I had started this week, convincing myself that I would once again binge Friday 13th movies all day on Friday, January, the 13th. Last May it seemed just right. Admittedly this early in the year never was Friday 13th a mainstay or common guest on the Telly. It has always been a summer or early fall franchise with me. However, I opened with Friday the 13th III (1982), and it was fun. This year I visited the IMDb message board for Part III and you can really sense that this third film has gained serious momentum over the years. I didn't watch this one substantially as a kid. I admit that the latter Zombie Jason sequels were heavy favorites and received more attention, for whatever reason. But considering the obvious elephant in the room being that if viewed with logic brain turned on, Jason has been dead since he drowned in Crystal Lake, heretofore meaning he's been a zombie since Part 2. Whether or not that persuades you to accept or reject the franchise, it has already. In fact those who have always hated or continue to hate so much dialogue on it will turn off their attention immediately and leave for better content on better movies.
I've been critical of Dana Kimmel's acting in the past. Rough, to critique the performance seemed how I felt. The histrionics on display. The shrieking and hysteria. But while on its IMDb message board I gave it some thought. The character is resourceful in the clutch, and in the grand tradition of the final girl she is almost always on the offensive. A knife stab to Jason's knee and hand, tossing over a book shelf full of books spilling out over him, using wood or a shovel, wrapping rope around his neck and tossing him off a loft with all his weight caving in on the way down, with an ax to the forehead the clincher...When Jason withstands all that and still forwards ahead towards her, Kimmel's reactions are actually understandable.
Who wouldn't react with terror in this force of nature that just doesn't stop?!?! Booker seems to model the Jason later emulated and recognized by those behind the hockey mask and in pop culture. And let's put to bed that what we are watching in this film and afterward isn't some normal man who humanly functions because there is no reason to believe that when the machete was buried in his shoulder, Jason could ever recover. That and after all Jason's murderous activity in Part 2, there would have been a manhunt in that area extensively for him. No way he's walking around without a care in the world just taking up where he left off. That's why many hate the fuck out of this franchise. It operates with little logic and fan theory works overtime to correct erroneous plot holes barely acknowledged in the next sequel. Interestingly the first few films follow behind each other for the few opening minutes, but then work within their own universe. Jason and his intended/would-be victims become central focus while those litany of deaths before fade, becoming notches on Jason's kill belt.
All that aside, I have been enjoying a less pressing issue to binge all eight films within a day's window. So I'll give this the ole "Paramount 8 Weekend" treatment, going past just celebrating the day's particularly established notoriety, inexorably attached to Jason Voorhees.
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