE 13TH may not have been the first, but it definitely sets the stage for all slasher films to follow.
So by 2009, folks thought it was better to remake FRIDAY THE 13TH than do another sequel. I’ll give it to them, with Jason going everywhere from Hell to space to New York, there really wasn’t a lot of places to go but back to the beginning. One would think that with so many films sequelizing, homaging, and down right ripping off the original FRIDAY THE 13TH film, it wouldn’t be hard to pull off a remake. But no one told that to Marcus Nispel, it seems.
The main problem with FRIDAY THE 13TH 2009 was not that it wasn’t like the films before it. It was the fact that the film played like a greatest hits / cliff notes version of the entire series. Pamela Voorhees is quickly dispatched in the opening segments in a decision that reeks of executive producer decision that people want to see Jason instead of seeing the actual killer from the original. Again, if they really wanted to make a remake and include Jason, why not make it a mother and son Team Vengeance taking out these annoying campers? Or tell the entire story of parts one and two, incorporating what was only told as legend in the original? But then again, what do I know?
With the remake playing more like a greatest hits album, you do get modern takes of classic Jason kills like the sleeping bag kill and other highlights. Jason moves from mongoloid child to bag headed man beast to hockey masked icon in an expedient manner. Fans of the original looking for the mystery that permeated the first will find the film sorely lacking in any type of suspense as Jason makes mince meat out of the cast giving them just enough time for you as the viewer to wish them dead before that with is granted. The WB bunch aren’t nearly as likable and though, since the original, it’s become commonplace to root for Jason in these films, you find yourself rooting a little harder given all of the skank and douchebaggery that permeates this young cast. Along with a cast to root for, Manfredini’s score which played such a huge role in the original, is sinfully missing from the remake as well, aside from the “Ch-ch-ch-ha-ha-ha!”, that is, making the film all the more lackluster.
The storyline is next to nil here, which really is a shame. One would think that if a multi-million dollar budget was tossed at this thing, a script that did more than connect the dots from one kill to the next would have been crafted. Sure this is supposed to be a remake, but unlike Bousman’s expansion of the themes in his remake of MOTHER’S DAY, story wise, the moralistic themes that made the original so resonant aren’t given any screen time at all. Instead we just get a big budget version of every F13 sequel mashed together with next to nothing new added to the story.
But in order to try to bring something new to the table the remakers did two things. They included the addition of marijuana fields in Crystal Lake and Jason’s eagerness to protect them which is a lame attempt by clueless executives to pander to those who chuckle any time the word “weed” is used. But the new way Jason is characterized is actually the best part of the film. Cast as a survivalist, living off of the land, knowing traps and hunting skills, Derek Mears’ Jason Voorhees is one of the best (though I’ll always have a black place in my heart for Kane Hodder). There is menace in his silent slasher and the inclusion of the bawdy woodsman persona who creeps around tunnels under Crystal Lake makes this Jason formidable and one of the more serious takes on the character. The Jason bag mask looks damn creepy (kind of like Cronenberg’s mask in NIGHTBREED without the button eyes) and his hockey masked visage is powerful as well. Mears brings a physicality to the role which is much more imposing and frightening. The fact that Jason runs in this one (as he did in most of the early sequels) makes him all the more threatening. Too bad they didn’t construct a stronger story around the monster.
Anyone watching Cunningham’s version of the film which took things deadly serious and attempted to add some heft in tone and plot and Nispel’s version which was obviously made by folks who look down on the franchise and think that the fans are stupid enough to eat up countless marijuana jokes and mindless kills, know the remake doesn’t stack up one bit to the original. The later films became the clichés. The original was smart, fast, fun, and downright scary. Nispel made a remake of the sequels, not the original, unfortunately. While the original goes for the jugular, the remake feels more like a cheap shot to the balls.I could go on an on with coulda-beens and shoulda-beens when talking about the missed possibilities of a FRIDAY THE 13TH remake. Maybe if they kept the killer’s identity ambiguous throughout, it would have been better, but then there’d be those who complained because they wanted to see more Jason. As it is, the film is nothing but a young cover band trying their damndest to play a classic tune. And while it was great to see my old friend Jason back in action, I wanted to see the story pushed forward, not stuck replaying the same old song.I’m sure there are some who will poo-poo my dedication of so much time and energy writing about a silly 80’s slasher film, but though the makers of the remake think that fans of the film aren’t intelligent or aren’t wanting a smarter, scarier FRIDAY THE 13TH, I know there are smart fans out there who see the potential for a really good FRIDAY THE 13TH film and want to see it someday. I’m holding out hope. There’s not another F13 on the calendar until next January sadly. So make the best of this one, enjoy the day and watch a FRIDAY THE 13TH film, if you can. Maybe by the time the next F13 rolls around someone will come along and do Camp Blood proud and take me back to the horrific wonder I felt watching that first film on that summer day back when I was too young to watch and too enthralled to care.FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980): The cut in the Collection is the uncut version of the original film, which makes the whole thing feel brand new, with extended gore scenes and other little bits that’ll make fans drool. Other treats include mini-docs like FRIDAY THE 13TH CHRONICLES which focuses on the origin of FRIDAY THE 13TH interviewing mainly Sean Cunningham and cast which I’ve seen before on other presentations. There’s also newer interviews in FRESH CUTS: TALES FROM FRIDAY THE 13TH is another set of mini-interviews with Cunningham, Manfredini, Miller, Savini, and others where you’ll find out that the original title of the film was LONG NIGHT AT CAMP BLOOD, which I kind of dig for some reason, among other tidbits. Another featurette focuses on Sean Cunningham himself called THE MAN BEHIND THE LEGACY. LOST TALES FROM CAMP BLOOD is new to me, these original shorts expanding the F13 mythos by a couple of kills aren’t the best, but offer up a few more thrills and completists will eat these up. Commentary comes from Cunningham and the cast and crew, there’s the original trailer, there’re bits from the F13 Reunion, an effects special which, in terms of the original, is really impressive given Savini’s effects, and of course the theatrical trailer.
FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009): The final film collected in the BluRay Box Set has a featurette mini-doc on remaking Jason called THE REBIRTH OF JASON VOORHEES and another called HACKING BACK/SLASHING FORWARD which compares the lesser remake to the superior original, but of course doesn’t share that viewpoint. There’s also a trivia game that spans the entire series and a masturbatory THE 7 BEST KILLS feature featuring the 7 “best” kills in the remake.
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981)
Director: Steve MinerWriter: Ron Kurz & Victor Miller
Starring Amy Steel, John Fury, Adrienne King, Kirsten Baker, Stuart Charno, Walt Gorney, Tom McBride, Marta Kober, Bill Randolph, Lauren-Marie Taylor, Russell Todd, Betsy Palmer and Warrington Gillette as Jason Voorhees
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
Continuing to cover a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie every time a Friday the 13th comes around, this time we’re looking at the original sequel. Can you believe in the year and three months this column has been running, we’ve only had two Friday the 13th’s so far?Even from the shocking opening moments of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 there’s a lot of metaphor to be read into the story. A small boy plays in a puddle, he’s called in by his mother, and as he walks away, a large boot splashes into the puddle immediately after. The boy has been replaced by the man. Now, the FRIDAY THE 13TH series has always been the butt of a lot of jokes, but while films like the original, THE FINAL CHAPTER, JASON LIVES, and maybe bits of JASON X were crowd pleasers, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 actually seemed to want to resonate with some sophisticated themes.
While adhering to the basic structure established in the first film, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 sets the tone for all of the sequels to follow. Five years after the original massacre at Camp Blood, another set of campers set up camp in the cabins across the lake. This group, like the first, are fun loving, sex crazed, and rambunctious; just the type of fodder that always lines up to be chopped down in these films. Though no Academy Awards were given to any of the actors in this one, at least the actors in this film seemed to give it their all. Unlike recent stalk and slash flicks, this film isn’t packed with GQ and MAXIM models. Making the kids in this one relatable and downright earthy makes them infinitely more appealing, and you find yourself actually caring whether they live or die. Every one of these kids in peril could be you or I, something modern horror doesn’t seem to get by populating their films with ridiculous good lookings. 
Unlike the other sequels, there are a few things different in this film that make FRIDAY THE 13TH a little more frightening than the rest. First and foremost, I’ve always been a fan of the bag-head Jason. The hockey mask has become an iconic symbol of the series, but it wasn’t until the next chapter that our hero dons his famous ice hockey face plate. The bag head, reminiscent of the hooded killer in THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN and of the mask the Zodiac killer was known to wear, always seemed more frightening in its ruggedness and simplicity. Jason is a faceless killer in this film, but the mere glimmer of an eye through the hole in the mask is infinitely more frightening than any goalie in my opinion.Also in this film, Jason is not treated as a lumbering retard. Played here by Warrington Gillette, this Jason is sophisticated enough to call his first victim, F13 survivor Alice (played by Adrienne King), to make sure she’s home and even knows to take the kettle off the oven so as not to alert the neighbors of his kill. He sets snare traps for his victims and is a much more meticulous killer than in later films, stalking the campers set to reopen Camp Crystal Lake and hunting them before dispatching them.
Final girl Ginny (played by Amy Steel) seems to be the only one who actually wants to be a counselor here. She tries to psychoanalyze the legend of Jason after an ominous tale (revisited in PART 4) is told to the campers around a fire. In the end, it’s this understanding that saves Ginny as she fools Jason into thinking she is his mother long enough to deliver the final blow. But of course, as with the first film, the shockeroo ending makes it difficult to understand whether or not the survivors live or die or if the unmasked Jason who crashes through the window at the end is just the nightmare of a traumatized victim.
Though this is a great addition to the F13 franchise, it is definitely not the most original. Some of the kills are almost exactly swiped from Mario Bava’s BAY OF BLOOD AKA TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE. Director Miner amps up the tension by having the camera follow the weapon as Jason moves closer toward his victim. Miner also highlights the sex and death angle, not only by killing off any camper who has sex, but cutting to people having sex immediately after someone is killed. Miner also keeps the mystery going until the end. Though the identity of the killer is common knowledge now, you have to understand that at this point in the series, the film is set up to be somewhat of a mystery. There most definitely is a killer stalking the campers, but who it is remains a mystery until the end.
The kills in this film are especially brutal. A man’s neck is slashed while hanging upside down with blood gushing. A spear is stuck between two kids having sex (swiped directly from BAY OF BLOOD). And the fan favorite machete THWAK across the face of the wheelchair guy (lifted straight from BAY OF BLOOD) then the roll backwards down the stairs occurs in this one as well. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 continues to set the bar high after Savini’s blood filled rampage effects in the original.
