Camping On Elm Street (Freddy Vs Jason, 2003)

For about a decade Newline tried to come up with a movie bringing Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees together in a single film. There were a lot of false starts. It had been awhile since we saw film franchises cross (Aliens v Predator was still a year away). You had to expect that in the end, this would probably be terrible. When they announced Ronny Yu would be directing, that offered some hope, as his Bride of Chucky was actually quite entertaining. The news that while Englund was back, Kane was not left more than a few fans disappointed. Watching the completed film? I actually had fun. Sure this ain’t high art. But it was funny, energetic and kind of interesting. The effects were pretty solid overall, though some moments were clearly computer generated. And the Jason Mewes clone(I kid you not…I expected him to yell “Snootchie Bootchies!”) was a bit ridiculous.

I think Kane Hodder brings a bit more personality to Jason than Ken Kirzinger did. Part of that is that Kane is a six foot, broad wall of muscle. His Jason is large and powerful looking. Kirzinger is a bit taller and less broad…his Jason look much taller and sleeker. The same can be said for Derek Mears from the 2010 remake of Friday the 13th. These guys were not bad…but they were not Hodder.

There was a generous amount of nudity, for those who feel that is important to a slasher flick(I do not fall into that camp I am afraid). This is clearly more of a carryover from the Friday the 13th series…there’s nudity in the Elm Streets of course…but not to the degree that there is in a Jason flick.

For Jason, this is a redemption of sorts from the painful Jason X. Thankfully, that took place far in the future and this movie could happily ignore it. The writers found a pretty interesting way to bring the characters together. Freddy had lost access to his power, the kids of Elm Street are drugged and no longer dreaming. So to cause them to fear again, he resurrects Jason and sends him on a murder spree. but when Freddy is finally strong enough, he finds Jason out of control-killing Freddy’s intended victims.

So Freddy embarks on a mission to take down Jason so he can get back to his own killing spree. Meanwhile, Lori (Monica Keena) and her friends are trying to figure out how to stop Freddy and Jason with the help of a local cop (Lochlyn Munro) who transferred in from the Camp Crystal Lake area.

Englund slipped right back into the role of Freddy. Cracking wise and being generally vicious. But he pulls it off…Freddy seems a little darker than in the sequels that followed the original. Not a comedian who kills…and some of the facial reactions he pulls off under that makeup is great. There is a great moment where he suddenly realizes he has been pulled into the real world, and Englund’s expression is that of genuine fear.

As I said towards the beginning, this is a fun movie with a lot of energy, mostly for fans of the franchises, but horror fans in general should be able to find stuff to like.

October 10, 2015 0

Let’s Go Camping Part 11 (Friday the 13th, 2009)

2009 one of those reboots, much like 2010’s Nightmare on Elm Street. And, to an extent, you know…maybe a franchise should get a fresh reboot every few years. But the only fresh thing about the 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th? They compressed the entire first film into a two minute opening sequence. It follows the basic trajectory of a Jason based movie. No new take. Just more CW actors, lots of gratuitous nudity of the female variety (unlike the Nightmare reboot, girls drop their tops for things like wake boarding).

Sure, the violence is slicker, the kills a bit more over the top. But the story is no stronger, the humor falls slatt-uh-flatter…

In rebooting, they basically follow exact same formula. Campers go out and party, stumble on Jason (or vice versa) and mayhem follows. It’s the same old story. Well, except, there are now underground tunnels.

Jason is “smarter” in this film, seeming to make plans and set traps. So, there is that. The teens, on the other hand, are a mixed bag. You have the first totally disposable group. Jason offs them quickly so as to set up the plot of Jared Padelecki from Supernatural (now both leads from that show have a horror remake under their belts) as a concerned brother looking for his missing sister.

He meets up with a group of kids led by the requisite rich jerk that apparently hangs out with people who hate him-but want to take advantage of his awesome cabin conveniently located right on Camp Crystal Lake. You have the funny black guy, the desperate virgin Asian guy, the hot free spirit, the hot sensitive girl and the hot sex kitten (who is almost indistinguishable from the hot free spirit), the rebel and the rich jerk.

Jared and the rich jerk do not get along-because Rich Jerks do not care about little things like missing and possibly dead family. But Rich Jerk’s girlfriend-the hot sensitive girl- takes pity on Jared and they go walking through the woods.

