What the HELL happened to....Friday the 13th Franchise!

Lady’s and gentlemen, boys and girls. We have returned. For reasons. Obviously not money because well that’d require ad revenue and as MUCH as I would love to advertise a trimmer for your balls, well. They haven’t called yet. Or they did and I told them I don’t drop my boxers for anything under five grand. Both are possible while one remains true.

However I digress. GREETINGS!

Yes we are back and this is the first part of the project, as promised and discussed. We shall. I SHALL. Yes that sounds better. Be delving into the later sequels of the at one time top franchises to discuss my view on, well. What the hell happened? Normally most people would review the series off the first trilogy of films. Because overall, the first three tend to be the better ones that establish the character and help setup the franchise. The first film introduces us to the character, the second one introduces more of the good stuff and a bit more story, background. While the third one sets us on the horizon of a bright promising future for where the franchise could head!

Freddy did it with Dream Warriors. It introduced us to Hypnocile a drug that could stop him, the rules of the dream world and source of his power. The ability to pull people into a single dream. It brought Freddy from the dark and for some reason questionable sequel, into a more dream filled nightmare machine with the introduction of his dark humor, which became a staple of the character

Jason found his iconic Mask and cemented himself as an icon of horror in Friday the 13th 3D. We got Jason at his most Jason with a machete, his signature snazzy outfit. Everything we love about the slasher goaltender that set him up as a pillar in the horror hall of fame.

Yet somehow, these films just. Dwindled in quality. The good faith that was put into the third film in most franchises would be handed to a new director and writer. Then what was setup for a sure fire hit. Get’s slowly and significantly dumber as it goes on. Leading to the eventual joke within the horror community of, have they sent this character to space yet? Because inevitably. Sadly. A lot of them end up just there.

So what went wrong? Did the audiences just grow up and their taste change? Did they become the ones dragging the franchises down by demanding too much and not appreciating what they were given? No. No it’s the studios that were out of touch and sucking the teat of their money machines. Or was it? Well We will find out now. Finally. This has been a project I’ve wanted to tackle for a while and believe me I have looked at multiple ways of doing this. Covering the entire franchise start to finish. Do you cover the reboots or not? Do I review each film each day? Doing that would drain more of my sanity and what remains of my energy faster than my job at Amazon, and believe me that job is far. Far more of a soul destroying profession than you could ever imagine, and the internet leads you to believe. You have no idea, and the fact I have a neck injury is the only reason I am back to finally get into this project. In the only real way I could think to do so. Not as a whole. Not within the first 3 films that establish the characters. No, no. You had the good ones. You rewatch those often. This is for the later sequels. The ones people don’t really talk about, and if they do it’s always “Oh yeah they did do that didn’t they”, This is the source, the well we need to draw from. So we’re taking the bucket up to the well, shooting Samara right in the head so she doesn’t come crawling out of the damn thing. Then we are getting our bucket of slop and we. Will. Enjoy it.

So lets do this, and hope for the best.

And for what its worth and I promise it’s the last time.

I missed this, and I am glad to get back into it. Even if in a weird ass format better suited for audio.

What the Hell Happened to Friday the 13th

Jason Vorhees has gone through the ringer. The poor boy drowned and his mother went on a killing spree, only to not have died and survived in a cabin buried in the woods living with his mother who still while he was alive went on a vengeance fueled killing spree. To being killed off, impersonated by a coroner when his chocolate loving son was axed by a rage fueled man with an axe. To returning thanks to the power of lightning up his ass, and continued walking the world until he transformed into the grotesque zombie Kane Hodder.

He hasn’t had it easy. But believe it or not his franchise had something a good deal of these films lacked, or handled poorly. Continuity.

Rather famously with these films, and its worthy of praising them. Each film began with a ‘Previously on Battle Star Jason’ flashback. Catching us up on where we will be with the next group of meat sacks stepping into Jasons woods. Each film held the last one accountable. Hell the second one began with Jason killing our lone survivor from the first film. It was a nice beginning and the boy took a long ass walk with a bag on his head to do that for his mother. I mean really think about it, in part two he wears a potato sack on his head. Either no one cared to ask the man in overalls and a red flannel why he was wearing a sack with one eye hole on his head, or his trip to the city was WHY he wore the sack. Maybe he realized all the screams on the bus and shouts of dear god what is that thing, were just people showering body negativity on him, he grew self conscious and started covering up. Society can be far crueler then a man with a machete. Or corkscrew.

Or birthday whistle

Or tree branch cutter.

Anyway.

These films began with a good continuity between them, we even had a mid series arch that really would have setup for, what the series now famously became a joke for. A real and true final Friday. This was the Tommy Jarvis trilogy. A unique character setup in part 4 played by Corey Feldman.

Part 4 is a great stand out in the series for its deaths, characters, and tits. My dear god they had some great. Amazing breast in that movie. Still not the best in the series though, that goes to part 5. As the kids today say, if you know, you know.

Cory was meant to come back and reprise his role as Tommy, but he unfortunately ran off to do a film called the Goonies. For some reason.

So he only appeared, though funnily enough, in a dream sequence not saying a single word, just muttering sounds and shaking his head. Much as Corey does today! But for far, far different. Darker reasons

Though part 5 is regarded as the weaker of the Friday films. It’s honestly an interestingly handled sequel. To deal with the lack of Corey, they time jumped the character. Having him spending time in a mental hospital and dealing with visions of Jason Most fans didn’t care for 5 because of its ending twist. Implying that Tommy    who survived two encounters now with Jason, was going to be the new killer as we saw him dawning the mask and looking poised to kill fellow survivor and nut job caretaker. Thankfully the creative minds decided not to follow through with that, and instead do the now rare thing of listening to the fans, giving them what they want. Jason. They had enough of the fake Jason bullshit, they wanted his corpse desecrated and re-animated like Weekend at Berny’s. God that’d look amazing.

Part 6 comes along with a new Tommy Jarvis, and they not only beautifully wrapped up his saga with Jason. But they gave a good end to the franchise. Jason in his iconic look and now monster form, received an iconic death. Throat cut my a boat motor chained and drowned at the bottom of Crystal Lake. On my desk I have a little water filled glass container with a Jason chained to a rock and gravel around him. Tommy got his happy ending. Jason was left to rot, and things were on a good high note. Then the fire nation attacked.

Which is where we begin. See lengthy intro before getting into the film. I haven’t lost it folks!

Friday the 13th The New Blood

This film was the sad victim in the late 80’s to what I’ve talked about previously. There was a dark time in horror, the late 80’s into the early 90’s. Where horror films were not only heavily cut. But watered down and put into conversion camps. That’s not even a joke. A good deal of horror films and their sequels were put on trial by the MPAA while being pushed even further and far more heavily by Satanic Panic, Religious groups and conservative organizations. Everyone can now see these films and wonder what the fuck happened? Why is this so boring the others were good. Genuinely a good deal of these films put people to sleep. They became highly forgettable and absolute distorted messes. Because, in part. The weaponization of the MPAA. Which can almost assuredly be pointed at films like Silent Night, Deadly Night which REALLY got religious conservatives panties crammed up their asses. I mean to be fair they did kill a nun, and there is a lot of fun in that film. But at the time this was just too much. A step too far. So when the studio and bodies of Hollywood bowed before the almighty MPAA, heavily influenced by religious conservatives. We got horror films without the horror.

Death scenes were cut down IMMENSELY. No gore, no guts. Less  nudity and cussing. The MPAA was overreacting, over reaching and they did more grotesque acts to films than Jason, Freddy and the Sawyer family with Leatherface ever could. All because of push back for allowing a film like Silent Night Deadly Night to be released in cinema. With their pitchforks, torches and bibles raised these groups cut the balls off a lot of horror and what was intended for this film. However they were only a part of the problem. Not the problem wholly. Though I do absolutely hold them accountable.

Studios want their films to make money, to do that you need asses in the seats of theaters. With home video distribution you had the opportunity of making money two fold. Theatrical release and home video release. However you need MPAA ratings for theatrical releases. PG and PG13 will secure you that. R rated will limit it to the 18 and above, so fewer screens, but you still make money. But if you get the X rating, or NC-17. No theater is going to show that. Your money drops dramatically and you have to fall back on what you make back with home video. Which at the time was not incredibly lucrative as it was still a pricey investment for people and rental was far more common than owning. So studios had to bow to the demands of the MPAA.

However studios also play a large part in a films potential success and failure, such as the case with this film.

If you dig into the history of A New Blood you’ll funnily enough discover what potentially could have been. Given what we got later down the road. Originally they planned on Part 7 being Freddy VS Jason.

Yeah. That one was on the books for a long. Long time. Both Freddy and Jason were at their height of pop culture popularity and people wanted this showdown. It very nearly happened too. I can’t even imagine what that would have looked like, Not just being in the worst part of the 80’s as we transitioned into the 90’s fashion. But also with the MPAA and killing of horror. It would either have been the worst thing to happen, or it might have turned a hell of a profit. But New Line unlike myself pulled out at the last minute. It was not meant to be, so the studio quickly got to writing a new script. About a girl with telekinetic abilities. This was pitched by the studio as Jason vs Carrie.

Even that is a film I would be mildly curious to see.

Because this film was shit. It was not entertaining and fans greatly hated this, despite the effects work on making Kane Hodder look less like the monster he is. The films characters are annoying and hateful. The story is half assed and rushed, you can tell it was pushed out as a last minute thing given how much Paramount was putting behind their FvJ film. Which goes to show just how close to reality this thing was going to be. There is a beginning trend with this film that later became a harsh lesson to other horror franchises and that was the dreaded, lets not be silly about this, lets be serious. Was Jason ever funny to begin with? Actually yeah. By the time we got around to part 3 the films began poking at themselves and their characters. People were playing characters, there was silliness and even a meta tone in part 6. The kids whom are in danger of having their heads crushed in and seeing the camp counselors spit roasted over a fire pit were joking about surviving like they were Satler and Waldorf roasting the dead horny teens and cops. It was pretty fun honestly. But a little too on the nose. But before that we had fun characters and things to laugh at. Unless you genuinely take seriously the performative dancing of Crispin Glover in all his glory. The Hitchhiker dying squeezing a banana. People in a van eating all their pot thinking the cops will pull them over. Horror needs comedic beats. A little levity goes a long way and in the case of Freddy his dark humor made him fun to watch. Jason had kills that even HE had to question and it made you laugh. This film did not. You had character actors chewing the scenes like someone deep fried cardboard and dipped it in BBQ sauce. You had an unbelievable plot with a manic mother, a purely not hiding it ever doctor who maybe was or wasn’t trying to fuck the mom? And the worst twenty something group of shitheads and bitches. You setup characters you want to see die and look forward to their deaths. But when everyone is just so generically forgettable and bland you don’t even care when it happens. Like giving a birthday hand job. You just go through the motions and get it over with. No one is enjoying it at this point in the relationship and your just happy your hand isn’t the one getting tired.

