Friday the 13th/Friday the 13th Part 2 - Alice

I had this one my mind while battling to return to sleep after waking up early in the morning. I might add pics after work, but while fresh I'll land everything here and try to stick it. I totally understand the critique of a Friday the 13th film at all seems valid due to plot holes and contrivances just to make another buck(s). I was chill about it as a youth because the franchise has stuck with me. I am of the camp that just doesn't feel like the opening of the second film in the franchise works or makes sense. Jason would go all the way from New Jersey to California, find Alice, intrude upon her abode and kill her with relative ease just feels as nonsensical as his being alive at all. Shucking aside all that, I just don't think killing Alice was even necessary. Jason killing others near where Crystal Lake left his mother dead, trying to satiate the angst from losing her in such a way, seeing it somehow as it happened, seems to at least work in terms of trauma motivating the son to constantly kill counselors in order to deal with the loss. But tracking down Alice, so the franchise can bump her off for shock value at the beginning, I always found that to be a wasted opportunity for something more meaningful. It was like cleansing the franchise of anyone from the first film just to focus completely on each sequel's new batch of victims. Amy Steele, thank goodness, was spared that, and was, ultimately, Tommy (and his sister). I don't see why it was so damned important to kill Alice. And her face fading into Crystal Lake, Manfredini's music with that haunting melody sort of leading us into the credits, the big jump scare of a rotted Jason leaping to grab Alice out of her canoe, that was such a cool way of departure without necessarily returning to the character directly in the sequel. Why rush to that? You were going to bump others off anyway, so I just don't think killing Alice needed to create such a plot crater that just doesn't hold water...to include a pun.

*Alice and Pamela really do go at it, pursuer and pursued, for quite a bit of running time at the of the first film. I always seem to find myself surprised at just how much time Cunningham dedicated to the chase, attempt-to-hide, eventual beheading on the shore of the lake. He might not have had Palmer for long, but Cunningham makes use of her, putting her to work at the end, with just enough mania presented to impact. "Kill her mommy. Kill her!"