Jason has set up shop beneath the old and abandoned camp in tunnels. Because… why not? (Real answer: it was a solution by the screenwriters to explain how Jason can just “show up” everywhere) He has Jared’s sister chained up because…well, we do not really know, there is some indication she looks a lot like Jason’s mom. So, like any good son, he chains his mother figure up in a cave. What? You wouldn’t?

There are a series of random deaths, as Jason works his way through the characters. Eventually, Jason has whittle the cast down to Jared, Hot Sensitive Girl and Jared’s Sister. They have a final showdown with Jason and dump him in the lake. Then it’s time for the Sudden Scare.

The movie never makes any use of it’s potentially interesting aspects. I mean, why not play around with Jason’s apparent mother fixation on Jared’s sister? Maybe show Jason trying to be the good but homicidal son? Not understanding why mommy is displeased with gifts like a human head?

What we are left with is a film that pretty much reinvents the wheel with a glossy finish. There are kills, weak jokes, predictable jumps points, and zero surprises. Some of the various sequels took bigger risks than this reboot.

But hey, white supremacist horror movie fans will be relieved to know that non-white people still cannot get out of one of these movies alive.

October 10, 2015 0

Lets Go Camping Part 10 (Jason X, 2001)

Pretty much ignoring Jason Goes to Hell, Jim Isaac (director) and Todd Farmer (writer) give us Jason’s first (and to date only) trip to space. Eat your heart out Neil Armstrong.

Granted, both the Leprechaun and Pinhead (from the Hellraiser films) had already gone into space about five years before, so it is not a wholly original idea.

The film begins with a top secret military base below Camp Crystal Lake (!) where Jason is being held until he can be transported by movie director David Cronenberg (!) and a bunch of military guys. This goes badly, and Jason ends up trapped in cryogenic sleep along with a young woman named Rowan (Lexa Doig) who was trying to prevent his escape.

Decades later they are found by students on a field trip to a now barren earth. The students bring them back to their ship and their teacher thinks he can get a lot of money for Jason. They revive Rowan, then Jason wakes up and mayhem ensues.

The film has middling effects, the practical stuff looks good, but the digital looks very, well, digital. The story is out there and includes all sorts of odd things like a girl android in love with her creator, Jason getting a chrome makeover, killing holographic campers, soldiers hanging out on the spaceship, terrible “Future Clothing Fashion”…there is a ridiculously high body count in this film. It is full of stock characters (the stoner, the smart kid, the jock, the greedy guy, etc) who never amount to much.

This film never worries about explaining why Jason is not in hell. It never worries about explaining much, actually. Needless to say, this helped the studio push forward with a Freddy and Jason movie to wash the taste of this one out of fans mouths.

October 9, 2015 0

Lets Go Camping Part 3D (Friday the 13th Part 3, 1982)

Part three is in 3-D and you know what that means… long drawn out scenes with people pushing things towards the camera. They dump the plot of camp counselors trying to reopen the camp this time around. Instead, it’s a group of friends going to Dana Kimmell’s cabin. Dana is unsure about returning to the cabin, because a crazy man attacked her there. You won’t be surprised to learn it was Jason, since they are at the infamous Crystal Lake So we get a bunch a college students hanging out in a cabin. Not much happens, as Jason holds out on killing the kids until late into the film. His first victims are a couple that run a general store and then some pissed off bikers who are angry at the college kids for running over their bikes in 3-D.

One by one they are knocked off and Jason gets a hold of his famous hockey Mask, which he steals from one of his victims. We are left with the Lone Survivor who fights Jason in a barn. She knocks him out and puts a noose around his neck., then kicks him over the edge hanging him. Thank God that’s over. So she climbs down the ladder and goes to open the barn door. She is shocked when Jason wakes up and proceeds to set himself free. So they fight, suddenly, one of the bikers we assumed dead leaps out of the shadows and-is quickly killed by Jason. But this gives our plucky Sole Survivor the moment she needs to grab an axe and plant it in Jason’s skull. He staggers and falls.

The Sole Survivor goes out in the dark and gets in a boat. She falls asleep, and then wakes up in the morning when the boat bumps into a submerged branch. Then she gets a scare when a duck flies by. Then her boat gets stuck on a bigger submerged branch. Then, she looks to the cabin by the shore…who is looking at her from a Window? An overly excited Jason! He comes bursting through the door and the Sole Survivor starts panicking and trying to get her boat free, then she looks back. The door is still on its hinges, Jason was not really there. Whew! Suddenly from behind, a decaying Pamela Voorhees leaps from the water (somehow managing to get her head back on her body between movies) to grab our Sole Survivor. But WAIT! She’s just gone crazy. The cops have her. Now, noone tried to call the police in the film, but being the Crystal Lake area, I guess they figure you can never be to careful, so they randomly check cabins for slaughtered counselors. They put the crazy Sole Survivor in the back seat as she babbles about a lady in the lake(are we seeing a trend here?). The cops never search the barn, since that is where they would actually find the body of Jason with axe still firmly implanted in his skull. The best part of the movie? The hilarious theme for the opening and closing credits.