So the plot , because it needs to be spoken aloud to believed. Tina had a tantrum at her parents cabin on the lake of crystal lake, she got mad because her parents fighting, and. Takes off in a paddle boat to the lake. Which honestly is more like a pond. It’s really small. Like fill it with a hose small. So her dad comes out apologizing, trying to calm her. But she’s seen Cathy’s Curse and gives her dad the stink eye. Which shake rattles and rolls the dock, sending her dad to his doom. How that happened? Don’t know. We’ll assume the weight of the lumber from the roof of the dock caved in his skull and he died. Fast forward and she is being cared for by Dr Evil and is taken out of the asylum to the cabin she killed daddy in. Her mother comes along for no real reason past raising that awkward Question we will get too shortly. Dr Evil believes bringing her to the site of her trauma will help her face her fears, her problems and potentially cure her. Of whatever the fuck it is that has her in the asylum. Is she crazy? Don’t know. Did she kill people with her powers? Just her dad. Why was she put in a hospital for 10 plus years? Just go with it. The mother loves her crazy daddy killing daughter and goes along with the doctor as a chaperone of sorts for her. Which is even weirder given this will, and does create issues during her daughters ‘therapy’. But we also learn. Shockingly, that the doctor is really bringing Tina the psyker out to this site, to trigger her and get her to demonstrate her powers. Which again is confusing to the story because it raises the question. Did Tina tell her mother she thought of crushing the dock and it happened, so lets lock my daughter up in an asylum? Did she think she blamed herself for his ‘accidental death from a dock shaking and destroying itself suddenly’? Or is the mom just along for the ride because we need a parental figure so we have more than just teens to kill. Which is something else to get into too. But first the doctor and the mom. The vibes between these two reads confusingly. Either Dr. Evil is trying to fuck the mom as a means to getting access to the daughter and the cabin for his studies. Or the mom is misreading his heavy breathing interest in her daughters abilities as this man might be open to clearing the cobwebs from my chimney. In reality she has no purpose. But the signals these two cross are just weird. If you told me the doctor was her step dad I could more easily believe it over the lunacy of a doctor telling a widowed mother, the best way to cure your daughter is by dragging her out to the lake that stimmed her trauma, where she killed your husband. Trust me bro it’ll work out and I’m not filming this for the lulz.

The doctor is more of an antagonist in this film than Jason is. He sets up fake evidence of Jason sightings to set off Tina hoping she’ll go full Carrie and burn the house down(which happened on set) or blow something up(which also happened on set). When confronted by this with the mom, he goes full corporate villain mode and is angry she will fuck up  all of his hard work, in setting her daughter up for a Carrie like murder spree of menstrual rage.

Meanwhile we have the not teens who are camping next door for a surprise birthday party. I say not teens because. Get ready for this. Yes twenty somethings play teenagers in movies and television shows. Once you have accepted that truth into your hearts. Make room for Jesus because that’s the next reason. As we discussed, with the war on sex and violence in films. This too meant we could not follow the recipe of success in past Friday films. We could not, and would not label these people as 18-19 year olds. Because we cannot have the impressionable youth who see these films, being told its cool to get high and have sex, and watch bloody murder on the screen. So this group was labeled as college aged. Not entirely addressed but it is heavily. Very heavily implied so we know for a fact, these are responsible adults making decisions you are meant to be able to make for yourself at the college age, and therefor not impressionable youths. This was a direct coping mechanism by the studio to make happy the inquisitors of the MPAA.  And their religious affiliates.

So this group of not teens rent a cabin for a party time gathering, right beside the rented therapy cabin of Carrie the white, Dr evil, and mother Wannacock. Of course we need to resurrect Jason. So how do we do so? Given this is meant to be the lake that is Crystal lake where Tommy Jarvis sank Jason to his doom? In the best way humanly possible. Tina decides she is so super sorry for killing her dad, that the best thing she, as an adult not-teen person can do. Is to resurrect her dad.

Let that sink in.

Better yet, lets give this idea a little head room to breathe. Like a fart it sounds fun at first, until you realize it came from the ass beside you after having had Safeway Chinese food followed by a shot of Ozempic with a side of heavy fiber. Sure the fart sounds fun at first. But its about to get a whole lot worse. At its core. The idea of someone trying to use an ability. A magical macguffin. To bring back a loved one from the dead, has been the premise of many a horror story and comic book from tv shows, novellas to The Vault of Horror. You bring back the person and they’re a rotting evil twisted version of the person. It never goes well.

But Tina says fuck that because she’s special, she loved her dad so of course, naturally he’d come back as if nothing ever happened. Of course Tina did not account for the fact that other people died in this lake. Like Jason for example. So she brings him back to life instead of her dad. Or was Jason her dad? It could happen. He could’ve been stumbling around with his dick out, slashed off someone’s head fell over and landed dick first into her mother. We just don’t know. But we do and that sadly wasn’t the case. Again though this could be an interesting story device. But here its wasted. It’s a cheap trick to bring Jason back and just like that with a little rubble bubble, Jason is back, killing ensues and we all regret what we decided to watch. Tina spends the movie mostly being antagonized, flirted with, and losing her shit. Much like Carrie White. Just without the emotional catch and good characters. Instead she stares off like she’s judging you and little things happen. She can lift pearls. She can move pencils. But she also can toss tv’s when she wants, or bring down a dock.

The film leads us ultimately to both a showdown and her pairing up with a not boyfriend. This was another trend in horror with having a couple coming together though more often than not he’d die. But this was a different Friday film. So we will imply they are a couple as they liked each other, and they are good Christians in college, which means they are responsible enough to make wise decisions. Like anal before marriage. You can fight me on that but it does mean they’d marry ‘clean’. But I digress.

The funniest thing in this movie we get, is the ending. Holy Jesus on a cross was this ending a choice. Jason spends the film regretting his decisions and wondering why and what god brought him back just to torture him. Every time he encounters Tina it goes from him killing people near her, to Tina staring, and him getting beaten, electrocuted and hung. At one point his mask rips in half in another funny they actually filmed that way. Seriously his mask splits in half and hangs mid air around his head like it was Tony Stark popping out of his helmet. But the real fun comes in the films final battle. Which isn’t a battle. Tina uses her focused power and now that the dead body count in the lake is down to just one, decided now is a good time to resurrect her father. But not?

Her dad, burst out of the water. Looking as healthy as the day he fell in, with a spot or two of dirt on his face. He grabs Jason and drags him down to his watery grave. Film ends, lets begin to hate ourselves. Because this movie hated itself, and that is not me being mad at this either. Oh no. The films producer on the film despised horror, especially one Barbara Sachs. She was very vocal in her hate for horror, and this film. She would fight the director on set, she wanted constant rewrites including, and this is a bit insane. But including changing the script so Jason wasn’t involved at all. Jason would’ve been an eco-terrorist. This is real, it actually was discussed. Both the writer and director said she told them she wanted this change to the film. Because she felt this was all below her. Horror was low brow bottom feeder dredge and she did not want to be apart of this. The studio appointed her and much like any group where they force an inquisitor into your midst to maintain new order. She was there to do just that.

This producer above others did her very best to dismantle the film. Bringing us to what went wrong on this film.

The reach of religious watchdogs and the MPAA cannot be overstated. It was bizarre just how far these people would go. One of my biggest loves in horror has always been the film scores. Jasons iconic theme, Jaws theme, The music of the first two Hellraiser films is majestic. Friday the 13th part 6 was as I recall, the first horror film to have a song made for it and used in the film. Alice Cooper wrote “Man Behind the Mask” and it was a big hit. I love the song still to this day. Well with horror being the villain. They removed the sex, the gore, most the drugs, and of course. The rock and roll. Yes. The music was killed across many horror films. This films soundtrack is more like a screaming child hitting a plastic hammer on a synth machine versus a soundtrack. It has no beat, no rhythm, no weight or emotion behind it. It’s just there, as noise. Music has a deep hold on film, without John Williams score, Star Wars would have lacked a lot of its heart and emotional connection. Music draws scenes together and brings you in. This brings you to sleep, not peacefully. Out of boredom.

These groups worked together to kill Jason in a way no final girl ever could. And they managed rather well. But they also had help.

See there was a Jason film in there. Somewhere. They filmed extended kill scenes. Gore hound deaths, nudity, there was even better zombie Jason makeup and more so then that? They made a water zombie costume for her dad. Yeah. He actually was going to be as monstrous as Jason. Which again would make sense!

But a few things happened. Part of it was the producer. She hated maskless Jason and wanted as little of it as possible. So that monster was barely seen, which is sad because it did look interesting. The dad zombie also was tossed out because it was too much and she wanted him to look like and read as the father. Otherwise who knows, it could’ve been another random body at the bottom of the lake. As for the gore and seeing the actual deaths? What scenes that weren’t cut out, unfortunately were lost to the flames. Not burned at the stake. But actual fires. There was an accident on set where explosives went off inside the main house, destroying equipment, sets and recorded film. Another fire took out a lot of cut film including deaths. So it actually is a lost forever thing. Whatever this film could have, and would have been? Was and remains lost forever.

