Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
In 1979, Victor Miller, evidently inspired by the critical and commercial success of John Carpenter and Debra Hill's prototypical holiday slasher masterpiece, Halloween (which grossed $47 million in the United States and an additional $23 million internationally, making it one of the most successful independent films of all time, and as of this writing boasts a 96% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average quality rating of 8.6/10), cooked up a one-upper: an atmospheric, delightfully suspenseful tale about a group of young would-be camp counselors stranded in the woods and picked off one by one by a mysterious psychopath wielding a hunting knife. For his doozy of a climax, Miller subverted the notion that slasher movie villains must be silent, supernatural, masked, and above all male by introducing a distinctly human type of monster: a middle-aged woman seeking blind vengeance for the negligent drowning of her 11-year-old son. Unlike Michael Myers and Bubba Sawyer before her, the unseen villain stalking these unsuspecting innocents was not an unstoppable, motivation-less killing machine. Hell, she didn't even feel the need to hide her face. Rather, Pamela Voorhees (imbued with an unpredictable mix of maternal warmth, misdirected anger, and empathy by the great Betsy Palmer) was a tragic victim of the worst kind of loss, driven by an insatiable desire for justice in a world that had none to offer.
Under the skillful direction of Sean S. Cunningham, with outstanding gore effects by Tom Savini, and engaging performances by a solid cast of unknowns (including a pre-famous Kevin Bacon), Friday the 13th surpassed its inspiration with a more isolated setting, a higher body count, more carnage candy, and a refreshingly mortal antagonist, becoming only the first installment in one of the horror genre's most phenomenally successful (or dreadfully milked-out, depending on how you look at it) franchises. Following its success in 1980, Paramount Pictures quickly began plans to make a sequel. First acquiring the worldwide distribution rights, Frank Mancuso, Sr. stated, "We wanted it to be an event, where teenagers would flock to the theaters on that Friday night to see the latest episode." The initial ideas for a sequel involved the "Friday the 13th" title being used for a series of films, released once a year, that would not have direct continuity with one another but be a separate "scary movie" in their own right. Phil Scuderi -- one of three owners of Esquire Theaters, along with Steve Minasian and Bob Barsamian, who produced the original film -- insisted that the sequel have Jason Voorhees, Pamela's son, even though his appearance in the original film was only intended as a joke. Replacing Cunningham in the director's seat was Steve Miner, associate producer on the first film who believed in the idea, directing from a script composed by Ron Kurz in place of original author Miller. The result, while nowhere near the level of artistry, inventiveness, or suspense obtained by Miller and Cunningham's creation, stands as an above-average teen slasher that remembered the crucial ingredients that made its predecessor so much fun -- all while heralding the arrival of one of the most beloved mad slashers in fittingly frightening fashion.
Picking up two months after the single-night massacre of Friday the 13th, Miner transports us to an apartment building late at night. The first noise we hear is that of a little boy named Jesse innocently singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" as he wanders along a sidewalk and jumps in a puddle. After his mother orders him to get inside, a pair of adult legs trail behind him, accompanied by an ominous tune on the soundtrack. Miner films this man in a ground level shot as he methodically makes his way across the street, switching to a POV shot of the apartment before turning upward to a brightly lit window. Inside the bedroom behind it is Alice Hardy (Adrienne King), the sole survivor of that long night at Camp Blood. She lies in bed, still visibly traumatized by her experience. As a technique for catching audiences up to speed, Miner replays archival footage from the climax of Cunningham's movie, beginning with Alice's first meeting with Pamela Voorhees, in which the deranged killer put on the facade of a friendly stranger, and ending with her waking up in a hospital finding out that the body of Jason was never recovered. "Then he's still there," she says, before jolting awake. This clumsy flashback sequence eats up way too much time in the introduction, to the point where it feels like a chore to sit through. Miner's intention with this recap is fairly obvious: provide connective tissue to the first movie, explain to viewers who haven't seen the original what went down, and visually demonstrate that Alice is suffering from PTSD. King performs the scene physically well, clutching her blanket, writhing in fear, and giving an amusingly over-the-top scream as if she's being molested in her sleep. But it goes on far too long. Miner would've done himself a favor by cutting out a good deal of the footage.