The lone survivor girl being a bit crazy at the end of each film is starting to get tiring. The film has a cast of pretty people and the lone loser who they put up with. The character is to obnoxious to be sympathetic, which seems to be the opposite of what they were going for. It is clear he is supposed to be a love-able schlub.

The 3D is not effective at all, and the outdated 3D leaves us with a ton of boring footage that was supposed to startle the audience. The third film does not breath life into the franchise, just keeps it chugging along.

Oh yeah. In Part 2, Jason has long stringy hair and a beard. Part 3 takes place literally hours after the second film. In this film, he is clean shaven and bald. Stopped at the barber I guess.

October 6, 2015 0

Lets Go Camping Part 1 (Friday the 13th, 1980)

After the success of Halloween, filmmakers everywhere wanted to cash in with a holiday themed horror film. Sean Cunningham and his friends had made a kids movie previous, but thought they could make a cheap horror movie and rake in the cash.

Sean Cunningham is a bright guy. They chose Friday the 13th…which had little to do with the plot. They came up with an idea for a tale and started work.

So, the film begins with what has become standard in horror, two counselors sneak off to have some sex. While they are doing that, someone walks into the room and startles them. We don’t see the killer, because it is supposed to be a mystery, see. With a twist no less. Now, unlike it’s predecessor Halloween, which had it’s twist in the first five minutes, Friday the 13th draws it out. We jump ahead to modern times (well, 1980). And Camp Crystal Lake is getting re-opened. One of the counselors has apparently hitch-hiked her way there (oh, the carefree days of the late seventies and early eighties). She walks into a small town diner with, like, six locals. She asks which way to Camp Crystal Lake. The room goes, predictably, silent. And then the locals call it Camp Blood. Scary, huh? Finally a trucker offers to drive her there, since he is going that way anyhow. As the are getting in the truck they are stopped by the small town’s official Crazy Old Guy. He warns the girl that she is going to die. Her and all the other counselors. The trucker brushes him off as the Crazy Old Guy. Which is funny, because after a few miles; the trucker suddenly switches gears and becomes the Official Crazy Trucker. He starts going on about how bad of an idea it is to re-open Camp Blood and that she could be in danger. She gets out of the truck and starts to walk.

As it turns out, the two crazy guys were not so crazy. She gets picked up by a person in a jeep. We don’t see this person, and I am guessing they are not wearing a hockey mask, since the girl gets in the jeep. But finally, the girl gets freaked out by the fact that the camera keeps looking at her. So she leaps from the jeep and starts to run. The jeep stops and the camera gets out and follows her. Then the camera catches up and slits her throat. The real bummer here is that she is the camp cook.

The rest of the counselors get there without getting impaled with sharp objects. And then you have hijinks. It’s not terribly interesting for awhile. College kids chat, flirt and go off into the woods by themselves to get killed. We get more of the back story of Camp Blood in this portion of the film. The guy re-opening the camp-apparently the son of the original owners-explains a bit as do other characters in the know. Some kid (Jason) drowned a few years back and shortly after two counselors were found dead. Apparently, parents were a bit squeamish about sending their kids to such a camp.

Then a storm hits and that allows the killer to go crazy. Finally, it’s down to the Lone Survivor and the killer…and that’s when we discover, the killer is the crazy old lady whose son drowned years ago! Jason’s mother Pamela went a little loopy and started to kill people to get the camp closed all those years ago and now she is at it again! So they duke it out, all the while, Mrs. Voorhees talking to her dead son-kind of Norman Bates style.

Even though actress Betsy Palmer thought the script was a steaming pile of crap and took the job because she figured the movie would quickly be forgotten, she does a solid job as Mrs. Voorhees. Outside of a final jump scare, Jason was a cautionary tale for counsellors to be responsible in this first film. He is not a living character.

It is a decently made low budget film, and the effects are quite good. The script is the weakest link. The film is a bit slow and clunky at points, but can be effective at times as a thriller.

October 5, 2015 0