Watching the death scenes in this film is a sad joke. You were allowed to show the ‘thrust’ of the death, but not the dying. You could show the body go limp and lifeless, but no bleeding out, no lingering gore. When your movies main draw is tits, blood and guts, and Jason dying. And you cut back on all of this, even Jason dying and degrading it to him being pulled under water. I mean…you get what you wanted. Which was a hot mess of a film. With music that just makes you regret it even more. It was an actual step back in film. Hellraiser for example. Famously that film got ran through the MPAA and Clive had to fight a lot of battles, but one of the most well told ones was the sex scene with Frank and Julia. They were told to recut it several times. Because more than two thrust made it pornographic. This was a thing actually said. Even South park The Movie had the same. They were told they could only have Saddam wave a dildo at Satan on screen as long as there was no rim on the cockhead. It’s insane. But these people were given power by the people, on whether your film makes money in theaters or doesn’t. And with the music. Christopher Youngs score in Hellraiser is again, majestic. Originally Clive wanted a music group he loved to score the film, and they had begun doing so. Music in horror back then was still a thing people were trying to figure out, because believe it or not up until things like HALLOWEEN came out and Carpenter did the music? They still had old time  music from black and white horror as the standard. It was horrific. But Christopher convinced Clive to let him use classical music he’d compose for the film and..it made the film more brilliant. Using composers on these films added something iconic. Freddy’s Theme, Jason’s theme. All of it. But we couldn’t have that now. It all got stripped away.

Unfortunately for all of us. This was only the beginning of the end. How much worse could a franchise get after having its balls cut off and one of the worst Jason deaths in the series?

Jason takes Manhattan says hold my beer.

Part 8 Jason Takes Manhattan

Oh the future. It was so bright. After the hellscape that was The New Blood, we had hope. Jason was coming out of the campground and to the biggest of cities. Some would even say a large vegetable of a city. Or fruit. Surely this would be better, yes?

After the failure that was The New Blood, you could only go up from there. Way up, to the statue of Liberty, even the Empire State Building. Which was in the script for this follow up. Studio executives were loving this pitch. Jason headed to the biggest of apples. So many landmarks, tons of casualties. Jason making his way through them all and returning to the glory he was stripped of in the last film.

We have a concept pitch, now we need a story. So Jason boards a cruise ship headed for New York, he begins killing people and the ship sinks. Forcing survivors to abandon ship and swim to New York. Where Jason stalks them, killing random people. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge tossing people from it, hacking and slashing with his machete. Climbing the Statue of Liberty and impaling bodies on lady Liberties torch. Killing people on Broadway and chasing the survivors through Madison Square Garden, leading to a final confrontation in the style of King Kong, at the tippity top of the Empire State building, where Jason would plunge to his doom!

That was the idea, at least.

The director of this one was ready to shoot it all too. Only, he was the one looking to make a Friday the 13th film full of blood, tits, and drugs.

The studio. Was not.

So we ask again, why make this if the last film was so bad? And why make this if you are just going to make it as badly? Neutering the kills(again) removing the nudity(again) killing the goddamn music(again)

Money. Simple as that.

Though The New Blood was an absolute failure and fans hated it with a passion. The film still made Paramount money. If memory serves The New Blood cost just under 3 million dollars. But made the studio 18 million. So when Rob Hedden was given the job of directing this after he pitched the idea of Jason coming to New York, he had visions of the ultimate slasher. While the studio saw dollar signs based solely on the marketing of the film. Nothing sells better than New York. Slap a hockey mask on the Big Apple and boom, start printing money. The studio didn’t forget the war on violence. No one stood up against the empirical might of the MPAA, and the religious groups didn’t just walk away from the corpse of Part 7. They were emboldened by the power they syphoned from the mighty Hollywood corpse. This was around 1989 and these assholes were in full power. It literally would read like an opening scroll for a Star Wars. They had far reaching might and a cleaver they used to cut across all horror. Not figuratively, but literally. ALL. HORROR. No one was safe. Like I said this was an absolute nightmare of a time to be a fan of the genre. People who talk about what great things we got from the 80’s in slasher films and horror? It was before 1986. Anything after that, was thrown on the alter of sacrifice.

So what happened with the film? The studio knew it would be destroyed by the MPAA. So to try and up the chance for more money, they decided the film should be less a horror film, and shot more as an action horror film. Quick kills, single blow deaths and quick pacing, action. Faster more intense! Faster more intense!

Quick deaths meant no lingering gore, barely any blood. No time for nudity and sex. Here’s 5 million dollars go make us money!

Turning the movie into an action horror is, a choice. It can be done, sure. But at the time it would be, an oddity for sure. But we still had the premise to look forward too. Jason Takes Manhattan. Ain’t nobody gonna be safe!

Except that cost money. A lot. Of money. Any time you want to shoot a film in iconic places. New York, Los Angeles. It cost money, a lot of money. And New York being the sprawling urban jungle that it is, filming means shutting down life for a lot of people. So filming at iconic well known spots? Shutting those down from tourist and locals. Yeah, that’d balloon the cost. So the director was told no New York. You can have some establishing shots but. No New York.

Which in Hollywood means you better get your ass to the other New York. Canada baby! Yes. Aside from establishing shots, Jason took Canada. So our premise is severely cut down, there will be no gore, no tits, and no rock music. We can’t film at any of the places we planned and Canada has nothing that would fit these planned set pieces. So what do we do with a film where Jason stalks the streets of the big city?

We stretch out the cruise ship sequence!

Originally. As I shared. Jason would just jump onto a random cruise ship, start killing. Ship sinks, hello New York. The cruise ship would count for at most 10-15 minutes. The whole point is get-to-New-York!

So what was going to be a short opening, much like what we ultimately got as the films opener with the large boat somehow on the small pond..lake from The New Blood. Now had been extended to well over an hour. The vast majority of the film they released took place on the boat. Jason spends very little real time in New York. You can kind of see the red flags popping up and waving yeah? It gets better. Somehow, it gets better.  These two films, part 7 and 8 share in common two things, and the same fate. Both were finished shooting at a roughly 2 hour running time, and. This is the weird on. Even knowing they will be severely neutered of all blood and death. Both films had a near legendary amount of gore filmed. Cut out, and lost for all time. No kidding. This film did all this. The original cut of the film was over 2 hours long which would have resolved, at least in theory, a good deal of the sub plots this film setup. Characters would have fleshed out deaths, gory ones at that too, and more time in the land of ice and snow Canada. Possibly. But no. Movie too long, cut it down. Again as well, mass amounts of gore cut out and lost. Tossed away. Some deaths were even changed entirely, because the original deaths were deemed just. I can’t even say too gory. Because the MPAA hated horror to such a degree of loathing that the idea of horror was enough to cause them to write you off and your film. Again that is no joke, it is the truth. For instance, our future filmmaker Wayne the brain and his rocker friend J.J., in the film J.J. is rocking out her flying V in the belly of the ship, having the time of her life. Jason finds her, files a noise complaint. She sacrifices her guitar trying to hit him, but he grabs it lifts it and we get a first person view of Jason smashing the camera(us), cut away she’s dead. Wayne the blood drain is running away from sir Jason of house Voorhees, accidentally kills a crew member, feels bad about it and Jason offers some grief counseling by throwing him into a control panel, which takes out the ships power. Originally though, J.J. gets her fucking head caved in and we see it. They made practical effects for this. A caved in skull, blood and brain splattered. So of course that was removed and made more child friends and less offensive. But the big change was given to the main vein Wayne. This poor bastard originally runs from Jason only for the hockey man to pull some darts off a nearby board and throw them straight through his eyes. This doesn’t kill Wayne. Oh no. Oh hell no. Instead Wayne stumbles around blindly, screaming until he stumbles down a flight of metal stairs, falling face first and getting the darts jammed through his head. I’m giving emphasis to Wayne, not because his character was misused or he deserved better. But because he died several times in this and each time got changed. Even when they switched his death to the electrocution. They STILL tried to make it gory. They filmed his body melting, fire. Burning flesh!

Again! These people KNEW they would be scrutinized. Edited, and castrated. But they still did it. They really tried for some fucking reason. For some. Fucking. Reason. Someone out there cared about what they were trying to do. Only to have it edited down again.

The only kill in this movie that is given props for his brutality(it wasn’t) the only gore(it wasn’t) is the death of our future boxing champion who gets his head knocked off. That is the only death that is allowed to be a Jason like murder. Meanwhile every other death is just oddly shot, executed and completely  out of character.

Which means we have to talk briefly about the story, the plot for what it is.

Seeing as the cruise ship was going to now be more prominently used in the film, that means we have to pad out what wasn’t meant to be. Which means we need additional scenes to stretch this film out. So we achieve this by showing how Jason comes back, and gets aboard the ship. By adding nonsense that makes this even more questionable! We open on Crystal Lake pond from part 7. Where somehow a big boat, a spoiled rich kids family yacht is anchored. Said anchor drags along the floor of the lake , hooking the cabin power line and electrocuting life into zombie Jason, who quickly kills two spoiled kids, including one who conveniently had a yellowed goalie mask for Jason to take and wear on his trip to New York. Jason swims across Crystal lake, or zombie walks on the floor until he finds a portal to the ocean where there is a big industrial boat converted into a cruise ship bringing a bunch of fresh graduates to New York city as part of their senior trip. Which is the first what the fuck of the movie. Usually, as one who occasionally made appearances in High School. Senior trips were things the graduating class would sign up for, pooling money together for a big trip somewhere local and still cheap. Unless you were wealthy. Like these fucks. But I stress, these were for graduating seniors. It matters. Because one of the sub plots in this story is the idea that there is a biology teacher on this ship, who is still doing final exams deciding on who will and wont be graduating. Don’t worry this goes nowhere. So the kids are on the ship, being dumb kids. Flirting, jocks being jocks, girls snorting cocaine. Everyone living their best life. Our main final girl is a writer, with a troubled past. Who is made the center of the world by her odd uncle the biology teacher, and her not the mama English teacher. I say not the mama because Dinosaurs was a good show growing up. But also because the maternal care and attention this teacher shows to the girl is fucking bizarre. I fought with my English teacher. Mostly because they didn’t like that I turned in novels when we were meant to write 5 page short stories. And because I had as she told me a natural writing talent, and chose to waste it on silly stories. Her assistant encouraged me a lot in my writing and to keep writing. But she never once tried to become a second mother to me like this woman’s teacher did. Apparently, the filmmakers felt we needed to revisit the parent dynamic again that didn’t work and was equally as awkward in the previous movie with the mother and doctor. Only now we get a controlling abusive Uncle teacher and English teacher as her parents. Don’t worry, this goes nowhere.