Splashing her face with some cold water in the bathroom sink, Alice walks toward her living room as cinematographer Peter Stein executes a clever tracking shot to follow her every move. He shows us that she's still pursuing her art, evidenced by a sketchbook displaying various drawings. Plopping down on her sofa, Alice receives a phone call from her mother, expressing her and her husband's concern over their daughter's decision to recover in isolation. Initially trying to convey understanding and respect for their mutual worry, Alice quickly grows irritated by her mother's overprotectiveness and hangs up, promising to call tomorrow. Following this heated exchange, Stein tracks Alice as she prepares to take a shower, a standard action for this type of movie that he and Miner orchestrate with a commendable degree of restraint. Once she disappears in her bedroom, Stein pauses the camera in front of her doorway, affording King the respect of privacy as she removes her clothing. The only thing we can see are the clothes being tossed atop the bed. Once she emerges, King is covered by a shower robe, and walks across the frame into the bathroom. The camera remains stationary in the hallway, and we hear the shower turning on. Then slowly, creepily, Stein moves the camera inside the bathroom, inching toward the shower curtain to suggest a Psycho-like attack. Thankfully, Alice herself yanks the curtain open, an expression of paranoia written on her face. Stein keeps his lens aimed at her face, with King's chest entirely hidden.
The phone rings again, and Alice, back in her robe, dries her face with a towel and goes to answer it, believing it to be her mother once again. Immediately the caller hangs up. Alice cautiously walks forward, startled by a loud noise in the kitchen. A window is open. She smartly grabs an ice pick and proceeds slowly toward the window, Harry Manfredini's creepy music accentuating the unsettling sensation of the scene. As she gets closer, a cat jumps inside from the window, a classic example of the "false scare" technique. You know, where something innocent is revealed to be the source of a disturbing noise, the character (and, by extension, the audience) takes a deep breath of relief, then a moment later the real scare arrives, validating our initial apprehension. Putting down the ice pick, along with her guard, Alice prepares to make a cup of tea and feed the cat. Once she opens her refrigerator, she's confronted by the decapitated head of her deceased assailant. King lets out a shrill scream that confirms her pipes are as vigorous as ever, her hands covering her gaping mouth, just before one hand wraps around her throat while another inserts the ice pick inside her temple. Miner refuses to linger on this shocking, violent image, cutting away to leave viewers with the jaw-dropped reaction of knowing their former final girl is no longer final. In another instance of restraint, the killer decides to spare the cat, unlike Michael's handling of poor Lester Wallace.
Five years later, at a campsite not too far from Camp Crystal Lake called Packanack Lodge, a new counselor-in-training program is being developed by Paul Holt (John Furey). In attendance are Paul's assistant Ginny Field (Amy Steel), an aspiring child psychologist and Paul's unobtrusive girlfriend; hot-and-heavy couple Jeff (Bill Randolph) and Sandra (Marta Kober); mischievous bad boy Scott (Russell Todd) and his hard-to-get suitress Terry (Kirsten Baker); the wheelchair-bound but physically strong Mark (Tom McBride); his goodhearted supporter and aggressive pursuer Vickie (Lauren-Marie Taylor); and the bug-eyed, exuberant, not-nearly-as-funny-as-he-thinks-he-is Ted (Stu Charno). (There are plenty more trainees present, but their purpose is essentially to fill the background.)
As the fresh batch of counselors-in-training get to know one another and undergo all the assignments they'll need to perform once the campers arrive, a fully grown Jason (Steve Daskewisz masked; Warrington Gillette unmasked) takes his beloved mother's place as the murderer of the campground. He bides his time, stalking his prey from behind the bushes, waiting for nightfall to whip out the machete that severed Pamela's head and punish anyone he views as intruding upon "his" territory.
From a story perspective, there truthfully isn't a whole lot more to Friday the 13th Part 2 than that. And that's perfectly fine. One of the key ingredients to the success of the first movie (as well as just about any cabin-in-the-woods/Mad Slasher movie, for that matter) is its simplicity. Like legendary film geek Randy Meeks would assert 15 years later in Scream, "That's the beauty of it all: simplicity. Besides, if it gets too complicated, you lose your target audience." There's nothing much scarier than being alone in the woods, cut off from the rest of the world, no longer under the watchful eye of your parents, miles removed from any authority figures, and finding yourself at the mercy of an inhumane, implacable psychopath whose sole purpose is to cause you harm. Kurz' screenplay remembers and stays loyally true to this bare-bones approach, delivering a fun, exciting, suitably suspenseful follow-up that doesn't diverge too far from what came a year before, but also registers enough as its own entity. Part 2 is a lot more creative and energetic than a lazy, rehash-happy cash grab, and its comforting familiarity is certainly preferable to the more, shall we say, "extravagant" avenues the franchise would take later on down the road. (Sending Jason to space probably remains the biggest injustice inflicted upon my childhood hero to date.)