I think one of the major problems I had with this film is that it killed off one of the coolest characters in the series. Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) may have been made fun of when he warned the campers that “Camp Crystal Lake has a death curse!” but it made for some of the most memorable scenes in the early parts of the series. Killing off Ralph in this one might have added to the body count, but it took out one of the characters that could have made for some nice continuity from one movie to the next and offered some of the local flavor as well. What did Ralph know about the lake? What made him crazy? We’ll never know.It’s the continuity that makes the first few FRIDAY THE 13th’s so special. The latter films forgot all of that. This one began where the first ended; acknowledging the history that was just building. It made you want to seek out the original and watch it back to back. Sure the storyline is almost identical, but the evolution of the killer from Pamela Voorhees to her son in this one felt like parts of a bigger story.
A couple of firsts occur in this film. First nudity in the series by the svelte Terry (Kirsten Baker) who decides to go skinny dipping, first showing of Jason’s house where he keeps a shrine to his mother (visited later in PART 3), and first use of a chainsaw (though it’s used by Ginny and not Jason himself). It’s also the first in what became the standard in following films: the unmasking to see what kind of ugly metamorphosis Jason has gone through since the last film. This bearded lumberjack Jason is not my favorite Jason FX, but it is a pretty great evolution from the kid who leaps from the lake in the original.As you can tell, I’ve seen PART 2 quite a few times and never really get sick of revisiting it. It’s got some great kills, some absolutely suspenseful moments, another great score by the master Henry Manfredini, and one hell of an ending with an unmasked Jason taking care of business. This FRIDAY THE 13TH, if you’re looking for one of the better installments in the F13 series, PART 2 is tough to top.
The F12P2 disk’s got the original theatrical trailer, a special on F13 at Horror Cons, and a special called JASON FOREVER which is basically a panel from a Fangoria horror con starring numerous actors who played Jason through the years including Kane Hodder and Ari Lehman. There’s a cool interview with Peter Bracke, writer of CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES, which was recently made into a documentary. There’s another installment of the TALES FROM CAMP BLOOD series which basically features another elaborately staged kill with less story than even the movies actually have, still they have Henry Manfredini’s score, so it ain’t all that bad.
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 (IN 3-D) (1982)
Directed by Steve MinerWritten by Martin Kitrosser, Ron Kurtz, Victor Miller, Carol Watson, Petru Popescu
Starring Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Larry Zerner, Tracie Savage, Jeffrey Rogers, Catherine Parks, David Katims, Rachel Howard, Nick Savage, Gloria Charles, Kevin O’Brien, & Richard Brooker as Jason
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
Now that I’ve reviewed Parts One and Two of the FRIDAY THE 13TH series I can get into the finer points of why I have come to love the film series more than any other. What made these movies cool wasn’t the fantastic acting or particularly original stories. It was the fact that the films, at least in the earlier entries, were so tightly connected together. Now, looking back, I know they were just making shit up as they went along. But after a few year leap from film one to film two, the thing that sets episodes three and four apart from the herd is the fact that watched back to back, they all fit together. Sure, now with LORD OF THE RINGS, HARRY POTTER, STAR WARS, and the like, connecting the films in the series together is a gimme, but back then, it was something cool to see when the end of the last film began the next.FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 begins with old Ginny, the final girl from PART TWO, impersonating Jason’s mother and whacking him across the shoulder with his machete. And as the opening credits roll (sporting a funky soundtrack, still done by Manfredini, but jazzed up with synth and drums because this film was made in 3D so it’s futuristic!), we see Jason remove the machete and slink away, ready to immediately jump back into action with the killing he does so well. Our cast of latest soon-to-be-deads actually show up at Crystal Lake the very next day after the events of the last film, making this more of a SATURDAY THE 14TH film than actually happening on Jason’s birthday.
But why split hairs? What ensues is more of what you’ve come to expect from the FRIDAY THE 13TH series. At this point, the series still had its bite with Jason’s kills being especially brutal; Jason stabs a red hot poker through a pregnant woman’s belly, Jason slices a guy walking on his hands in two with a machete, Jason squeezes a man’s head so hard that his eye pops out. Jason also solidifies his devious side by killing a cage full of bunnies (BAD JASON!) and to make matters worse tosses a rattlesnake inside so it can leap out at the viewer and the victim at just the right moment. At the same time, though, the series was starting to lose some of the originality in regards to its kills. The memorable arrow through neck scene with Kevin Bacon in Part One is repeated, this time with a knife instead. Gone are the flashes to white that often occurred during the deaths, making them feel somewhat less impactful. With Crazy Ralph offed in the previous entry, another old loon spouts doom and gloom to our oblivious and mocking campers.
Paying attention to the 3rd Dimension brought new life to the series when original kills failed. This was the first Paramount film produced in 3D since 1954 and the 3D camera used to shoot the film was the same kind that dazzled audiences in JAWS 3D. Miner takes full advantage of stabbing, poking, and shoving stuff IN YO FACE every chance he gets. From needles to fire pokers to rolled joints to eyeballs to yo-yos to rattlesnakes to knives, everything is coming at you in full 3D! What these instances of 3rd Dimension effects lack in subtlety, they make up in hokey fun.FRIDAY THE 13TH can be recognized for a couple of firsts. Though previous entries catered to the pure whitebread audience, PART 3 expanded its cultural sensitivity by casting a Latina actress as well as a pair of black gang members for Jason to slaughter. With Cheech and Chong at the height of their popularity, we also have a pair of stoners on the chopping block for the first time to offer some comedic moments and setting up more deviant behavior for our murderous camp killer to take care of.
