Happy Friday the 13th in October!

Being that I was to be busy tonight, and in the past this was just always a fun day sequel to watch, I chose Jason Lives to be my “official” Friday the 13^th film for the day although I woke up to, and caught most of the middle and end of, Jason Takes Manhattan. The sixth film will always be ideal entertainment for me, having served as a type of “starter horror film” for me as a kid in the late 80s. My stepbrother and my brother were always ragging me on not having the stomach or manhood (although I was just around 9 at the time) to handle horror films. I was afraid of even Poltergeist (’82) when I was a kid…a fact my mom loves to recall when talking with others much to my embarrassment. Just the same, I haven’t adopted that same attitude, never expecting kids (although they do seem to handle it, maybe out of the desensitization of society) to just take to horror films until they are ready. Jason Lives (1986), the sixth film in the franchise, was probably the first horror film to kind of nudge me out of my comfort zone and forever, just for that, I’m grateful. It is really an easy film to watch, though, as director McLoughlin didn’t really direct it as savage as much as cartoonish. I think, for the most part, you could watch this today on regular television with little real editing. Even the sex scene could be seen as tame and go relatively unaltered. I think I also chose this as the film for today as McLoughlin took from the story of Frankenstein to resurrect Jason from the grave, wrought with maggots and slimy, rotted flesh (although built like a freakin’ tank). The use of lightning hitting a cemetery fence rod, conveniently stabbed in the grotesque corpse of Jason (I just loved that part of it today while watching it, how McLoughlin really made Jason’s corpse hideous and deteriorated) by arch nemesis Tommy Jarvis, gives the dead body life. One eye opens and Jason returns to invade a camp now named Camp Forrest Green, loaded with children [finally!] and some bubbly, appealing young adult counselors, shuffled in a green groundskeeper outfit and moving with a certain intensity throughout Crystal Lake. I enjoyed this one as it shoots a lot during the day and has a good sense of humor. I think I might have overrated it a bit when I was younger (my rating system probably had it as ****/***** back when I was a kid, discovering the Leonard Maltin movie guide and becoming my own little critic), but after today I do see it as a good alternative to the earlier Jason films, not taking itself so seriously. Depending on how you like your Jason films, this will either work or not, but McLoughlin has lots of fun with Supernatural Jason. The pace is ideal and the violence is not overtly visceral. I do think Zombie Jason is not exactly favored by specific Friday fans although he’s kind of always been undead for the most part, right? Even Savini questioned that. Just the same, this is responsible for Corpse Jason and it led to Kane Hodder donning the character afterward so it just depends on what you enjoy from the series. Even the prosthetic limbs gags are played for laughs not gasps. In fact, to me, the most horrifying murder is implied as Kerry Noonan’s blood is just painterly splattered and brushed all over her character’s cabin, including her body thrown through the window. I remember thinking how disappointed I was with that scene earlier in my life but I think today it held a greater impression. It says that Jason had some built up aggression he needed to release and poor Noonan was the body to eviscerate. But the knife in Cort’s skull as he was driving the RV is beyond excuse…it looks like it is right out of the novelty shop. Cooke and Thom Matthews make for quite a charming pair. Just recently I found a VHS copy of this with my favorite box art of the entire series [example, although my copy is in far better shape:click]:I think the review below I wrote back in 2012 covers how I feel about the film in good detail...

Official blog review:Click