Friday the 13th Retrospective: The Final Chapter

So after working our way through the first nine films which make some sequential sense, we jump into the final two films and the 2009 remake.

Friday the 13th Retrospective Part 1

Friday the 13th Retropsective Part 2

Jason X (2001) – This is a sci-fi/slasher hybrid made primarily to keep Jason and the Friday the 13^th franchise in the minds of audiences while Freddy vs. Jason was in developmental hell.  This is the last appearance of Kane Hodder as Jason.

In 2008, Jason is captured by the U.S. government and taken to a facility to be cryogenically frozen.  Before that happens, he goes on another murderous rampage until being tricked into the cryo chamber by Rowan (Lexa Doig).  Thinking she’s safe, she starts the cryo chamber.  Before being frozen, Jason breaches the chamber (and Rowan) with his machete causing them both to freeze.

Jump ahead to 2455.  Earth has become unlivable and the inhabitants now live on Earth 2.  A group of students on an archeological dig discover Rowan and Jason and bring him to their ship.  They are able to heal and reanimate Rowan using nanobyte technology.  Jason they plan to study, but as he defrosts, he comes back to life and starts killing everyone off one by one.  An android (Lisa Ryder) is able to defeat Jason (by basically blowing him to pieces), but he falls in to a nanobyte workstation.  The nanobots reanimate him and Jason comes back stronger as Uber-Jason. 

The remaining crew do their best to hold him off until rescue arrives.  They are able to blow up the ship with Jason on it.  Jason falls into the atmosphere of Earth 2 and we see his charred mask land in a lake, earily similar to Crystal Lake.

“Jason X” is completely silly, but it’s a great bit of campy fun – sort of an “Aliens” meets “Friday the 13^th”.  While I personally love the movie, it was pretty much a box office bust and the lowest-grossing film in the franchise.

Freddy vs. Jason (2003) – Depending on how you look at the film franchises, this is the eighth movie in the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise or the eleventh “Friday the 13^th”film.

The movie opens with a monologue from Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund).  It seems he’s been forgotten by the children of Elm Street, and that has robbed him of his power.   Freddy scours the bowels of Hell and locates Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger).  Disguising himself as Jason’s mother, Freddy manipulates Jason to return to Elm Street and start killing the kids, knowing that even though Jason is doing the killing, it will cause people to remember him and their fear will return him to power.

It seems the parents of Elm Street have covered up Freddy, by locking up the kids who remember him in an asylum and drugging them with Hypnocil. They’ve also eliminated Freddy’s past from the city records.  Once Jason strikes though, Will (Jason Ritter), one of the locked up kids, escapes and returns to Elm Street believing Freddy is back in order to save his former girlfriend Lori (Monica Keena), who is living in the original house from “A Nightmare on Elm Street”.

Freddy slowly starts to regain his strengths as the cover-up unravels, but the problem is that once you unleash a force like Jason, how do you stop him?  Freddy doesn’t like that Jason is racking up a body count on Elm Street.  Lori and Will decide to try and bring Freddy out of the dream world and pit the two up against one another.  They return to Crystal Lake to hatch out their plan.  Lori enters the dream world and holds on to Freddy to bring him out.  Their plan works, and soon the two killers are engaged in a battle royale. 

Jason gets the upper hand initially removing Freddy’s clawed arm, but then Freddy gets a hold of Jason’s machete and proceeds to kill Jason, dumping him in the lake.  As Freddy turns to kill Lori and Will, Jason comes up out of the lake and runs Freddy through with his own clawed hand.  Lori finishes the job, chopping off Freddy’s head with Jason’s machete.  Will and Lori leave, but then the water stirs and Jason rises from the lake, carrying Freddy’s decapitated head.  The head then winks, and Freddy’s laughter echoes as the credits start to roll.

This movie took years to make, but honestly, it was worth the wait.  Robert Englund is in his scene-chewing glory as Freddy Krueger  - probably his best performance since Dream Warriors.  Though Jason is a silent killer, Kirzinger does a great job, much like Hodder, of portraying Jason’s feelings through his body movements. 

The much anticipated showdown between the two is about as perfect as it gets, and fans of both series get the moments they want to see.

The only disappointment with “Freddy vs. Jason” is that none of the proposed sequels ever materialized.  There was talk of a Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash (that only happened in the comic books) and also of Michael Meyers being thrown into the mix.  It’s rare a slasher movie is as much fun as “Freddy vs. Jason”.

Friday the 13^th (2009) – When I first saw the long awaited remake of “Friday the 13^th”, I was pretty disappointed.  I have to say though, that after watching the extended cut for this retrospective, it was better than I remembered (maybe it was the extended cut).  A lot of my disappointment came from expecting an origin story, but that was cut down to a few minutes.  The entire film is an amalgamation of the first four movies in the series.

In the summer of 1980, a young Jason witnesses his mother’s decapitation by a camp counselor.  Nearly thirty years later, a group of vacationing friends come to the area seeking a pot farm.  They find the pot farm, but also run afoul of a now-adult Jason who kills everyone but Whitney (Amanda Righetti), as she reminds him of his mother at a young age.

Six weeks later, a new group of vacationing kids ends up at Crystal Lake, unaware of the earlier events.  Caleb (Jared Padalecki) also shows up in town looking for his sister Whitney.  As the group starts to get winnowed down by Jason, Caleb teams up with Jenna (Danielle Panabaker), who agrees to help him look for his sister.  They find her hidden in some underground tunnels beneath Jason’s cabin.  While rescuing her, Jenna is killed; but Caleb and Whitney escape.  Jason pursues them, but Whitney uses her similar appearance to Jason’s mom to distract him and stabs him in the chest with his machete.  Clay dumps Jason’s body into the dock; but before they can leave, Jason burst through the dock and grabs Whitney.

The movie isn’t perfect; but let’s face it, neither was the source material.  They do a nice job of honoring the past films, particularly how Jason obtains his hockey mask.  While the leads are pretty likable and Aaron Yu provides some great comic relief, much of the cast is stereotypical and so unlikable, you’re actually rooting for Jason to kill them (at least I was).

I would have loved to have seen more attention paid to Jason’s origin – something similar to what Rob Zombie did with remake of “Halloween”.  Other than that, fans get what they paid for, a little gore (could have used more), a little nudity, and some kills that harken back to some of the better kills from the original series.

So that brings us to the conclusion of the “Friday the 13^th” retrospective.  I think because I watched this so early on, it has always been a favorite.  Yes, they’re cheesy, but they hold up surprisingly well, particularly the earlier films.

Have we seen the last of Jason?  With the amount of money the remake made, I would have expected to have seen a part 2 long before now.  Last I read, it is still sitting in developmental Hell as the studio is working on other remakes (including a live-action “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” film).  I can’t believe the unstoppable Jason Voorhees won’t grace our screens again.  All we have to do is wait.