But I guess the biggest first this film is known for is that it signals the first time we see Jason in his soon-to-be trademark hockey mask. A little research tells me that the hockey mask was originally used during rehearsals to cover the killer’s face during the scenes which still focused on the hands and feet of the killer rather than showing him in his entirety. It was not meant to be a part of the film, but the effects guy was a hockey fan and happened to have a Red Wings goalie helmet in his bag. When Miner saw the mask he loved it and incorporated it into the story by having it first belong to Shelly, the prankster of the group, then used by Jason after he kills the prankster to fool people into thinking he was Shelly. Still, it’s uncut awesome when Jason strolls out on the dock sporting the hockey mask for the first time. It’s one of those moments that stand out as miniscule at the time, but resonant on later viewings knowing how big that look became as a symbol for the series.
One of the reasons why FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 might lack the punch of its predecessors is that effects guru Tom Savini didn’t return for this one. Though Manfredini and Miner helped with consistency between the films, the absence of Savini’s visceral effects is evident from kill one.Thematically, the film is lacking as well; instead of the attention to mystery in the first and the amateur psychology at play in part two, F13 PART 3 depends mainly on the cat and mouse chase, with the cast offed quickly in order to focus on the new final girl Chris (this time played by Dana Kimmell) who may or may not have been raped by Jason three years prior in the woods surrounding Crystal Lake. While Miner heaps on the abuse towards Jason in this final fight between final girl and killer, it lacks the depth of Alice’s final battle with Mrs. Voorhees in the first and even Ginny’s battle in the second. And while Miner kept things realistic somewhat in the first two, Jason truly becomes unkillable in the third as he survives a hanging and an axe to the head and still keeps coming, Chris’ mutterance “You can’t be alive!” becoming Jason’s motto from there on out.
At this point, the presence of mystery was fading and it was turning into more of a showcase for kills. Never do we wonder who is doing the killing (a feeling that is prevalent in both of the previous entries) and Jason’s move to villainous superstardom was beginning here. Richard Brooker does a fine job as the lumberous Jason who isn’t above running while in pursuit of his kill, giving him an almost desperate and frantic gait instead of the zombie-like stride Jason adopts later.Though the story continues almost seamlessly from PART 2 to 3, one annoying inconsistency was that somewhere between the two films Jason lost all of his hair. The once burly mountain monster covered in facial hair and an ungamely hairdo from PART 2’s unmasking is now as bald as a baby’s pooper. I’m sure this had to do with the budget focusing on 3D effects rather than practical ones, but the differences between the two looks of Jason is quite jarring and marks the start of the one surprise to look forward to in these films--that being what mask the FX wizards have whipped up for Jason this time around. Though hairless, this unmasked Jason is one of the weirder looks in that in the film’s final moments, the oft-inscrutable Jason looks more like a grinning madman.
One thing that stands out as one of the biggest missed opportunities established in PART 3 is the appearance of Mrs. Voorhees at the end, leaping from the lake in an homage to the original film’s ending. Originally, PART 3 was supposed to be the end of the series and Miner decided to go full circle with it. Still, having Jason killing campers on land and Mrs. Voorhees haunting the lake is a one-two punch I would love to see. Though her appearance is most likely a dream, as far as the loose narrative this series has, I still think the absence of Pamela Voorhees in later entries is a missed opportunity nevertheless.Still, the ending is one of the stronger ones in the series with plenty of shocks from Jason rising from the dead to flapping ducks to Mrs. Voorhees’ surprise leap from the lake to Chris’ surprisingly lunatic acting right before the credits roll. Check out this pretty damn hilarious remix of Chris’ final moments from the movie.
Though its far from the best the film series has to offer, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 still has that thrill and energy of the first few and wasn’t afraid to add new details to the ever-horrifying saga of Jason Voorhees. Some might think it’s ridiculous to spend this much time and this many words on a series such as FRIDAY THE 13TH, but I know scores of avid fans who feel like I do: that this is a series worth celebrating for all the cool that it was at the time. There’s got to be something to this film series to spawn so many sequels and I can’t wait to delve further into these films over the next Friday the 13th holidays!
This trailer is just sooo damn retro-cool.
This one’s got the usual theatrical trailer, but also a featurette called FRESH CUTS: 3D TERROR focusing on the decision to do the third FRIDAY in 3D, which features some cool behind the scenes shots of the making of the film including shots of Stan Winston’s never used Jason face makeup from an alternate ending (which is talked about, but maddeningly never shown---URGHH!). There’s also a great featurette focusing on Jason’s trademark hockey mask and how covering up Jason’s mug evolved through the years called LEGACY OF THE MASK. Another LOST TALES OF CAMP BLOOD continues the tale from part II, as the camper, after seeing his girlfriend killed by Jason, finds the crime scene from the first installment. Again, this is not anything great by a long shot, but fun to see new material of Jason going around doing what he does best. Finally this disk has a featurette called SLASHER FILMS: GOING FOR THE JUGULAR which talks more about the appeal of slasher films and how influential F13s were to the genre.
