They enlighten us, enrage something within us, give us strength and make us weak. Bringing up issues that could rock the country or the inner spirt. Focus on things that we need to in our own lives, or they'll make us forget about the things that we want to. For the most part, I've always felt that movies are the equivilant to a drug - the means of escape. And the bigger the movie fan, the more they want to escape from the boring ideals of their every day lives. Take me for example, lol, hopefully someday I'll be able to blow up the mother fucking Death Star, ride in a truck with Jack Burton, help get Pee Wee's bike back from Francis, ride with Mad Max (which is increasingly a reality we come closer to everyday mind you) or cracking 37 jokes with the Jersey crew. But, I'm not going to spend too much time into ranting about the power of film, let's take a look at this for real.
So, I made my own list of the ten horror films that you should see before Halloween. Granted some of them you'll typically find on cable in the weeks to come (but I can guarandamntee that'll be edited to shit due to nudity, violence and horrific content - y'know all of the good stuff) so my list is a perfect example to highlight events like that, that most people never get a chance to see with my own personal video collection (which stands at around 650 vhs and dvd now.) This list is not based on box office scoring, which of my favorite actors are in it, franchises, or any pushing from film companies. This is just a list that I made, based on my own persoanl tastes, for you, the little people, to get a real taste of true horrific escape coming in this fall season.
This list is also dedicated to the greatest Drive In movie critic, Joe Bob Briggs,
In those early days in the third grade, I'd sometimes spend the night over my buddy Mike Chippendale's house (no seriousily, his last name was Chippendale - like the gay dancers lol.) Having your own home video collection was a bit of an inreggularity at that point. Luckily, Mike had an aunt who owned her own video store- and what videos she didn't want anymore (or were damaged) went to her nephews. And getting a real gem like Friday the 13th part III was a real gem for being only 9 years old. The first time I saw it, was smack dab in the morning just makign up before breakfast. We had nothing else better to do then watch some tv, and luckily they ask if I wanted to watch that film. I hardly even heard of it - let alone knew if I liked it. But promises of boobies and people getting chopped up sounded interesting and promising enough.
And I was right, even though I only got to see the first 30 or 40 mins or so - it was still quite fun. The story line of III is a lil loose, and for cheap effects promising that the film was in 3-D (get it? Friday the Thirteenth, part THREE?) As in 3-D, no not the Dudley Death Drop, the cheap dying form to bring asses into the seats at the movie theatres. We never got to watch the whole film that day, or any time I ended up visitng Mike, but it was enough to see I guy get chopped straight up through his balls while walking on his hands and this is the film where Jason gets his trademark Hockey mask. It was a milestone moment in my early childhood, lol, and from that point i was hooked.
I started to rent as many horror films as possiable to get in all of my info that I could. Shortly after that, I saw my previous mention on my list, Nightmare III, and began to simultaneousily work between both franchises. I began to have terriably bad nightmares about Freddy, so I focused more on the Jason franchise. That, and there was just SOO many of his films that were out. I slowly tried to work the whole Jason thing in my head after seeing one film after the next. I understood the concept that he was a retarded/disfigured boy that none of the camp counselors noticed he was drowning so that his mother got vengence for him. AND then apparently, when he didn't drown, and that he'd secretly been watching his mother kill all of those people, it was his turn to take over the helm as the killer of Crystal Lake.
I slowly began to get all of the films in my head, never ever being able to watch them in order, put almost putting a puzzle together of various storylines and plot elements, something I think to this day which effects whatever writing that I do. By the time I'd seen them all, the Jason movies had come to an end with Jason Takes Manhattan - the eigth film in the series. Certain channels were beginnign to show QUITE a few of these films on television, but I always kenw that I was being cheated something. So I tried to actually buy the films myself at like thirteen, but my parents caught on and knew that crap would ruin my mind. There on after, I learned to befriend people that either had the films or tape them off of tv until the time was right.
The main thing I picked out in the entire saga was that a lot of the series in itself was a lil flimsy at times, and it was a rarity that someone from the previous film would survive for the next sequel and then killed off - so wouldn't that mean the vengence was satisfied? Never, there always was some new group of damn teenagers wanting to open that camp on OR near Crystal Lake. They heard the place had a "death curse" but they kept on coming anyways.
The only films in the entire saga with the tightest direct linking sequels of them all are Friday the 13th parts 4-6; the common element: Tommy Jarvis. In Friday 4: The Final Chapter (and note final chapter) the camp is opened and people die - pretty self explanatory and ritualistic from the previous films. But now we're introduced to a cute lil kid, played none other by 80's kid actor himself Corey Feldman, which, it was with this film that Steven Spielberg noticed him, and wanted him to have the role of the lil kid next store in Gremlins, written by Chris Columbus - who also wrote the film the Goonieswhich ALSO stars Feldman, an exec producer by Spielberg AND even has a mention of the film the Gremlins in the text due to no one would believe that fat kid Chunk's story. Now how's about that coming full circle on something ridiculous and mundane?