The kids start dying, Jason is jasoning, and eventually the kids figure destroying the boat destroys Jason so their life raft is safe in New York. Only it’s not. Jason follows. Leading to his fist fighting a boxer who thought punching a zombie in a hard fiberglass face mask, bare handed. Only to get his head knocked off. We have a near rape in an alley with two junkies, which gives us an out of character Jason moment where he saves Rennie (yes that’s her name) and kills the junkies allowing her to escape. Only to then show up and kill the teachers. Everyone is dead but Rennie and her potential friend whom is a boy. Leading to the official worst ending in the franchise. When I said how things could get worse, surely things could only get better after the last one. This film decided to outdo itself by giving us the most what in the fuck was that ending. If anyone tells you there are alligators in the sewers of New York? They’re full of shit. If someone tells you the sewers in New York are large labyrinth archways that flood with toxic waste at night? They are telling you the truth. Because that’s what happens. The sewers of New York. Every evening. Flood with toxic waste. Which is the last worthwhile change from the script worth mentioning. Because surely. This ending we got was a bad choice changed from the original which was better somehow right?

Wrong.

So, so wrong.

What happens in the movie as released. The kids run into the sewers, Rennie tosses toxic waste in Jasons face(rude) and Jason beguns reenacting the scene in Robocop with the melting man. He’s in pain. The zombie is crying in pain and lumbering after them. Face melting. He corners them on a ladder, a huge wave of toxic waste is on its way over, and Jason is drowned in toxic waste. Screaming out as it strikes him. The remains of his mask float away, and when the toxic waste flushes out, we are left with not a melting rotted zombie. But Jason as a child. Perfectly undamaged. Because that’s what you fucking get.

The original intended ending? The toxic wave would vaporize Jason. No skeleton, no melting man. He just turns to fumes, his soul is dissolved, he is no more. Roll credits. Well, the studio panicked because that would mean if this thing somehow made money, which it was meant too because New York. Then they wouldn’t have a sequel! No Jason, no sequel! Can’t have that. So it was scraped, How is this worse? Because that was the concept. They decided then to do the child Jason ending. But the one they first filmed, should have told them not to do this. They filmed an ending where after the toxic waste flood rolls away, we would see a large zombie skeleton of Jason. Followed by young Jason breaking free of the corpse. His goodness has been saved. The franchise could continue with baby Jason having been shown. Huzzah!

This ending wasn’t used because. Believe it or not. The look of this child breaking out of Jason was, comical. Who would’ve thought.

That is the, if you choose to call it that, story. Of the film. It’s a confusing mess much like the last film. In the previous film we had Temu Carrie White kill her dad on accident with her powers, try to resurrect him and instead bring back Jason. Plagued with visions of Jason and his weapons taunting her. Most of which ended up being her doctor doing. In this film Jason is tied to Rennie and her trauma, thanks to her Uncle. She has PTSD and a fear of water. Because her uncle the biology teacher was a believer in tough love. If you have a child who is afraid of water and can’t swim. The best thing according to her uncle you can do, is take them on a boat ride to the middle of the ocean. Talk to them about ‘little Jason’ who drowned at the bottom of that lake, and who grabs on too little kids who can’t swim and drowns them. You tell them this, in the middle of the lake. Before pushing them out of the boat and forcing them to get busy swimming or get busy drowning. Sure why not. That part? Makes sense. Someone famously dies there and goes on killing sprees, sure make an urban legend of their original death and use it as a means of tormenting other kids. Not so much adults torturing kids. The confusing part of this comes in her visions. On this trip she begins having actual visions of baby Jason. The director had said he wanted to use the visions of Jason as an escalation of her growing mental state and panic. Jason would go from being a young well-to-do boy with parted hair, to being deformed by having drowned in the water. The more people die around her, the more her visions of him would change. Each vision of young Jason he is pleading with her to not let him drown, to save him. Does this play into the movies final act? No. They drown Jason. It’s meant to mirror her own fear of drowning. The problem is this isn’t really clearly stated in the film. He just appears at random then vanishes. Seeming to have messages for her then vanishing. But each time, he never once looks like he did originally. Jason was a deformed child, as Tom Savini dubbed, a mongoloid. He was shown to be this in the first film and in flash backs through the series. The director didn’t give a fuck. He wanted a metaphor for her trauma and that’s what we got. Because this series stopped caring about continuity in the last film.

So what went wrong? Same as before. You had the MPAA and their bible waiving guardians established and in power, striking down with furious anger and pure certainty anything horror related. Meanwhile you had the studio kowtowing before them to ensure the most screens showing the movie. But we also had help here in the films failure. This was supposed to be a money maker. They went all out on this films marketing compared to the others. I still remember today, when they had on Regis and Kathy lee, Jason. They brought out Kane Hodder in full slimey zombie Jason attire, to do a funny interview where they asked questions, and Jason sat, breathing, giving menacing stares. Posters were everywhere for this thing and you saw a shit ton of ads with Jason, the city skyline, him and the iconic big apple. They spent a LOT on this. Which was the problem. Apparently no one thought to check about copyright and certain images, things that people had claimed ownership of and the film used without a second thought. It was kind of funny to think about but here we are. The sold the film off the concept. They took the famous I Heart New York image and had Jason popping out with his knife. Iconic, fun. Be there!

Only one small issue. The MPAA did not like the image of a knife wielding madman in New York. Because that was not only a stereotype, but violent, you can’t use that in public. Then came the lawsuits. That image so well known and beloved by locals(supposedly) was copyrighted and the studio was given a New York sized lawsuit.

But this didn’t stop Paramount. They new this would be a hit. How could it not? Jason. New York. They made it an event. Press kits, special art and ads were pumped out. Again, my old man memory remembers the teaser that was shown everywhere for the longest time. You had a wide shot of New Yorks skyline, a pleasant voice, all adding up to the back of Jason, turning around to the camera in his mask, and Jason Takes Manhattan on screen.

This is were the failure became complete. You see. In this instance though they played a role in the films failure with sever cutting and blue balling. It was not the MPAA that killed Jason. Twas the marketing.

A $5 million dollar budget. Over 6 million spent in advertising. On top of thousands of ads lost from the lawsuit, new ads printed. And worst of all. YES IT GETS WORSE. See if you can imagine this. When you force down on the public weeks upon weeks of advertising for a Friday the 13th film. No. Event! You pull out all the stops and make this the end all be all film of the franchise. You WILL see Jason in New York! Then the film comes out, and Jason spends 80% of the movie on a fucking boat. People got upset. Imagine that. They were promised Jason attacking New York, only to not get that, and they were mad. Go figure.

How confident are you that you throw more than the budget of the film into marketing the goddamn thing, knowing you won’t even deliver on the fucking premise!

Its maniacal, maddening and pure stupidity to think this was not only an idea. But one they BELIEVED was a good idea! Ignore reviews and how they effect audience attendance. Ignore word of mouth. Surely people will blindly throw money into a franchise that flopped badly its last outing and we’ll make so much on opening weekend we can pump out two more of these fuckers!

Whoops. Nope. Didn’t happen.

This film earned the lowest of all the Friday films and its not difficult to understand and see why. There’s a sad, almost stark contrast between these type of studio films given theatrical release, and those released on home video. Under normal film circumstances, and in the 80’s. A Freddy or Jason film, again believe it or not. Was held on par as releasing a new Arnold or Stallone film. These films were a big deal. People loved them. Imagine the popularity of the Scream franchise and its reboot. The fanbase behind that? Now multiply it by thousands. These movies were big deals, which is funny to think of now given it’s Horror. But its high grossing horror. Meanwhile you also had films like Phantasm, HOUSE. These weren’t little movies by any means. But they weren’t given the same wide release and attention by any stretch that Jason and Freddy were. Those films too got severely struck down and killed by the MPAA. The fault and failure of horror like this was that big studios didn’t put much thought into how badly. Severely over reach by the MPAA and Christian groups could effect their money makers. Sure it makes sense if its just straight to video released films. Those make a minor profit but they won’t be doing any box office breaking. But when you start killing and pulling back what made these films what they are. Well. They learned horror hounds were not simple minded people who would swallow any slop without question. More so they learned when horror characters become icons. Become pop culture figures that appear in music videos, appear on MTV and daytime shows. These films were growing past a certain group of people loving the genre. Everyone was into them and when the MPAA was allowed unlimited power. Conservatives won, and the masses paid for liking a thing.

The funniest part of this, and why it was specifically the holy war against horror that killed a lot of these films? Was the hypocrisy of the MPAA. Allow me to tickle your funny bone, and not the one your thinking.

Two films, very big films came out around the same time as these two films. Two films that were hyper bloody and violent in fact. Any guesses? Robocop and Predator.

Robocop was made hyperviolent by design from the director. Predator was also filled with violent action and gore. We had fully skinned hanging bodies, a spinal cord and skull ripped out of a body, chest exploding. Robocop has a famous and edited but still famous scene of the ED-209 malfunctioning and absolutely turning a man into a mist of blood and ground meat. We had a horrific melting toxic waste man that looked 100% worse than melted zombie Jason. Who was exploded over the hood of a car. Even more so, and I must stress this because it’s one of my favorite scenes in Robocop. We have the obliteration of officer Murphy at the hands of a gang with shotguns. Blowing off his hand, arm leg, half his head.

So how in the name of Tinker bells stinker bell did this get released as is, but Jason, Freddy, other horror icons get their balls cut off and bibles thrown at them?

The double standard of the MPAA and the pure unadulterated hate toward Horror itself. Look no further than the MPAA’s description of violence for proof.

We’ll use Robocop and Jason Takes Manhattan as our two examples. Both were filmed violent with bloody deaths and gore. One was allowed excessive violence while the other was aloud none. The reason being is that films like Robocop were classified as “mythic” violence, which means, you and I can’t go out and buy a .50 cal high powered super weapon, carry it around and blow cars and potentially people away. That type of violence? In Sci-fi is scene as impossible, as imagined and comic book like. So Robocop blowing people away and people seeing his body obliterated is fine. Because it couldn’t be done realistically.

But Friday the 13th however, is Personal, exploitative violence. Meaning that it is grounded in reality. Jason is a slasher. He uses real items to kill people, which means you or I can, like Jason pick up someone in a sleeping bag, slam them repeatedly into a tree and kill them. So this makes the violence personal and real. Which we cannot have. Jeff Goldlum can spit acid and dissolve a mans foot and eat it, turn a baboon inside out, because its purely unreal and comic like.