The second most important thing to story in a horror film is, of course, the characters who populate it. This is another aspect Kurz and Miner effectively transfer from their predecessor: character likability. One of the central ingredients that distinguishes a good slasher film from an insufferable one is providing characters with whom the audience may enjoy spending time. Here's a litmus test for determining if a slasher entry is worth your time: if the protagonists continually make one dunderheaded decision after another, or demonstrate a pronounced lack of concern for or loyalty to the people with whom they appear to be friends, and you find yourself impatiently waiting for the killer to show up and give them their just deserts, you should save your time and search for a better film. However, if the characters display engaging personalities, and you can distinguish each one from the other, or if they show genuine human emotion for their missing or slain comrades, you may be in the presence of the best the subgenre has to offer.
In the sequel, while everyone feels like a real person, and there's not one I disliked, the horny-meter is markedly increased. Not only do we have Jeff and Sandra, who exhibit the passion and affection of a couple still in their honeymoon phase, and Paul and Ginny, who manage to maintain a professional aura for their coworkers and keep their canoodling behind closed doors, but there's also Vickie, who all but throws herself at Mark from the second she first sees him struggling with his wheelchair. I'm no puritan at all, believe me. I understand that when teenagers or young adults are all alone in a secluded setting, and they're interacting with each other, it's perfectly natural, almost inevitable, for hormones to go wild. But that also creates a feeling of sameness to some of the characters that the original avoided, and perpetuates the stereotype that in slasher movies, all the characters want to do is have sex. No matter. One of my favorite parts of Friday the 13th Part 2 is the ample time we get to spend with these characters. Much like Cunningham and Miller before them, Miner and Kurz expend enough time establishing the characters' personalities and relationships to engender affection for them. They're not in a rush to get to the "awesome" throat-slashings and head-impalements. That way, when the sun goes down, the sense of dread rises. I feel like I know these kids, I like them, and I'm not unnecessarily eager to watch them get filleted. The pacing is smart about this; we get to see these people eating lunch, hanging out in their cabins at night, taking turns arm-wrestling with Mark, playing Chess, dancing. But it doesn't drag on past the point of amiability. It makes all the difference.
Although the nudity quotient is higher this time around -- the courageous Kirsten Baker provides the movie's single instance of full-frontal nudity when she decides to go for a late-night skinny-dip in the lake, one more instance than was provided in 1980 -- there's only one sex scene, and it's between the first couple we meet following the prologue, played by Kober and Randolph. These two share a palpable, electric, beautifully lived-in chemistry that adds real warmth to their shared scenes. From the moment Jeff and Sandra step out of the former's truck, they fill the screen with their youthful exuberance and uninhibited adoration for each other. Kober in particular imbues her role with an adventurous spirit, which contrasts sweetly with Randolph's more timid hesitancy. When Sandra realizes that their camp is a short distance from Crystal Lake, she urges Jeff to come check it out with her, even though Ted informs them it's off limits. After some aggressive prodding on Sandra's part ("Oh, come on, you chicken shit!"), Jeff ultimately caves and wanders away from their coworkers to explore the forbidden campgrounds. Technically, yes, this is a case of two people breaking a rule and doing something they were explicitly warned against, but Sandra's persistence is so adorably authentic, inoffensive, and understandable ("Look, when we get back to the city, we can tell everyone we were there.") that I lost none of my affection for her.
What maintains my investment in their characters is the young love that emanates between them. There's no deception or phoniness in their relationship. These are the types of lovers you can easily imagine making it to marriage, childrearing, and their deathbed. (In fact, they technically do accomplish that last stage, but not in the way either of them had likely anticipated.) When Jeff realizes his truck is being towed, he and Sandra chase after the driver together. After they're dismissed from their lecture by Deputy Winslow (Jack Marks) and Paul for trespassing, they walk back to the lake and wrap an arm around each other. When they slow dance, they press their bodies together in such an intimate, loving way. The sweetness and heat that characterize their interactions ensure that their simultaneous death packs almost as much of a punch as the spear that skewers them.