Ambush Bug Interviews CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF FRIDAY THE 13TH Filmmakers Thommy Hutson and Daniel Farrands!
Fans of FRIDAY THE 13TH have a lot to celebrate today. Not only is the new BluRay Collection available this week, but the makers of NEVER SLEEP AGAIN, which dissected the entire NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series, have returned and focused their lens on the entire FRIDAY THE 13TH series with CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF FRIDAY THE 13TH which is available today from CrystalLakeMemories.net. Here’s what writer/director Daniel Farrands and producer Thommy Hutson had to say when we talked and geeked out about all things F13!
AMBUSH BUG (BUG): All right, I am here with Daniel Farrands, writer and director of CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF FRIDAY THE 13TH and Thommy Hutson who produced the film.DANIEL FARRANDS (DF): That’s right.
BUG: Were both of you guys involved in the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET one a while back?
THOMMY HUTSON (TH): Yeah, we were. Dan directed and produced and I wrote and produced.
BUG: Very cool. Well, you guys really did a fantastic job on that documentary, and I guess the logical next step was FRIDAY THE 13TH. Was that logical for you guys? Explain the process of moving from that film series to this one.
TH: I’ll just start it out, and then, Dan, you can get the next one. At that time we were working on the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET project just as a team, and creatively it was really fulfilling and we had always been looking for something to do next and there were only so many horror franchises, so we definitely went through “What do we want to do next?” “What hasn’t been done?” “What may be done differently?” I remember I was in my office, and Dan was in his office, and we were talking on the phone and the idea of doing something epic, like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, I think seemed to fit realistically only with something as big and broad as FRIDAY THE 13TH, so Dan and I started mulling it over and then I think the idea coalesced for a couple of reasons, and then Dan, I’ll let you get into your thing, if you want.
DF: Yeah, sure. I will say, right off the bat: Thommy was the Freddy guy, I was the Jason guy. So Thommy brought all of that knowledge and enthusiasm and relationship that he had for so many cast members and behind the scenes people for the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET films. I had similar relationships with people from FRIDAY THE 13TH, because I kind of grew up loving the series. In fact, I was the kid who wrote letters to the producer of the film in the Eighties, Sean Cunningham, who was kind of like a mentor to me and really the first validation I ever got in the entertainment business, so it was really all of those relationships and the fact that I had edited the book that Peter Bracke wrote and was published in 2005, which was CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES, which was a beautiful and amazing book that he put his heart and soul into, and we both worked in tandem to create that, and so it just made logical sense to put all of these things together. Like Thommy said, we had such a great time doing NEVER SLEEP AGAIN as crazy as it was, we were trying to do something that magnificent in our running time and see if people would hopefully not knock it down or say “What the heck were they thinking?” It was just…the reaction we got was just so overwhelming, and we are so thrilled and touched by all the great reviews and the fan reaction. So we thought “There’s a whole lot of fans out there like myself who haven’t seen that definitive documentary.” So that’s where this all came about.BUG: Fantastic. Well Daniel, what do you find so compelling about the FRIDAY THE 13TH series? Personally, I’m a Jason man myself. I grew up loving the series, and I have my own reasons, but I’d love to hear yours.
DF: I mean, I don’t know. I always tend to go back to this, but FRIDAY THE 13TH is to me that ultimate campfire tale. It’s that ghost story with your friends that you tell to scare each other that you hope won’t come true, and kind of what FRIDAY THE 13TH did was it showed you if you go into the woods then all of these terrible things will happen to you, but I really look at them as really interesting fun morality tales. You look at Aesop’s Fables and things like that. Again, “if you go down the unbeaten path, then watch out”, and that’s kind of what the FRIDAY THE 13TH films are when I watch them: all these kids who are doing things that they probably shouldn’t be doing, but we’ve all done them; it’s just we’ve gotten away without having a machete wielding hockey masked maniac coming after us, so maybe it’s living vicariously through all of these characters where we get to have all the fun and still end up alive at the end of the day.TH: That’s a great way of putting it. I don’t think I can top that one. I also think there’s an interesting thing about the surviving characters of FRIDAY THE 13TH . I think there’s that group of fans that really identify with Jason and want to cheer him on. I think when it started early on, it was like HALLOWEEN and you were really seeing it through the eyes of the outsider, that girl who survived because she saw something the others didn’t see. I don’t think you need to be a survivalist in these movies in order to survive, but it seems to be a running theme. I also think there’s something to be said about speaking to the audience in a way that they can relate. In many ways anybody in this business grew up a little on the outside. I certainly did, and I think that’s what I related to: the idea that you could have resilience and strength and fortitude and you’d survive. I think there’s that kind of a thing running through it as well. I definitely responded to that.
BUG: I totally agree with both of you guys and see those aspects as very attractive parts of this series. The part that I really loved the best, especially about the first couple of films, was just how they were so interconnected and so tied together. What did you guys find out in regards to the first series of films? I guess we could break it down into the first four, as far as thematically they all seemed to be interconnected.DF: Yeah, I loved that as well. Each successive film seemed to take place directly after the other or tied into it, like between one and two there was that gap, but we picked up with Adrien King’s character and introducing Jason as this sort of vengeful force that was coming out to get her and finish the work that his mother didn’t. There’s something very cool, and I think a lot of credit has to go to Sean Cunningham who of course created the original, but Steve Miner who had a vision, especially by part three where they took this huge gamble with the 3D format as it was not very common in those days, and they really revived it from that Fifties format into something that was a little more effective for the time, really much more superior. So there’s been a lot of eggs in the basket. He tried different things to keep the audience engaged. I think you’re right. What’s cool about the first four is that thematic undercurrent of continuation, especially by four where it picks up at the crime scene and the helicopter above the car and the whole aftermath of part three I think is one of the coolest openings.