That is the logic. Because anyone can impale a 170lb body on a wall, cut them in half with a machete, fold a body in half, crush their skull in our bare hands. Use a belt and a tree to split someones skull. Punch a fist through their fucking chest. Because any of us can do this. It isn’t allowed on screen. But shooting someone with over a thousand rounds of ammunition is comical so we’re good on that.

It makes no sense, but this was the standard and it was accepted. Like I said with Hellraiser, two thrust during sex is perverse but acceptable. Anything over that is pornographic. You can show the dildo and use it, just don’t give the head a brim. It’s insanity but it ruled with an iron fist without dispute.

So Jason was brought back to us, only to be dragged through toxic waste and killed, by money hungry producers, ill thought advertising, and a film concept stripped from the film before it was even filmed. Topped off by our friends at the MPAA. These things killed Jason for good. After this film failed Paramount did the unthinkable. They sold Jason, their golden boy and at one time bread winner, to New Line Cinema.

Leading to the next and newest Jason. It did not go well.  This brings us to the curious case of fuck everything lets have fun while butt fucking a franchise we paid for, in a little ditty they called…

Jason Goes to Hell The Final Friday

What a title right? Jason Goes to Hell, The FINAL Friday. This wasn’t a creative choice by the way. Even though Paramount butt fucked the Friday franchise into oblivion and left Jason in a toxic waste sewer, selling him off. They literally sold Jason off. But not Friday the 13th. They kept the brand name. But sold the rights to Jason Vorhees to new Line. It’s like my ex fiancé when she decided to end the relationship but kept the engagement ring. When I asked her why? She said, because it would remind her of the good memories she had. It makes no fucking sense, but it’s what they did. When you have a pig that plays chess and saved you from a house fire, you don’t eat all that pig at once. So to it was the fate of Jason, and why buying a set of the Friday films became a challenge for the fans.

Lets get into it.

This will not be the last time I tell this story, And I love my sister too much to pull this one out for special occasions. This film will always hold a place close to me. I was obsessed with horror films growing up. My sister is now too. Which is funny itself given her hatred for it before. The way she is about it now I can pull out the Bane line telling her how she thinks being into horror now is cool. But I was born into it. I saw my first slasher before I could walk. I wanted to see this movie in theaters when it came out. Opening weekend. My mom knew I was going to demand seeing it, and she didn’t exactly want to suffer through it. So she pulled the motherly trick on me of. If you can convince your sister to go with you. Then I’ll let you go see it. I am a year older than my sister, at the time as I mentioned she hated horror. She did not want anything to do with a Jason Vorhees movie because. It was going to have naked women in it and she didn’t want to see that. I had read a newspaper review, or it was a Fangoria review, I’m old forgive me. But I told her that this review SPECIFICALLY said…this film unlike previous Friday films, lacked any nudity. I gave her my word there would be no sex, no bouncing booba in this movie what so ever. She glared but shocked my mother and said, okay. She will go.

Within the first 5 minutes of the movie I was proven a liar. I was shown that the review I read had lied, and the moment those tits appeared on screen and the girl stripped down for a shower. My sister deadpan slowly turned to me, judging me right down to my very soul.  I know because I felt it there. Then later on in the movie another sex scene popped up and again. Slowly turned, glaring. Judging.

That is, and will still be the best memory I carry with me of that movie. Thank you Linda. I still declare it wasn’t my fault.

This movie certainly wasn’t my fault either. It is the fault of a society who will put out anything to keep a name it purchased. Well that’s not true, but you might have thought it.

And it also wasn’t because of the MPAA. For once. This came out around 1993. The death grip held by the Imperium against violence and horror was not the entity it had been, or as strong as it was. But that doesn’t mean they neutered poor Jason again. Oh no. See new Line was vastly familiar thanks to Freddy with this game, and how to turn a profit while pushing out what people would expect. As Joe Bob coined, blood, breast, and beast. So they did something Paramount didn’t think to try back two films ago. Something other directors tired of the shit the MPAA was pulling in killing their films and potential careers. They presented a cut down we’re sorry, you were right version of the film. They got their R rating and the movie made its way across theater screens. However when the film would find its way onto VHS at your local store and Blockbuster Video, they would release the film in its bloody uncut glory. Giving horror fans what they’d been missing. It’s not the best thing or an entirely original idea. You wouldn’t get the film how they wanted it in Theaters, but you would at least have something to hold you over until its home video release where you could watch it as god and New Line intended.

It was a critical success for the studio to let gore hounds know their precious character was in the best hands. The right hands, and they would get what had been destroyed in New York and could have been. They’d just have to wait for the blood and gore, and for now enjoy Jason and his return to being Jason. It’s a win win.

But then the movie came out.

There’s a joke that hits far too close to home, and it is why the joke still has power today. Eddie Murphy talked about growing up poor and seeing his friends eating McDonalds hamburgers. Declaring to his mom  I want Mac-don-olds! She she grabbed two slices of wonderbread, fried up a greasy fat ground beef burger and gave it to him. Declaring with a pouty face “This ain’t no McDonalds”, this ain’t no Jason. This was hilariously bad and not in a good way.

The movie was a comedy, a self parody of its return to greatness, under a new identity from the house of Freddy. The formula for Jason is so simple it hurts. Teens go into the woods. Teens smoke pot in the woods. Teens have sex in the woods. Jasons woods. Jason comes out of the woods. Jason kills teens. Jason dies. Simple. To the point. Which does make it stale after you consider they’ve done this for 7 films minus the two MPAA abored films. They could’ve returned to formula and fans would embrace it, new people maybe not so much. But this wasn’t for them. It was for US. They didn’t go to the big city either, they went to town. Within Crystal lake. Jason was home. Away from the scary city of Montreal, away from confusing lakes that join oceans. So how did it fuck up?

For the love of all that is holy WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO JASON?!

The studio hired a young go getter director and handed him their freshly acquired Jason. Ready to make the money Paramount failed at. They told him go to pound town and make daddy proud. Only the director, much like the main producer from The New Blood. Hated Jason. Not the character. The Franchise. They hated what it had become. The running joke as I laid out with the formula. Woods, Teens, Sex, Pot, Jason. You go to see Friday the 13ths, you plan to see these things. He hated that it became a joke. So he was going to course correct, an already course corrected ship. By changing the very essence of how Jason works.

This is where we should discuss the plot before I get too far gone. Because the changes within are what made Jason Goes to hell the very thing it fought not to be.

In this film, Jason and his exploits are well documented. He is a fully known killing machine walking dead meat sack that is 89% unstoppable. So the FBI, CIA, Local Law Enforcement and everyone in between setup a trap in Jason’s backyard. A thick butt nice breasted naked agent alone in the woods. Jason can’t help himself and takes the bait. Only to end up surrounded by snipers, tanks, the army, the navy. Super weapons, explosives and everything inbetween. They all fire at the same time and Jason explodes into chunky meaty bits. Giving us early 90s synth music that just reminds you this isn’t going to get any better. Jason is dead. Long may he reign. That is until the coroner doing the autopsy feels compelled, by evil. To take a giant bite out of the still beating evil heart of Jason. Upon doing so, he has just consumed and became host too the demon seed entity known as Jason.

Jason is now a slug of evil that possesses bodies. Moving on.

So not the Jason escapes and murders people as he stalks for his next body. We are introduced to an interesting character that would’ve made sense after Tommy jarvis, but is a finger breaking joke in this now. Duke. A bounty hunter who has stalked Jason and bought all the new DLC packs full of Jason’s new lore to help explain what Jason is to all of us. Moving on. Jason expands his horizons with the series first man on man open mouth kiss. Sure it could be played as a silly joke, but they carried it on like a Family Guy sketch by dragging it out. Not only did Jason full on man kiss another man. He strapped him down, shirtless, lit some candles, and shaved the stubble from his face and pouty DSL’s. So that he would have the smoothest, softest man lips to embrace fully. Don’t worry this isn’t out to replace or mock Freddy’s Revenge. This is just, well. Jason doesn’t want prickly bear face when he transfers his demon via mouth to mouth. Moving on.

Jason is transferring his demon slug all while trying to get home to his last living relative. An entirely new concept for a horror franchise. A killing returning home to find his last living relative, a young woman. How inventive and fresh. He’s doing this because, as Duke informs us with the new lore. “In a Voorhees was he born, through a Voorhees may he be reborn, and only by the hands of a Voorhees will he die.”, awesome. Great. Moving on.

Only we can’t unfortunately. Because Creighton Duke also mentions…sure by the hands of a Voorhees can he be destroyed. But those hands need to be holding a special ceremonial Kill Jason Dagger, which he doesn’t have. But the old Voorhees house for sure definitely has.

This film is Jason body swapping one body to the next. Incidentally killing anyone he can, on his way to the most what the hell conclusion. I’ve said that a few times now, I am well aware believe me. But this time, its different folks. Previously it was meant out of horror and true disgust. Because those endings pissed off fans. This movie was just confusing people, and no one blamed the man on man kissing either. When our heroes and Jason reach the old Voorhees place. The comedy doesn’t stop. It goes hard. Within this home there is a special Jason killing Dagger. It oddly looks like the Evil Dead Kandarian dagger.

That’s because IT ACTUALLY IS THE KANDARIAN DEMON DAGGER.

The goddamn Necronomicon, the Book of the Dead, Nocronomicon ex-mortis, is in the fucking Voorhees household! Moving on…

They have the weapon to kill Jason, But you can’t have a Jason movie, without Jason. Up until this point we have had a slimy pod beast representing him, and any time you see a mirror and the host is looking at it? You see Jason. Well no one paid for that bullshit(but they did) so it’s time to bring back Jason as we saw him in the first 5 minutes of the film. But how? Through a Voorhees can he be reborn right? Well he is. In the most lunatic, wait for it….what am I watching way. Jason’s demon slug escapes one more time from his dying host body. Only to run toward, in a completely original horror film concept not at all taken from any other property. He skitter runs between a womans legs, up her coochie and is reborn.  Welcome to New Lines Jason.