Miner directs their lovemaking with a similar passion and tact that Cunningham employed when filming Kevin Bacon and Jeannine Taylor. When Sandra removes her shirt, Miner aims the camera at Jeff's smiling, little-boy face. As they make love, their movements aren't rough or perfunctory; Kober kisses Randolph's Adam's apple. This isn't the type of casual sex you'd expect to find in any run-of-the-mill slasher flick. It's honest, pure, heartfelt lovemaking. While Jeff and Sandra's double murder isn't especially graphic, the sudden terror that flashes in Kober's eyes the second she spots her killer looming over her, followed by her speechless, petrified gasp, sends a chill down your spine, and makes for my personal favorite kill by far in a movie not exactly brimming with clever, or even all that gory, kills.
In Scream 2, Randy laid down the "rules" of a horror sequel. "Number one: the body count is always bigger. Two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate; more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. Your core audience just expects it." Whichever sequels he observed those commonalities from, Friday the 13th Part 2 couldn't have been one of them because: a) the body count is identical to that of the first (9), and b) the gore quotient is relatively restrained by '80s teen slasher standards. Like Alice's aforementioned ice pick to the skull, all of the kills are briefly shown or, in one case, left off-screen. For example, while Scott is hanging upside down from a tree, wondering where Terry is with the knife to free him, Jason grabs his head, yanks it back, and slices his throat with his machete. Miner shows the blade dragging across his neck and the blood streaming down for a millisecond before cutting to the next shot of Terry in her cabin. When Terry discovers his dead body upon returning, she screams at the top of her lungs, turns around, starts to run, pauses, and emits another scream, signifying Jason's presence.
Her warm heart and take-charge personality add a dash of poignancy to her death scene, in which Taylor delivers the most authentic shriek of the film. Wandering into Sandra's bedroom, Vickie sees Sandra lying face down in her bed. Beside her under the covers lies another figure, assumed to be Jeff. "Sandra?" Vickie repeatedly, softly calls out while moving closer ever so slowly. Miner builds the sense of anticipation very well, utilizing slow pacing and suspenseful music. Once Vickie reaches the bed, Jason emerges, his appearance displayed in close-up for the first time. Masking his face is a pillowcase with a single eye-hole cut out on the left side. Vickie lets out a horrified scream, and with the sideways thrust of a kitchen knife Jason slashes her leg. Backing away, Vickie bumps into the corpse of Jeff, hanging from the door with a bed sheet wrapped around his neck. Jason rises from the bed, and in one of Friday the 13th Part 2's finest shots, he upraises the knife, slowly advancing toward Vickie, who cowers helplessly against the closed door. Stein captures Jason's hand in close-up, gripping the knife, the nail on his thumb streaked in black. Taylor's quivering, pleading face comes into focus just before Jason plunges the knife downward. Miner doesn't show the blade piercing Vickie's skin, but the gritting of her teeth, the convulsion of her face, and the speck of blood dripping from her lips delivers the necessary emotional impact.
While Jeff and Sandra are initially set up to appear as the protagonists -- a similar tactic employed in the original by Robbi Morgan's chipper, ill-fated hitchhiker Annie -- that honor goes instead to Ginny and Paul, two mature, down-to-earth people who take their job seriously but know how to go about things with a sense of humor and fun. John Furey plays Paul as levelheaded yet authoritative, as the manager of any business should be. He doesn't hesitate to question Ginny regarding her unpunctuality, but not too deep down is a total softy. Paul is protective of Ginny, as evinced when he fights Jason after the latter cuts Ginny's leg with a pickaxe and carries her in his arms to safety. I like his couldn't-care-less indifference to being reprimanded by Deputy Winslow for Jeff and Sandra's infraction, and the flippant remark he hurls in response to Winslow's criticism of his lack of punishment for the couple: "No seconds on dessert for Jeff and Sandra tonight."
Ginny is currently enrolled in graduate school where she's majoring in child psychology, adding some context and interiority to her personality and role as a camp counselor. It makes sense that she would be working at Packanack over the summer because she clearly loves children. Amy Steel is an excellent final girl, perhaps not quite as remarkable a screamer as Adrienne King, but slightly more innovative and badass than Alice. Steel imbues Ginny with charisma, intelligence, resilience, empathy, and a dash of snark to secure her place in the hall of fame for horror heroines. From the moment she first arrives (late) at the camp in her deteriorating car, Ginny oozes sunniness and self-awareness. When Paul lectures her for being late, she gives a flippant apology and swears to never be late again in her entire life. Paul softens his tone and reveals he was beginning to worry about her, and Ginny replies with a quick kiss on the lips, followed by the pronouncement, "Bullshit, Paul." Kurz doesn't just tell us Ginny is a child psychology major; he shows it in her behavior. In Steel's best moment, which takes place at a bar in town, she expresses her curiosity to Paul and Ted about whether Jason is just an urban legend or an actual man who witnessed the death of his mother and is now crying out for her resurrection. She empathizes with his isolation as a deformed child and Pamela's rage at what she thought had happened to her only son. When Paul and Ted laugh off her concern as inebriation, she admirably sticks to her guns and restates her seriousness on the subject.