BUG: Yeah, and you see that kind of repeated in the HATCHET films, which I just covered on Ain’t It Cool where all three of those films tie right together and the first thing that came to mind was the first FRIDAY THE 13TH's.
DF: Yeah Adam Green, who I produced the bonus content for the Paramount releases for some of the films a few years ago, I actually invited Adam to come in and do a commentary on part four, which was his favorite movie. He just talked about it like “I just ripped this off. I loved this so much…”TH: I think I was just talking about this with somebody the other day, how the HALLOWEEN franchise came up and I said one of the things that I loved for better or worse, however people feel, what I loved about HALLOWEEN 2 was it literally…the whole thing was the end of the first film and they did the same thing with the first couple FRIDAY THE 13th movies. There’s this great continuation, and I think horror fans love that when you fall in love with these characters. The final girl or the final guy, you identify with them and you want to see them survive, you want to see them thrive. So you get that through line every time the movie ends and it begins with them again like FRIDAY THE 13Th PART 2, again for better or worse, Adrien King’s character gets killed, but it was so great to see her come back right at the beginning, because you really felt like this is another part of the same story and then as it went on obviously they started taking a departure with “This is a new movie, let’s not really worry about the continuity.” I think continuing a story in the sequel is such a great way to go; it just makes you feel like you’re a part of this gigantic great story that you want to follow year after year.
DF: I agree. In the way that these movies came out, it was pretty much an annual event. You could look forward to the next FRIDAY THE 13TH, so it was really a party atmosphere. There was always excitement around for the next one. Other than FANGORIA, we didn’t have access to Ain’t It Cool or anything like that in those days, so it was always a big surprise when the next one was coming out. I remember when the trailer for THE FINAL CHAPTER came out and it was playing with CHILDREN OF THE CORN, I literally ran to CHILDREN OF THE CORN just to see that trailer. So these movies meant a lot and they still do, but I also wanted to add on that whole sort of idea that Thommy expanded on a bit more than I did about that survivor thing in the climax of that quadrilogy, if you want to call it that, the first four. They introduced the ultimate survivor, which was Tommy Jarvis who went in five and six as an adult character, but you wanted that ultimate outsider, that nerdy kid who ironically is the only one who could fight Jason out of all of the people who fought against him. I always thought that was a very interesting and very clever way to go.TH: Yeah, the Tommy character is almost like that Greek chorus. He was the audience member. He was the one who said, “I know about all of this stuff.” It’s all “This is what I would have done, but now he did it…” Technically, he defeated Jason. He did.
BUG: Definitely. I definitely include five and six in there. Personally, I love part 6. I think it’s a really fantastic film as far as evolving the character of Jason from basically a living character to a reanimated Frankenstein kind of character. That continued on for a couple of films as well. How did you guys cover this transition from the living Jason to the undead Jason?
DF: Almost exactly like the book does, in a way like NEVER SLEEP AGAIN covered the ELM STREET series. I mean, we really give each movie its own specific chapter, so we’re not really jumping around in continuity and time and we address all of the continuity issues that come up in the series. So in a lighthearted way we got people to really talk about “Oh, this is the point where the series started to get off track.” Tom McLoughlin is a friend and somebody I really admire, and he’s always been so supportive of us when we were going down the FRIDAY THE 13TH road, but he and his wife Nancy are just great and I think you can tell the energy that he brought to that movie as a writer and director. I think after 5 being somewhat of a misstep, some might argue it was not, but I think certainly the fan reaction wasn’t that positive, nor was the critical reaction probably more than with any of the films, but I think by six with Frank Mancuso, who I interviewed for the show, he really wanted to bring Jason back. He knew he had to, but he wanted to do it in a great dramatic and theatrical way and Tom came up with this really cool new vision. In a way it kind of capped off the Tommy Jarvis trilogy.BUG: Definitely, and as far as how these characters developed and where they went it seemed like towards the latter part of the series it did become so much more disjointed. Was there anything you were able to find out as far as the reasons why they decided to make them more singular films?
TH: I just remember going through all the transcripts and reading the great questions that Dan came up with, and Dan, correct me if I’m wrong…it came down to “What can we do now? What can we do next that we haven’t done before?” You know, “Carrie versus Jason” in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART SEVEN, because I love that movie…it all doesn’t make sense. I mean, at the end of the day I love the movie and I had a great time watching it and Dan and I talk about it often--usually he tells me to stop talking about it--Seven really didn’t make any sense, but it works in that context of pitting Jason against one of his more formidable adversaries, but in the context of FRIDAY THE 13TH, Jason at this point is a zombie, essentially; he’s the undead, and now we’ve got a girl who can make things move with her mind, but somehow it all works and in my mind it’s “How can we top the last one?” I don’t even know if it’s “The last couple didn’t make any money and we got off track,” because at some point, is there a track in the FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise? I really feel like the track is “Let’s give Jason the best movie we can, the best kills we can”, Dan, I’m now going off the rails here a little maybe, but I feel it was all about giving the fans the coolest Jason movie, the scariest, the goriest, the whateverist Jason movie, so I feel like “Let’s throw in a girl who can move things with her mind. Oh, you know what? He’s never been to New York City, that’s cool…” I kind of feel like it was like that.