He is reborn, a fight breaks out. The Jason bounty hunter Mr Duke is killed, the young couple survive and Jason is dragged by horrible puppet hands down into hell. Giving us the one and only seen that made fans…because we had been victims of abuse thus far…cheer. The teaser of Jasons torn beaten zombie mask laying in the dust. Only to have Freddy’s gloved hand shoot up out of hell and drag the mask down.

New Line was hinting that we were finally, at long last. Going to have our battle, because the two IP characters shared the same home at long last.

Was this film a run away success? No.

Did it make money? Well yes. Much like with paramount and their producers. They gave the film a tiny budget, not wanting to blow their load on the recent acquisition just yet. So they tested the waters and gave the film even less than Jason Takes Manhattan, a wallet bursting 3 million. The film made 15 or 16 million dollars so, even though it was a steaming pile of confusing shit that managed the worst thing you can do to a franchise, remove the villain everyone came to see for a majority of the film. A critical failure still made enough money to constitute being a financial success. Which for Hollywood studios is enough to high five each other and go bigger, go harder on the next one.

Nobody wanted this movie. At this point in the franchise people. Fans were scorned and left uninterested in the life and times of Jason Voorhees. The last two previous films did what the MPAA sought to do. It killed off most the fanbase and only the die hards stayed beside their beaten zombie man. Hoping one day he would return to us intact. The idea of Freddy’s home taking him and giving us the Jason of old gave legitimate hope. Bring him back for one more Friday. A serious scary Jason. Not the parody he has become and the director despised.

Instead they made him a joke. An inside meta joke that didn’t land the way it did in Part 6. You had Kane Hodder playing a guard calling his Jason a big pussy, getting killed. You had dirty jokes that didn’t land, a slimy Jason rape baby straight out of XTRO, a stolen Michael Myers plot, and the Evil Dead tie in. that was laid out like an easter egg, instead of explained to us.

Now keep in mind, this is straight from the director. One of his pet peeves with Jason, was how he could magically teleport wherever the teens were, and how even more magically he could grow from a child that drowned into a full grown man. Die, come back, and for the sake of his own film now. How Jason would go from being a child we saw swimming in toxic waste, into being a full grown adult.

So his logic, in hating this magic Jason seemed to have, and all of horror has had. Was to bring in the Evil Dead.

He was a fan of the Evil Dead series and decided it was the best way to explain Jason. Build new lore and potentially give us. Far down the road what the comics eventually did. Ash vs Jason.

The idea was this. After the death of her dear baby boy Jason. Pamela tracks down the book of the dead. She translates its passages, storing the Kandarian dagger in a drawer(it came as a bonus item for purchasing the collectors edition). She made a deal with the deadites. Bring me back my boy. Which they did. Only they brought him back as an evil murderous respawning demon. Which only the Kandarian demon dagger or Ash could kill.

Now. The film never once tells us this. The characters don’t even unearth that knowledge. The book and dagger are just there. Just sitting there. Is it a fun idea? Yeah it is. It could’ve been interesting and it would have landed as a fun “Oooh okay! Haha” moment had they just included a little line of dialog, even Duke could have told them, “Pamela hunted down this book, she summoned demons known as the deadites and made a deal to save her son”, but no. We got nothing and had to like it.

Now in retrospect this film is a mess and full of jokes and parody of itself. In truth when it came out? It was full of jokes and parodied itself. It was a sign of things to come, which would eventually happen with the release of Bride of Chucky. The self referencing, self deprecating horror comedy. It just didn’t work. The reason some fans. Not all. Thankfully. But some fans give this film a pass is because of the teased ending of Jason and Freddy finally meeting up. Which would happen 10 years after this film.

Even when they owned the characters. They just couldn’t get it off the ground in time for that promised ending to have its pay off. Instead it left fans groaning and again hopeful they would someday get the Jason of old. Or the studio would have mercy and let it die.

So with the MPAA free of blame and no bible waving madmen decreeing this an abomination. What caused its downfall? This we can blame, I believe. On bad writing. As stated, the director had some interesting ideas for a new Jason which didn’t land so well. Again don’t pull the person people want to see out of your movie and tease him until the end. It never works out. But this film went through a lot of hoops before it got green lit. If you think there is a better version of this floating out there? There isn’t. A better script unused? Not a chance in hell. The other movies were rewritten because of cost and removal of violence. This film went through several scripts before the director said this is it. This is the story we are telling. Want an idea what else this could’ve been? Sure why not.

So Jason failed to deliver destroying New York, everyone was let down by that. So they considered bringing Jason to the next best thing. Los Angeles.

It’s not worth bickering over, but just incase so you can have a chuckle. Crystal Lake in canon? Exist in New Jersey. Moving on.

So the idea shopped around at the time, was what the Leprechaun films would tackle in two sequels. Jason would go to the hood. Specifically Jason would fight the Bloods and the Crips. That’s what the studio took from us. Jason haunting the inner city and bringing two rival gangs together to defeat him. Keep in mind I was hopeful for something good here. Not in the movie but in the failed scripts. Ever since the long ago released news that Peter Jackson had written a script for what later became Freddy’s Dead, and his idea for an old man Freddy being bullied in the dream world HIS domain by teens no longer afraid of him. That gave me hope Jason had similar floating out there. A lot of interest ideas were floating around Hollywood and that was very true of the Freddy vs Jason scripts. But no. Jason vs Crips, VS Bloods. That was the next best thing the studio had. Rightfully though they shut that idea down and said get fucked.Instead, another script was floated. Which was less cringy bad, but still not the right course. This time around. They brought out the nearly could have happened almost did happen Goerge Lucas idea for Empire Strikes Back.

For those who don’t know. When Empire Strikes back was being put together. Mark Hamill had suffered a bad car accident. It was unknown if he’s actually make it let alone be in the film. George got busy with dealing in that possibility. A new script idea was being worked on for Star Wars where, Luke would be killed off screen by Vader after the destruction of the Death Star, and his BROTHER would go seeking out the rebel alliance for help in avenging his brother. It sounds horrible hearing now, but imagine had this happened back then? Well Jason faced the same idea. Jason would have a, I can’t believe this was considered but. A deformed brother, Elias.

Pamela either was tits deep in incest, or rolled the worst dice when it came to having Babies. In this script, Jason was resting peacefully in the healing waters of Lake Crystal Light. Elias was always jealous of Jason getting moms attention and love, but more so his ability to just never really die. So Elias, in his jealousy, dealing with the loss of their mom killing in the name of his brother, and the fact his brother always returns to these healing waters to rest and return. He’s had enough of it and decided to eat the heart of Jason to obtain these abilities. Leveling him up immediately and giving us new Jason, who would still body hope. While chasing down more family members until being reborn. Now don’t worry. The studio hated this idea too.

However…

Producers were moving forward and already scouting locations, getting ready for this to happen. The most they could do. Was ensure the destruction of the film.

Even though they new how to better handle and get around the MPAA, they didn’t know how to handle stressful situations. Apparently. They could’ve pulled a full stop. But instead they acted like acted like Diddy covered in baby oil chasing down party guest. Just too slippery to stop anything!

So they did what they thought best. They forced rewrites to be done under a week, hired an inexperienced director and told him DO THE THING AND MAKE IT WORK!  I’m not joking here, the director Adam Marcus was straight out of his graduation gown and told to save this million dollar money machine. That’s insane! But they did it. Because it made sense to just rush along the runaway train instead of letting it crash and starting over.

But given Pamela Voorhees luck with twin deformed babies, maybe they worried the same would happen.

So we have a rushed rewrite keeping the body swapping Jason. What else contributed? Hard rewrites from the studio of course! What Disney now calls part of making Marvel movies, New Line was doing in a panic. Imagine if you will. A Jason film where the only time you have Jason in the woods was in the beginning, chasing a naked lady in a towel. Well you covered one aspect of Jason, the nudity. But where are the horny drug smoking teens? The film had none. It was moving on and being more serious. Except that fans during test screenings demanded they have their drunk pot `smoking teens. It gives Jason life and purpose. So the one scene we have, randomly in the movie? Where we have campers having sex, camping in the woods drinking it up? Yeah. That was a reshoot. Added because of fan demand. YOU CAN’T DO JASON WITHOUT CAMPERS!!

It’s insane. Pure insanity. But when you begin thinking studios have your franchise memorized and know what makes it tick, Jason Goes to Hell happens. Jason was about a time and place. Teens taking on the summer job of being camp counselors. I have been to camp. Once. Once. The camp counselors there? Did a lot of questionable shit they thought was edgy and cool. I have told people about my adventures in camp that one summer and can tell you, the things the male counselor’s did were things that would get you arrested and should have. Did they bang fellow counselors? We know at least two did, and one of the others flirted with a LOT of my classmates. A. lot. We were in 6th grade by the way.

In Friday the 13th it was about the setting. Simple. Teens out in the woods working a crap job. Setting up camp getting ready for campers that would never make it. Each film was the same setup. Someone else bought the camp, reopened it ,despite it being called Camp Blood. They get along, flirt, have sex, smoke pot because that was the style at the time, and they were killed. It just became a running joke.  That the filmmakers used to get asses in seats, yes. Absolutely. But it was still handled in an incidental tongue in cheek way. It wasn’t the star of the show. The kills were. But when a franchise carries on this long for that many sequels. It’s bound to happen. Just more so and poorly when it’s done as a joke.

So we had a bad script. Rewrites to make it make sense, including Duke, the Jason bounty hunter. Who didn’t help at all. What else could happen to add to this?

Enter the series creator, and producer. Sean S Cunningham. The man had his Wes Craven moment of “Look what they did to my boy!” the man actively hated what they did to Jason. He hated his hockey mask and always had. He hated that he became a literal zombie. He wanted something more in line with what inspired him to make his cash grab franchise. He wanted a Michael Myers shape that just never died. Somehow always survived but remained mostly(mostly) human. He famously told them to get rid of his damn mask. The iconic thing grabbed at random in part 3 to keep Jason out of a potato sack. Sure fuck it why not.

But the hits keep on coming! The ending was another painful reshoot. Not because the original ending didn’t make sense and needed changing. Unfortunately that would have been welcome. But no. The ending was always intended Jason gets dragged down to Hell. Only it was left up to the masters at KNB effects to do so. They made animatronic puppet demons. Which I know. It already sounds bad(it was, very bad) They made these demons, and the idea was simple. These mud demons would pop out from the soil like scary muppets, Grab onto Jason and tare his body apart. The heroes nearly being torn apart themselves. Fortunately this didn’t get included because the puppets failed horribly, and what they did film and thanks to the recent boxed sets you can now see said film. It looked comically bad. Like really, really bad. They spent money on this bad. So that is why they opted to change it, keep the demon hands, and just simplify it. Jason gets his nuts grabbed by demon hands and pulled into his forever grave.

