Scarecrow's Up at Night #3

I think I’ll always wonder what kind of footage was indeed left on the cutting room floor. I laughed aloud to myself after it kept happening over and over, “Danny, what’s with all the zoom close-ups of faces?!” It was just a cartoon. I read that actors on set talked about how Danny was a cokehead. And that he had lots of sex in the woods. The film, for its trash characters, vulgar, rather course dialogue (this is really the closest to Rob Zombie as the Friday the 13^th series could get), and rug-pulled-out-from-under-Jason-fans twist at the end, left me rather entertained early morning. Yes, I dropped this as an Up at Night because I started it at Midnight. This is just junkyard cinema at its most vile and juvenile but that part of me that occasionally can’t resist some absolute garbage was available for this viewing. God, I remember HATING this film. I remember telling my brother and sister (who loved it as teenagers because of just how over the top and gratuitous it was, particularly the repulsive Ethel and chocolate-dripping-on-both-sides-of-his-mouth Joey, the simple-minded kid who just wanted a friend) how much of a piece of shit I thought this was and didn’t watch it again probably until the mid 90s on VHS. It still is a piece of shit, but certain parts of it aren’t as bad as before…the twist, for better or worse, at least was something a bit different, even if it got over at the time like a fart in church. Or in this film’s case, it was the equivalent of Demon and those damn enchiladas in the shitbox where writing on the wall spoke of the end of the world. I spoken in length on this film (does it really deserve much activity from my brain to even articulate it?) many times in the past. It has been a Saturday afternoon watch many a year since maybe 94 or so, mainly because I find the Tommy subject matter intriguing, his character one of a choice few to survive Jason and live to talk about it. Shepherd gives this film a far better performance than it could ever deserve. Danny, the director filling his film with as much tits, profanity, and dead bodies (the film does seem to feature a killing or two ever few minutes) as possible, sure didn’t deserve that Shepherd performance. But, just the same, it is here in the troubled Tommy, holding a lot of trauma and under-the-surface volatility…Shepherd often looks like he’s about to rupture. Kinnamen is probably my choice for the most beautiful lead heroine of the franchise. I do wish the footage with all the excised carnage (and nudity) was available just to see what Danny had intended to include in his version of the Friday sequel (or reboot). I remember Danny’s audio commentary with Shepherd and Shavar Ross where he often is practically shouting at the screen in anger towards how much was cut out, as if even he didn’t realize just how much of what he shot got the shears.

“You big dildo! Eat your fucking slop”

Yes, this is dialogue in the film. It just isn’t a film for everyone but I have read from a lot of various Friday franchise fans who just love this because of the likes of Ethel and for how ugly Danny’s myriad of lowlifes, deviants, cokeheads, and perverts populate every scene in the film. When a stuttering, virginal innocent tells his crush he would like to make love to her, she laughs in his face, he looks for a comforting talk only to find the other patient in her room robot-dancing to the badass Pseudo Echo song, and instead receives a hatchet to his teary-eyed face. Although Feldman’s inclusion adds some pop culture value to the film, I think his brief part in it was for the best so early in his career. Danny never quite capitalizing on the success of this (most of the actors didn’t, either) made sense to me. It was very much like these Friday films were poison to the careers of these young adult actors trying to break into the biz…casting for future projects appeared most unkind. Imagine someone seeing Locatell as Ethel, wondering if she could ever be cast in a serious role after that dirty dishrag of a character.

Watching this first, to kick off my Friday the 13^th marathon was more or less a process of elimination. This was clearly the sequel I wanted to go ahead and get in the can. On a separate post I plan to sort of rank the films from favorite to least. This is always near the bottom, of course.

 In terms of sheer quality: * / *****

In terms of entertainment due to its caustic, abrasive, unfiltered, unflattering, bone-headed, obtuse, grotesque gallery of oddballs and what they are provided to mouth in their scenes before Roy, the paramedic, uses his toolbox of carpenter items to slice and dice and pulverize, dispatches them I admittedly roll my eyes, shake my head, and accept this for what it is: trash cinema. It makes Cunningham and Miner’s sequels before it look like works of art in comparison. ** ½