DF: I think you’re right. I think the fans wanted more, so they had to figure out ways to keep it going and the Jason we knew from Part Five where he wasn’t involved in the movie so much, but was sort of a spirit, they realized that’s the third piece of the franchise when they had to keep going and they were inventive with interesting ways to keep him interesting to the audience and putting him in a different environment. I think the New York thing was a brilliant idea, certainly from a marketing point of view, but the movie itself didn't have the budget to be able to do all the things they really wanted to with that one.TH: I think Dan got a lot of the people in the documentary, particularly as the series started to go in different directions, why it went in different directions…the New York thing is a perfect example: Dan really found a way to get that story. It was originally supposed to be one thing and then it kind of flipped into another thing, so that’s what’s kind of cool about the documentary: we were able through Dan’s ability and his knowledge to really get all this cool insider information as to the who, what, where, and why of where the franchise went. I mean look, Jason went to space eventually…that certainly doesn’t seem to be the most logical step, but it was a really cool step.
BUG: And that kind of leads to my next question, which really has to deal with as far as NEVER SLEEP AGAIN, the part that I really loved the most were the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREETs that could have been. I love the bit about Peter Jackson’s version of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and what he was coming up with. Without spoiling too much, can you tell me about the FRIDAY THE 13THs that could have been?
DF: You know, the one that comes to mind right off the bat is number seven, which was written by Daryl Haney, but he went through several iterations of that, but always with the concept of a Jason vs. Carrie-like girl, but his original draft was really different. All the character names were similar, but they were all different kids. Tina I think was in high school, and there were condominiums being built by the lake. It was a really different setup and ultimately it played out the same, but in the beginning in terms of the reality of “This is the budget you have to work with” jumps in and they go “Okay, well we’ve got to trim this down.” So it’s interesting to see those drafts. I think the endings are another thing folks are always interested in. There always seems to be an alternate ending for the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies that they shot, like part four for example…Parts 2 and 3 are notorious for having shots or moments for the end scenes that were shot but have not been recovered since, so if one day I get the ability to do special editions of those movies, I would love to go through the Paramount vault to see those for parts 2 and 3.BUG: Definitely, and also some of the other rumors have surfaced through the years in regards to these films…I remember reading the book version of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 6 where Jason’s father is introduced at the very end. What where you guys able to put together regarding that plotthread that never really did seem to come to pass?
DF: Not only did we delve into that, we actually storyboarded the original ending for what it would look like. We were lucky enough to get the original script pages from the original ending, so it definitely is something that coming full circle is something people would get a kick out of.
BUG: Do you guys go into some of the other book versions of the character in this documentary, or is it mostly from the movies?DF: We mostly stick to the movies; however, there’s certainly this alternate universe of Jason that’s propped up as results of JASON X and certainly FREDDY VS. JASON, but we talk about them though I don’t know if we delve into them since that’s not what the documentary is about, but they are certainly acknowledged. Jeff Katz was instrumental with spearheading that whole effort, and he was the throughline that brought FREDDY VS. JASON to life at the studio. He really took that seriously and really went for it, so we talked to him about that. The FREDDY VS. JASON VS. ASH treatment was really interesting, and I can’t comment on that, but it’s definitely talked about.
BUG: It seems like if you look at the FRIDAY THE 13TH series as a whole, it is very repetitious and I think a lot of the criticism about the films is that it basically follows the same pattern through pretty much every movie. Still, fans love it. What do you think it is about the character, about the whole franchise that keeps people wanting to come back and see that over and over again in these different sequels?
DF: I think it’s the fun of being scared, but being safe. I think at the beginning when these movies came out…listen, FRIDAY THE 13TH part 1 and for me part 2 are really scary movies. They take themselves seriously and for all intents and purposes, the first one is “real.” It’s a woman seeking revenge and she is murdering all these kids. It’s that scary, when you go into the woods feeling “Is Mrs. Vorhees going to be there?” But now it’s “Is Jason going to be there?” I think as the franchise went on, again going back to an earlier answer, they are just fun. They are scary and they are rollercoaster rides and it’s the whole thing of “What is Jason going to do next?” It’s the “I’m going to cover my eyes and still peek through my fingers, because I’m scared but I’m still excited and interested in what’s going to happen.”
Again, as Jason went through the years, he evolved from the little boy who drowned in the lake to the undead unstoppable monster into uber-Jason who is half cybernetic. I think there’s this overarching fun to the entire franchise where it started out really real and really scary and then became kind of fun and then became cool and interesting and again, you can’t stop Jason. You can’t kill Jason so let’s just keep bringing him back and see what he’s going to do next.TH: I agree, but I think there’s also…you’ve got to go all out. There’s that fear of untimely death. It’s the theme that since adolescence these movies have always had where they are cautionary tales. I think they were about morals, like even flashback to the feminist movement. I think there’s just something to be said about the experience you have when you watch it with an audience, and I think that’s part of it.
BUG: Definitely. Were you guys able to cover any of the recent developments regarding Paramount getting the rights to FRIDAY THE 13TH once again and if you guys were able to find out any information as to what’s happening with the franchise coming up.