Lets wrap this up and summarize this whole thing, because it genuinely warrants hearing for clarity.

A bad script already moved forward.

3 days to rewrite it

A series creator and big producer telling you to unmask and unmake Jason

Rushed reshoots

New and rushed ending

Destroying lore and creating new lore

A 22year old director right out the doors of film school and a studio endlessly tinkering and pulling at him.

Too many cooks ruin a serial killing zombie.

When a studio makes an investment, and doesn’t know the other hand is moving ahead without them. Forcing them to rush along and catch up. Panics and studio interference. It was never going to succeed. But they did achieve their goal. They made a profit after spending a tiny sprinkle of cash. Their investment was secured and therefor Freddy could fight Jason.

Again 10 years from this film. So before we got that gem of a film, which it really was. We had one last Kane Hodder film. The truly last Friday the 13th, before the reboot.

Jason X

Jesus wept.

So this was, something. Something special. For someone. The studio shit the bed with the fans when making Jason Goes to Hell, Freddy vs Jason was going through one script after another, after another and remained in production hell.

The studio didn’t want to lose their precious Jason IP since they bought it specifically to bring Freddy and Jason together, with the potential for two huge monolithic franchises eternally pumping out money. So the result of waiting for Freddy and Jason?  This.

Send Jason to SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE

This film can’t really be discussed without cross over discussions on the eventual release of Freddy vs Jason. I mean it honestly both insane? And extreme dedication in the belief that those two sharing the screen would be the biggest even ever, that this studio believed so hard in it they waited 8 years before forcing this shit onto the world. Just to keep Jason in the workhouse for them to pair up with Freddy. They went through dozens of scripts and top writers to make this happen. 8 fucking years of waiting. Trying and failing. Waiting, and trying again. Why the long wait? Why does it matter? Because it directly ties into the failure that was Jason X.

There was a long drought in both Freddy and Jason because they were holding out for the hero script to bring the two together, and when Sean Cunningham wanted to force a Jason film out onto the world so Jason wouldn’t be forgotten( a plot point used for Freddy with wanting to be feared again as people forgot about him)The studio told Sean. Okay. Don’t take Jason away from us, you can have your stand alone Jason film.

With some caveats.

This is the reason Freddy stopped and Jason stopped dead in their franchises.

The studio was so dead set on these two fighting that all stand alone films were stopped. Why? Because continuity. If you are going to pit these two against each other. There has to be a believable film continuity that keeps them on page with each other. If Jason decided to get involved with the bloods and crips in Los Angeles, Freddy would have to locate the nearest Elm Street. If Freddy got killed off by some wise ass teens again, and sealed in a vault in hell. Well Jason would have to find a way to free him. They didn’t want one franchise or the other fucking up their plans.

How two immortal beings could cancel each other out when both have gone through the ringer of resurrection ranging from electricity to flaming dog piss. I just. Well I’m not paid millions of dollars so. Anyway.

Yes, Sean was allowed his lone Jason film. He just was told very politely. Do not fuck this up so he can’t fight Freddy. Don’t burn down Camp Crystal Lake, don’t turn him into mist. Don’t make this a mess we can’t clean up. Do these things, and you can have Jason fuck a raccoon if you want.

And so Sean did. He found a relatively attractive raccoon, dolled it up, and fucked it right into the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism.

SPACE!

Actually no. That isn’t true. It is what we ended up with ultimately. But dear readers. Oh. I have such sights to show you. Such horrors to share.

Believe it or not? Space was the last thing on the writers minds.

What follows is entirely true, and not in any way a bit I am putting together.

You had three adults team up for this project to toss out ideas that followed the rule of not interfering with the possibility of Freddy vs Jason. These three men. Sean S Cunningham, Todd Farmer and Jim Isaac came  up with the following ideas. All of these ideas took place during a gathering of minds in ’99 mind you.

Jason Takes The Middle East

Jason Takes Los Angeles

Jason vs Nascar

Jason vs Antarctica

Blizzard of Jason-Crystal lake turned into a frozen wasteland

We could have had. Jason. Getting on a plane. Killing people on a plane. Flying to the middle east. Rambo fought the middle east. Jason could have gone there. But Nascar? How would that even….Would he possess a car and kill drivers? Does he get his license and start killing drivers during a blood rally race?

If you hear a scraping clawing sound? That’s the bottom of the barrel being scraped. They actually managed to reach it with their ideas.

Unfortunately only one idea survived this meeting and became the backdrop for their eventual 10th film. The idea these three thought sounded ‘cool’ was the concept of Jason in the future. A blade runner like future where some kids discover in a museum, a warehouse. Somewhere. Jason cryogenically frozen. The kids intrigued by this would accidentally set him free and Jason begins murdering teens in the future city.

That had legs. I mean in concept it sounds pretty good. Pluss it wouldn’t interfere with Freddy. It took place far enough in the future it didn’t ruin the continuity. It didn’t involve crystal lake or Elm street. So the project was greenlit.

So this is where it gets weird. Because trust me this one is weird considering the history of the others before it. 7 through 9 had much smaller budgets, 9 the lowest budget of them all. But Jason X was given a much. Much larger one, by far the biggest yet. The film was given 10 million dollars. Not a lot for a film but a lot more than it was given in the past, and far well more than it deserved.

So what happened? How could a film with a decent budget for once, and three minds fail both commercially and with fans?

Picture a can getting kicked further and further down the road. Now picture that can has three filmmakers inside it, and each kick is more being cut away from their idea and budget.

The original version of this film, was absolutely something. It wasn’t just a comedic idea of Jason being unfrozen in the future city of a new earth. It was going to be an action horror film. Much like what they wanted in part 8. This is going to sound crazy but in a good way. They didn’t want just a future city of people dressed in funky clothes. They wanted something along the line of Ridley Scott. Not just the look and style of Blade Runner, but the military and fire power of ALIENS. This was going to be a big holy shit Jason. We would have humans, aliens, space battles. Laser guns. Gritty cities in the future, flying cars. Jason vs aliens and serious action over gore and tits.

Kick the can.

There was no way this budget would give life to that vision. So they were told tone it down, no aliens, no high tech weaponry. No future cities and flying cars.

Okay, so the setting changed. No gritty city, no aliens, and no space marines. Next route? If you can’t make ALIENS, make ALIEN. Yes the next route was to follow a sort of Alien type setting where we’d follow Space Truckers. Again not joking. Space truckers going around doing deep salvage, end up coming across a cryogenically frozen Jason. Having no idea what or who he is, picking him up, bringing him aboard and slowly everyone is killed off, one by one. Ship lands on a cool planet and-

Kick the can.

No planet. This isn’t Star Wars. No planet, no ships(plural) keep it simple and remember horny teens, drugs, tits.

So space truckers got changed out for students on a field trip. The planet got changed to an earth facility.

Hold on to your butts, for this.

Jason is discovered as is another earth woman. She is Rowen the lead person in charge of the Crystal Lake Research Facility. After discovering Jason cannot be killed, they decide its safest for all of earth to have him frozen. She unfortunately ends up frozen with him as he tried escaping and attacking. She gets unfrozen along side Jason and begins immediately warning the kids about him and the events soon to play out. Jason would attack the teens killing them one by one. He would face off against an android and eventually be killed. Only to be resurrected and transformed by nano tech. Turned into an ultimate terminator like killing machine. The final act of the film?  Gets even crazier. The kids realizing even 500 years in the future that Jason STILL remains unkillable, decide they have to find a way to contain him, to get rid of him. Make him someone elses problem. How do they do this? The only way space movies can. When you are faced with ultimate destruction, what do you do? You do what Star Trek taught us. Time travel.

They would send Jason through a time rift.

To the 1940’s. Setting up a potential sequel, in the same vein of Freddy vs Jason. We would end, with Jason finding his next victim. His mother.

They were going to send, uber cyborg terminator Jason, into the 40’s, and fight his mother.

Kick

The

Fucking

Can

Jason was not going to be in a movie, that would not only have him fight his mother in a sequel. But a movie that also pitched the idea of trapping him in VR distracting him with a program that would depict his mother drowning, only to drown her himself instead of save her. It was too fucking much. Even Cunningham said slow the fuck down and back off my dick.

On top of this, you had these two writing a movie that would still cost millions more than the budget they were given. But you also had just pure insanity. Going into space was a joke enough on its own. As was turning Jason into a steel masked terminator. But throwing in time travel? That’s just too much. Everyone thought so and our remaining two out of three minds were sat down in the cuck chair and told the reality of their situation.

Stop dreaming big, and make a direct to video film. This isn’t your Blade Runner, this is your Galaxy of Terror.

So most of that plot was kept in tact for the final film. Minus time travel, minus Jason killing his virtual mother, and more on budget.

Which brings us to the final story of the film. We got there finally.

As stated, Jason is captured, studied and killed multiple times by the camp crystal lake research facility. He’s killed over 200 people and being studied. He is scheduled for freezing only to begin killing people and attacking Rowen. Both frozen and left to be discovered by horny bored students 500 years later. Rowen is patched up, saved and resurrected. People are warned about Jason but they assure her he is still dead and frozen.

Jason is brought back to life because two horny teens are having premarital sex. As the girl reaches orgasm. Jason’s eyes open and he is ready for vengeance. Everyone is killed off slowly but surely. Jason still ends up in a virtual simulation as a distraction. But its an 80’s camp, with two hot big tittied camp counselors who smoke pot and love premarital sex. Jason still fights an android and gets turned into Uber Jason. Instead of getting shot out into a time rift though, Jason is shot out of the ship and dragged to earth in a fireball entering the atmosphere by a grunt in a space suit. Sending him to earth ending with two teens in the future, looking at a ‘flaming’ star, declaring lets go investigate it. And the film ends. Promising Jason killing future horny teens in the future woods.

I don’t need to ask what the hell happened with this movie. It was written on the subway walls. This was never going to be a success. Could it have been fun? Yes. It absolutely could have. In better hands.