It doesn't take long for Ginny to realize something is wrong when she and Paul return from the bar to find the lights in their cabin still on and everyone else missing. The only time Ginny's judgment is questionable is when she watches Paul get attacked by Jason, and just stands there, softly calling Paul's name, shutting her eyes as if what she's seeing is only a dream. She doesn't run, try to get Jason off her boyfriend, or even search for a weapon. Her inaction is frankly bizarre. Then, once Paul stops struggling and the room goes silent, Jason rises and pursues Ginny, prompting her to run to various locations. One of her strengths is easily finding smart places to hide. First she runs into the next room, shutting the door but having no lock. She holds onto the doorknob with one hand while slowly reaching for the window with her other, right when Jason's hand bursts through the window. Ginny storms out of the room as Jason's hand reaches inside. It's one of the most suspenseful scenes and well-executed jump scares of the movie. Miner puts Steel through the classic chase sequence that every young woman is forced to endure in a slasher movie, and she responds with the requisite physicality and determination that makes the best final girls impossible not to root for. For instance, she crouches down in front of a car while Jason stalks from behind.
In the clever climax, Ginny barricades herself inside a room in Jason's run-down shack, where she comes across the shrine of his mother, her decapitated head resting atop the altar. As Jason breaks through the door with a pickaxe, Ginny demonstrates her resourcefulness and utilizes her skill as a child psychologist, putting on Pamela's grimy sweater, tucking her hair inside, and hiding a machete behind her back. Once Jason gains entrance, she begins talking to him as if she were his mother, commending him for doing his job well and promising a reward. Fairly easy to manipulate and still grieving the loss of the only person who ever loved him, Jason halts his pursuit and listens attentively. Not fully convinced, Jason advances, provoking Steel to convey a motherly authority that's impressive enough to render Jason immobile once more. Miner plunges us into Jason's subjectivity by cutting between close-ups of Steel and Betsy Palmer, often showing them delivering the same lines to express Jason's confusion and fragile grip on reality. He even tilts his head inquisitively in a manner similar to Michael Myers. The climactic showdown between Jason, Paul, and Ginny, which ends with the latter picking up Jason's machete and plunging it into his shoulder, is edited in slow motion but lacks the intensity and definitiveness of the original. Alice slicing off Pamela's head, with her hands clutching at the air, was far more memorable than a machete piercing a monster's shoulder. Of all the places Ginny could've inserted that weapon, it's curious she would be directed to aim for the shoulder.
In his first outing as the antagonist of the franchise, Jason is presented as vengeful and relentless but also human, fragile, and a little clumsy. While trapped in her typically inoperative car, Jason's pitchfork piercing through the sunroof, Ginny slams open her passenger door and knocks him to the ground before resuming her escape. As Jason follows her into the woods, Ginny hides behind a tree, waiting for him to get a little closer before she kicks him in the groin. Seeking refuge inside another cabin, she hides beneath a bed, her hiding spot given away only after a rat urinates beside her just as Jason is beginning to leave. Believing the coast is clear, Ginny crawls out from under the bed, only to look up and see Jason standing on top of a chair holding his pitchfork. The fact that he figured out she was hiding under the bed and decided to wait for her to feel safe enough to emerge testifies to his overall intelligence and cleverness as a villain. However, his chair quickly collapses and he crashes down to the floor. When he gets back up, Ginny fends him off with a chainsaw, frightening Jason into backing away until the saw cuts his arm and knocks him to the floor. Ginny picks up a chair and smashes it over his back, knocking him unconscious for a brief period. This is not the indestructible, zombified Jason we would eventually come to know. Here, he falls down easily and frequently, lowering the sense of terror.
