Put a Ribbon on it - Friday the 13th Part II (1981)

I was glad that the filmmakers decided to move the plot to a different area of Crystal Lake in order to at least give Paul and his camp counselors-in-training an out from the critique of “why would anyone ever want to be anywhere in proximity of such a location of bad notoriety”. Granted, Camp Crystal Lake isn’t too far from where this film’s group congregates but at least they aren’t blithely, obliviously copping squat where Pamela Voorhees made her hunting grounds. Yes, Sandra (Marta Kober) drags her boyfriend, Jeff (Bill Randolph), to the general area of where Camp Crystal Lake resides but for the most part Paul’s bunch want nothing to do with that, refraining (for the exception of Sandra and a reluctant Jeff) from leaving their own designated location. It gives the film a chance to be introduced to the sheriff who eventually gets the hammer teeth to the head when he runs after Jason in the woods. And Paul is reminded of Crystal Lake by the sheriff (prior to pursuing Jason unwisely, giving us a chance to see the shack Jason was living), why nothing has happened in five years (giving us a timetable of the distance from the first film), and how they are still a bit too close to where Pamela committed her crimes.

I do always forget that Ginny pissed her pants while hiding under a bed as a mouse moves past her face. At least she fights back. Chainsaw and a chair are there and Ginny uses them. If only her car wasn’t a piece of shit that decides not to start (naturally) when she needs it to the most. Just the like the first film, there is the change in perspective (the quarry moving about while Jason lurks, then when the final girl is left to outwit the killer, he’s shown in frame giving chase for the most part) and the big final chase around the cabin and in the woods. The slasher film’s basic trappings in full bloom.

The clown being spared (unlike Ned from the first film) was always a surprise, left behind to drink himself into stupor, Vickie discovering bodies before becoming one herself, Mark getting a machete to his face while his wheelchair backs down the steps, Terry (Kirsten Baker) with her skimpy Mickey Mouse shirt that just passes the breasts giving us a naked skinny dip before her off-screen death (I figured since she got nude for the film she was spared the gore makeup chair), Jeff and Sandra suffering the “Bay of Blood” spear kill while on the bed cuddling after coitus, and Scott (Russell Todd), always pestering Terry because he wants to bang her, upside down getting his neck slit (the cutaway clearly identifies a longer bleeding out that was edited). What happened to Paul? The jury remains out for that one. I like to think he made it out, but that kind of conjecture is fun to speculate. Did Jason actually break through the infamous big window (Friday the 13^thalways loved to throw a body through a window or Jason enjoyed throwing himself through one when trying to get at somebody…) and grab Ginny? Did Muffin actually wind up borscht with scattered fur? The questions, the questions…let us always discuss these items. I just won’t do so anymore on the blog.