Over ambitious, visionary writers and directors aimed far too high, and were struck down back to reality. The more they fought and failed, trying to get more into the film. The more ground they lost. More realistically though, reality killed their project.

It’s a sad fact a lot of filmmakers eventually face and I’ve witnessed both in behind the scenes documentaries and in real life. Going to the Art Institute for photography, we worked hand in hand with the film department and students. When they got to film their projects they all had similar experiences and expectations. They were going to make their THX1138. They would shoot an epic scene. High drama, acting, action. I was a zombie in a film called Carnival of the Damned. I had a shot death scene. The director envisioned this film he made as intense as Day of the Dead and as dark if not darker. It would be intense but fun. The makeup was dark circles under the eyes, white face paint, and tissue paper latex scars with blood in regular untouched street clothes. Night of the Living Dead had better results. This movie was shit and remains my sisters best dodged bullet as her ex purposely misspelled her name thinking it’d dig at her that she wouldn’t be credited in a film she helped on a lot. She thanked them for making it possible to remove her from that piece of shit.

You set out wanting to make ALIENS and you instead end up making something below Roger Corman that you would watch and normally mock.

On top of that you had the reality that this film was never meant to be a success. It was never meant to be anything. It’s kind of fucked up but again. No one wanted this but Cunningham. He got tired waiting for Jason vs Freddy and felt Jason needed to be remembered. So they let him do it, knowing it was a nothing burger. You let people dream up ideas for an interesting film. You let them put heart into the pitch and script. Then reminded them it didn’t matter because no one cared. Not even the studio.

If you ever saw the original ROCKY movie, there’s a scene where Stallone goes into the arena and looks over the place as they ready for the fight. The spectacle. A real boxing world champion giving a nobody a chance in the ring. He tells one of the workers the color on his trunks in their banner is wrong. The guy looks at it then back at Rocky and smirks asking him, does it really matter? He was being reminded. He wasn’t ever expected to do anything but show up. He wasn’t going to win, he wasn’t in a fight. It was a spectacle meant to make the other guy look good leading into his next big fight.

The only difference here is that Rocky showed the little guy could do it. He held his own and almost won. He proved he could do it.

This film failed. The bigger budget did nothing. Their was nothing for the MPAA to kill here. The film was cut down for run time and the only real grizzly death in the movie with blood was cut down. The movie was finished and….shelved for a year. This is also something that still happens in Hollywood. Most recently we can look at James Gunn when he joined DC during a merger. He was put on the back burner until the merger went through then let out. So as not to create waves given he was in the middle of online media cancelling him over his past tweets and edgy comments during his time with TROMA films.

New Lines president of production was fired. New Line was merging with Time Warner and to ensure this went smoothly. His greenlit projects were all canned. New Line had released a series of flops, one after the other. So when you are trying to look good during a merger with another big company. Well. You don’t want to leave the table and take a massive shit, only to have that smell travel through the room. Jason X was a from the start failure. They knew it. So they shelved it until the merger so it wouldn’t add to the pile of already mounted films that cost the studio. The film was shown in theaters, believe it or not. Just not in a large release. The film didn’t matter to the studio. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t get a theatrical release. It was going to get shown and advertised. But that’s where the other problems came.

The film was released over seas first. It did not perform well. By the time it came out in the United States. People either had the film spoiled online, word of mouth went around that it was horrible and not funny in a good way, and they did not care.

The most had a large budget and for the first time in ages. The film lost money. Even if the film had shared the same budget as part 8? It would have still been a critical failure. The film opened to 6 million, on a 10-13 million dollar budget. Once the smoke had cleared and the film had its run? It roughly dragged itself to around 15-16 million.

One year after its release? Freddy would finally square off against Jason. New Line got their baby made, it was a success and fans loved it. It was the best thing you could ask for as fans of either franchise.

But Jason X was the final nail in Jasons coffin. They finally, well and truly found a way to kill him for good. After Jason X There would be no more Jason films. To this day there still isn’t and hasn’t been.

They pitched ideas. Horrible ideas. The worst I remember hearing and I still pray never gets resurrected was the idea of doing Friday the 13th as a found footage film. Essentially turning Jason into the Blair Witch in the woods. But it thankfully never happened. Instead we have a prequel series coming to streaming. There is still talks of a reboot. But no one has since touched this film. 2002 was the official recorded date of death for Jason Voorhees. Honestly he died for a lot of us when Tommy Jarvis chained and killed him in Crystal Lake. Everything after that has been parading his corpse and a thing masquerading as Jason. Dragged out for three more go nowhere do nothing sequels that just further buried the series.

The only thing we got. Many moons later. Was the reboot. I debated covering that in this. I planned on it actually. Because I have many issues with this reboot. It helped me coin my still to this day favorite name for Jason. Farmer Jason’s pot farm. Because that is a thing that exist thanks to this reboot. But in all honesty? I can’t do it. Not because I’m physically dying after writing all this. But in reality? That film, Hell the reboots of the other franchises? Deserve their own articles. They need time to stew in their own rancid juices. Pluss I don’t want to kill any of you by having you commit to what will turn this into a 50 page article. We’re already at the point you either committed to the bit. Or checked out. I won’t drag you along any further. For now. That will come later once we get to Hellraiser. Because that my dear. That. Is going to cost me all the points, all my sanity.

As for Jason? Well.

Jason Voorhees was born off the idea of a filmmaker wanting to ape off the success of Halloween. If you could make a horror movie about a Holiday, why not make one off of the unlucky day? He just didn’t think it would become what it did. Nor did Kevin Bacon.

It gave us one of our first female killers in horror, It gave birth to Jason in the follow up sequel. Which lead to an iconic villain in the third. Jason even after his end. Still keeps popping up. People love laughing at and watching the movies. They marathon them. Hell I bought the big ass deluxe box set from SHOUT factory(Scream factory? Either or. Both) It’s an amazing set and I love these movies. Many years ago they released each one of these individually with unrated versions. They didn’t have much changes from the originals, but the extras were worth it.

The reality that we haven’t had  Jason, in any form for 17 years is, crazy. I wont include the prequel series. Because to my knowledge, that is going to follow Pamela. But honestly the way things are now you never know. I grew up off these films. I rented them at our video store in town. Called Blockbuster daily waiting for them to tell me someone turned in their copies so I could watch The New Blood since I didn’t get to see it in theaters.  I keep buying each new edition released and whenever they put these out in 4k? I’ll pick them up again. Same as I have with HALLOWEEN and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

These films still have watchability and remain entertaining. My proof of this isn’t just my take. My now ex, she hadn’t watched a lot of movies, especially horror. She actually avoided a lot of it. But she decided to give a few a chance with me. So I introduced her to the Friday films. I curated films to show that I thought they might enjoy more based off their likes and dislikes. A good boyfriend listens, and I do. So I showed these to her and even with the nudity, and lame jokes. They still enjoyed them. In fact. They liked that the films had a continuity. They liked that the women weren’t all brainless. They were likeable. The films got silly once we got to part 6. But it wasn’t self deprecating. It was having fun with itself and gave you what you wanted while also concluding a really interesting arch.

The films kept fans happy and willing to accept Jason coming back each and every time. We all laughed and accepted that each Friday would absolutely not be THE FINAL CHAPTER and THE FINAL FRIDAY was absolutely not going to be that. And Jason going to Hell was just a vacation and a premise for a new adventure.

Actually that last bit is kind of true. At one point they did joke about the idea of Gilbert Gottfried going to hell and bringing Jason back.

Would it have been better than Jason going to the middle east? Maybe.

If I had to give a cause of death, a real reason for what the hell happened to Jason?

With everything we’ve discussed, all we learned? I have to lay it on the feet of the studios.

Yes the MPAA and religious watchdog groups played their role, they were given and still hold power they should not. But this was during a time where things weren’t as accepted and ‘normal’ as they are now. These films are relatively tame compared to things we see and get in theater now. The more you dive into films shot between 86-98. You really notice the shift in tone across all of horror, and knowing the reason, the story why? It really paints a macabre picture of what films went through and the power these people had and should never had been allowed.

But the studios gave them this power.  Not figuratively either. Now more than ever the MPA(formerly MPAA) is made up of the studios. During the late 80’s it was more, anonymous  parents payrolled by studios. They gave them the power and they couldn’t slow down the machine. When violence in film became the reason for violence in reality. Studios had to answer for it. Which they did in hyper overreacting actions. From the butchering of the scripts. Reshoots and heavy edits done by the studio before the MPAA would sink their claws into it. It all adds up. If we really want to dig into it we could go as far as bringing NATO into this. The National Association of Theatre Owners, and their strict rule of not showing anything rated below an R.

Studios created their own fascinating, corporate paradox with creating the sleeping beast that was the MPA. They created it to protect themselves. Offering a grading system that they came up with was a way to tell people trust us, this is good for your family. This is good for your kids, These are for you the parents. You were promising entertainment at a level they could trust and it made steady cash flow. But it grew out of their control to a point it strangled filmmakers creativity.

At the heart of all of it. They killed Jason. The script rewrites, the reshoots and editing were all contributing factors. But the studio ultimately was to blame. Even later on when New Line decided to double down on their vision of a money printing machine between Jason and Freddy. They sacrificed a 10th film to push for their dream film. A dream film that was going to potentially open the doors for other cross overs. For more Freddy and Jason. Only we didn’t get that. And people had to turn to the comics for that.

Accepting a film pissing off the fans and being received as an all around bad film. But pointing to the box office earnings and saying “You know even failure can be success”, isn’t going to stop your franchise from digging its own grave. It just means you see the ground your about to bury yourself in. But you recognize there is still milk in that dead cows tits. So squeeze out what you can and bury the Heffer. You could try to save it. Knock it up and raise the baby healthy and better. Make the mama cow proud. But who needs to do that when you can milk it dead and toss it once your done.

And again. After 10 films. A reboot, and now a streaming series. Jason is still going to eventually return. Another reboot will and likely is coming. For better or worse. We can hope for better but getting it at this point. Well.

If Leatherface can return and kill a bus of influencers. Jason might kill a camp of woke counselors. I’ll still hold hope for the middle east.

Until Next Friday! If you made it to the end? Thank you. I’m glad to be back!