But the way Stein presents him is certainly inventive, keeping his face off-screen for the majority of the picture until Vickie's death scene. Until then, Daskewisz is shown mainly in knee- and ground-level shots, or as a shadow. However, it could be argued that Stein overindulges in POV shots to a degree where they lose their effectiveness after a while. In the early portions, the camera adopts the perspective of Jason, observing the counselors in the woods from behind trees or in their cabins from behind windows. At first this builds a feeling of tension, playing on our universal fear of being watched by a predator. But ultimately Stein returns to this tactic far too many times, and it almost feels like padding. Despite the constant presence of greenery (plants and trees), his cinematography lacks the scenic beauty of Barry Abrams'. Whereas Abrams contrasted the natural appeal of an isolated campsite with its endless potential for menace, Stein merely displays a lot of generic scenery.
Rather than the hockey mask he would immortalize in Part 3, Jason wears a pillowcase that evokes the Phantom Killer of Texarkana. He's clothed in dark blue jean denim overalls with a blue plaid button shirt with 2 buttoned flap pockets and black worker-style boots. His face is uncovered only once for the audience, and Miner milks the moment for all its worth, using slow motion to linger on the extraordinary makeup work of Stan Winston. On the left side of his face, Jason appears human-like, if hillbilly, with a rustic beard, yellowish rotting teeth, and long reddish-brown hair. On the right side, he has a sunken eye and several boils. It's an unforgettably gruesome image that matches the makeup on Ari Lehman provided by Tom Savini in Part 1.
Stu Charno is on hand to provide comic relief in the vein of Mark Nelson's Ned, but despite his penchant for goofy faces, crude jokes, and mumbled line deliveries, he doesn't quite match the sympathetic charm of his predecessor. However, he is solely responsible for Friday the 13th Part 2's single effective jump scare. While Paul is recounting the legend of Jason Voorhees around a campfire to his employees, speaking in a gripping whisper, warning everyone that Jason's out there, waiting for the right moment to strike, Ted emerges in the frame wearing a mummified mask and wielding a spear. He emits a piercing yelp, eliciting screams from his colleagues, who briefly flee the scene. I have to admit, the last three times I watched this movie, I jumped at Ted's judiciously timed arrival. In one of its more original touches, Ted is actually permitted to live, his decision to stay behind in town and search for another bar after hours ironically saving his life.
Apart from Alice, there's only one character from Friday the 13th who makes a return for the sequel, and like Alice, he isn't given much time to enjoy his return. That would be creepy, crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney), who shows up to issue the same ominous but entirely justified warnings to anyone oblivious enough to enter Camp Crystal Lake or its surrounding area: "I told the others. They didn't believe me," he says to a newly arrived Jeff and Sandra at a payphone. "You're all doomed. You're all doomed." Gorney's delivery of those repetitious lines is just as desperate and strained as it was in the first, but missing from his character is the aura of mystery and ambiguity. In 1980, Ralph was a perfectly constructed red herring, generating real chills by hiding in people's closets and riding off on his bicycle. For all we knew, he could've been the Crystal Lake killer himself, spreading a self-fulfilling prophecy of impending doom. In the sequel, we obviously already know who the killer is, making his presence somewhat redundant. Plus, moments before his screen time expires, Ralph stands behind a tree outside Ginny's cabin, watching her and Paul make out. His motivation for doing this is murky. Is he just concerned for the welfare of this fresh batch of youngsters and wants to prowl the woods to keep an eye on them? Or is he simply an old, sexually starved voyeur? We'll never know the answer because seconds later, Jason garrotes him a strip of barbed wire. A kill that's well shot but logically absurd (unless, of course, the tree in question is the same height as Jason?).
In the final analysis, Friday the 13th Part 2 is a severe cut below the original 1980 classic. While the body count is the same, the inventiveness and shock factor of the kills have nosedived. The only returning crew member is Harry Manfredini, and while his score is propulsive and predatorial -- accentuating the horror and mild suspense of the scenes in which it plays, accompanied by Jason's iconic "kill kill kill, ma ma ma" whisper -- it sounds a little more like generic action music than his original theme. The characters, though uniformly likable and charming, have more of a sameness about them (and a craving for sex) than the original Crystal Lake crew. The cinematography lacks the visual poetry and coziness of the first, despite Miner's effective inclusion of the classic thunderstorm during the final act. Nonetheless, Friday the 13th Part 2 is a fun, upbeat, undemanding slasher that sets the stage for one of horror's most enduring, adaptable madmen in entertaining (if clumsy) fashion and introduces one of the franchise's most equally formidable heroines to boot. And that's definitely something to scream about.
5.9/10
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