TH: No, and we specifically avoided that topic, because it’s so malleable and so easily changed. We didn’t want to do the documentary and then see a year from now that we got it wrong. So, you know, it just wouldn’t make any sense until there’s been an official announcement as to what’s going on with it. I certainly have had calls and private conversations with Cunningham about it. It’s going to happen and will happen with Paramount, but the details are not coming out and some of them are just not ready to be put out there yet, but Jason will live on, there’s no doubt about it.
BUG: Well, I hope so. How long is the film?DF: It’s staggering--pushing seven hours.
BUG: Oh wow--awesome.
DF: It’s about six hours and forty-five minutes.
TH: It’s more FRIDAY THE 13TH than you’ve ever hoped for.
[Everyone Laughs]
TH: Or wanted. I thought we’d never survive, but it’s been an incredible journey for all of us. It’s a very small filmmaking family that we have here, and working with all of them, those people that care, and all the interviews, the lengths they went to to get those people, I can’t even express how grateful I am for it and so the show is kind of like a childhood wish fulfillment for me and I hope it is for the fans who watch it.
BUG: Very cool. If you guys had the chance to make your own FRIDAY THE 13TH, what would you guys do with it? What would you add to it or take from? Would there be a specific aspect that you would highlight from a previous film?
DF: I have never heard Thommy’s answer, so I want to know what his is.
TH: I’ve got to be honest: I want to see Amy Fields, Lar Park Lincoln, …I want to see those girls come back and get their revenge on Jason. I want to see them band together. I don’t know if they are in a mental hospital or where they are today, but they find each other and they go after Jason this time. What happens to them I’m not so sure, but I have a feeling there will probably be heads flying across the room with Lara Park Lincoln’s telekinetic powers. I would like to see the five of them band together and try to take Jason down. They have a grudge. They have a chip on their shoulder and they need to get it out.
DF: We talk about it in the documentary. We all agree that these are people we’ve all been waiting for…there are a group of survivor characters and look, they are old enough to have college-aged kids…what if those kids despise their parents, or they believe they are paranoid and just went up to the lake, had sex up there, Jason kept doing what he does, and now the mother’s kind of…like H2O, where they just really fight back and reclaim their place and put Jason to rest once and for all. It’d be a great story and deserves to be told.TH: You can’t deceive fear unless you face it and these women, while they faced it in the movies, we were left wondering what happened to them next. I think the next chapters in their lives, like the perfect example that Dan mentioned of Jaimie Lee in H2O, she stopped running. She actually decided “I’m not going to get in that car and drive off, because it will never end if I don’t stop it.” It’s their turn to make something happen to end the horror.
DF: There’s something about a survivor’s club that H2O didn’t have, but with FRIDAY THE 13Th, because there are so many survivors that these women…they are very damaged but very strong women and I think that’s a pretty cool idea.
BUG: Yeah, it’s very cyclical too, because Jason himself is a survivor since his mother was killed by one of the counselors herself, so they are all kind of victims there. That’s a really interesting theme.
TH: We’ll keep promoting that, and hopefully one day they will listen.
BUG: Yes, definitely. Well, guys, thank you so much for taking the time out. This is coming out on September 13th. I cannot wait until I get to dive into the seven hours of this footage and really check it out. I could talk with you guys all day about this stuff. I’m a huge fan of FRIDAY THE 13Th and it’s great to see other fans and people out there taking this seriously.
DF: I don’t know if it matters in terms of your article, but there’s a bonus feature of a seven hour commentary on the documentary that plays along with the seven hours of content that you can watch.TH: So if you’re really interested in a saturation of all things Jason, you can listen along. Peter Bracke, the writer of the book, participated in the commentary and so it was really fun. Right now it’s being sold exclusively though the website CrystalLakeMemories.net and if you get it through the website there will be a bonus DVD, another four hours of footage. So it’s the only way you will be able to get that and then shortly after that we will be opening with a wider release, but for now it’s the only place to get it, the website.
BUG: Very cool. Well, guys thank you so much for taking the time out to talk today.
CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF FRIDAY THE 13TH is available today from CrystalLakeMemories.net. No self respecting Voorhees fan should be without it! Look for my review of the film very soon on AICN HORROR!
Happy Friday the 13th, folks!
Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, original @$$Hole/wordslinger/writer of wrongs/reviewer/interviewer/editor of AICN COMICS for over 12 years & AICN HORROR for 3. He has written comics such as VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS THE TINGLERS & WITCHFINDER GENERAL, THE DEATHSPORT GAMES, & NANNY & HANK (soon to be made into a feature film from Uptown 6 Films). He has co-written FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND’s LUNA: ORDER OF THE WEREWOLF (to be released in 2013 as a 100-pg original graphic novel). Mark wrote the critically acclaimed GRIMM FAIRY TALES PRESENTS THE JUNGLE BOOK from Zenescope Entertainment & GRIMM FAIRY TALES #76-81. Look for GRIMM FAIRY TALES PRESENTS THE JUNGLE BOOK: LAST OF THE SPECIES available in February-July 2013 and the new UNLEASHED crossover miniseries GRIMM FAIRY TALES PRESENTS WEREWOLVES: THE HUNGER #1-3 available in May-July 2013! Follow Ambush Bug on the Twitter @Mark_L_Miller.
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