Okay, so Feldman plays the young lil boy called Tommy Jarvis, a lil kid obsessed about makeup and prostetic masks (think of Tom Savini as a lil kid) who also did the makeup for the first Friday film and this one as well. Well Jason kills off everyone (especialy Tommy's mom) but luckily Tommy utilizes his makeup skills to basically try and ease Jason (just watch the film to understand) SO Jason gets hit in the head with his own machete and it goes down right through the middle. His head was intended to be initially SPLIT open right down the middle like an artichoke, but at the last minute, Paramount pulled out and knew they could make ALOT more money on the Friday franchise.
But the fans were then dealt the piece of shit Friday 5: A New Beginning (note again NEW BEGINNING) lol, so basically we have the return of Tommy Jarvis. Who is now in a home for "special" and treated badly kids, right at the beginning of the film when Tommy arrrives, a fat kid is innocently chopped by an axe cause he keeps asking this guy Vic if he wanted any of his chocolate. Paramedics examine the boy, no he's dead, but one of them has this puzzled and frightening look on him - but why? Lol, and all of a sudden Tommy is having these visions that Jason is popping up about and driving him nuts. And then people start to die, is there a connection?
Tommy is going nuts, and everyone begins to see how sketchy he is - they also begin to notice that the people are dying and some even had seen Jason in his hockey mask running about. Well, when it comes down to it it's raining outside and they are in fact being chased by Jason: (NOTE: There is a very annonying lil wise cracking black kid in this film, but there is also a rather voluptous woman with him running in the rain in her wet white t-shirt - BOO YAH :D ) SO up to the hay loft in the barn I believe, Jason falls on these spikes and it turns out he was wearing a mask. Yup, a prostetic Jason makeup mask OVER his hockey mask. Turns out the fat kid who died at the beginning was his son, whom the guy had ran away from blah blah blah - total bullshit I say. So the only two survivors are hospitalized - Tommy jarvis and his love interest. Someway or another, Tommy weas the Jason mask and kills the girl off screen....NEW BEGINNING? I think not
SO FINALLY let's get to my film that I've been meaning to tell you about: PART 6: Again we have Tommy returning, Friday the 13th Part 6 screenshot 6now a young man, along with his good friend from the crazy clinic who is none other than Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter of all people. SO Tommy is freaking obsessed that he's going to put an end to Jason Voorhess once and for all, that means going to his grave and burning him till there's nothing left to come at ya (just like you would a zombie) {foreshadowing it is called} Friday the 13th Part 6 screenshot 1
SO they dig up Jason and seeing him laying there dead (oh, I forgot to mention that Tommy brought a hockey mask with him to burn with Jason lol) So Tommy sees that Jason is dead, Horshack is convince too and he wants to leave since a storm is brewing. Tommy isn't fully convinced, so he yanks a metal bar out of the ground from the gates and begins to stab Jason like a freak. "Oh boy, he really messed you up huh?" So Tommy stops, and leaves the bar inside of Jason while going to fetch the gas can. By the stroke of fucking luck alone, the bar is hit by lightnign and reanimates Jason back to life. ..ht=180 src="http://www.fridaythe13thfi
Interesting tidbits of worthless info:
Alice Cooper's music in the film
Awesome one liners and over acting of the sheriff
The actor that played Horshack isn't the ONLY connection with welcome back Kotter in the film. John Travolta's nephew is the camp counselor that gets the knife through his head while driving the RV.
Mentioning of Cunningham (as in Cunningham Road, based on Sean S. Cunningham, one of the disposed creators of the Jason empire. It'll eventually become Cunningham County for Jason Goes to Hell
The crazy drunk ol graveskeeper is the closet thing to Jason's father. In the novel for Friday 6, I'd believe this is the old man that they're talking about to be Jason's dad.
Keeping Jason's eyes nice and shadowed makes him so much more frightening and life less. Similar to what they did with Mike Myers, but it doesn't work the same when you can see a man under the mask.
The parody of the Bondesque entrance of Jason enterign through the scope like the beginning of the Bond films. Where you first see a close up of Jason's face, they focus on the pupil and a lil Jason walks by just like at the beginning of the Bond movies! Jason Voorhees in... 007 Golden Eye!
The highest body count of all of the original Paramount produced Friday films (and also the goriest)
The return of a great, creepy original score reminsicent of Manfredini's.
A speed sign that says, "?Speeding?"
So, to finally end this article, here's the final rundown of things you'll need to know in again, Joe Bob fashion:
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
Pairs of boobs scene: 0 (but a camel toe inside the Camaro)
Body count: 18 (the highest in the series before New Line took over)
Gore factor: 8 out of 10, so much better than it's last couple of films as these guys give you total in your face gore!
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