Director: Danny SteinmannRating: 4.9 / 5
Attention: I apologize to any
I've noticed that my reviews of movies are different from most peoples'. Even this, even though most everyone likes (or at least appreciates) these movies, their opinions are all different than mine on the individual films. The ones on the top of my list are on the bottom of others', it seems. This one isn't at the top or the bottom; I'd put it somewhere in the middle, which seems to be the normal thing to do. So at least we're all on the same page with this one. This is the controversial F13 movie. Some love it (really?), some hate it, and some could care less. I saw all of the movies when I was a kid, though it was at a time when I could barely remember what was happening (all I knew was that guy in the hockey mask scared the SHIT out of me). I re-watched all of them when I was thirteen, and when I got to this one, I was severely pissed. I mean, foaming at the mouth, ready to kill someone pissed. It's not really Jason? Then what the fuck is the point? But now, as I'm older and wiser, I'm able to appreciate it for what it is (or what it seems to me).
Remember Tommy Jarvis, the cute little kid who seriously fucked Jason up in the fourth movie? Well, he's a little bit older now, and a little bit crazy. And he quite
resembles the original Blue Ranger. He doesn't really do much. He just has hallucinations about Jason coming back to get him. Oh, and he beats the shit out of anyone who pisses him off. Here's what I think the point of this movie is. Remember at the end of part four, where Tommy dressed up like Jason right before he killed him? It seemed like they were trying to make it look like Tommy was going to go crazy and "take Jason's place." And now, here he is, in a halfway house called Pinehurst, acting crazy and suspicious. It doesn't help that he disappears any time a murder happens, and the bodies of his fellow crazies are all stashed in his bedroom. There are a few people they try to make look suspicious, but they aren't really around long enough to be suspicious at all. Of course, none of this really matters at all. Going into this one, we're not given any clues whatsoever that it might not really be Jason. So, silly as we are, we assume it is. So making other people look suspicious is kind of silly. The only thing we have to go on in this one is a police officer stating that Jason is dead and gone. But that doesn't help either, because we know that even if they believe he's dead, it doesn't make it true. And even if he was dead, it's a horror movie, and that doesn't mean he's going to stay dead. So, it might not be a very good point, but that's what I think it was trying to do. Early on in the movie, one of the kids is viciously murdered. It is Joey, a special guy who gets on everyone's nerves. He's killed by Vick, and chopped into itty bitty pieces. The scene seems kind of pointless, but it plays an important role in the big finale. In the end, this pseudo-Jason is Roy, a paramedic who happened to be Joey's father. We didn't know he was Joey's father, because apparently he abandoned the boy. So my question is this: if he didn't care enough about Joey to be in his life, why care now? And, why did we never see or hear anything of Vick again? Why didn't Roy go after the one who actually killed his son, rather than everyone else who was completely innocent? It takes us back to the premise of the original film. Mrs. Voorhees killed the counselors because she blamed them for her son's death. But no one actually murdered Jason; she didn't have a suspect or a culprit or anyone to truthfully blame anything on. Roy did. Maybe the point of this one was to answer the question Whatever happened to Tommy? He went crazy, that's what happened. At the end, it still tried to make it look like Tommy was going to don the hockey mask and take over Jason's position. I'm not really sure why, because Tommy returned in the sixth film to fight the evil again.
Let's talk about the mask. Notice how it looks a little bit different? That's the fake Jason mask, because the Jason Tommy sees in his dreams wears the real thing. Yeah, it looks stupid. People say it's the worst mask in the entire series, which is true. But I like it that way. I wouldn't want some faker wearing my Jason's real mask. Would you?
No, I didn't think so. Some people really hate the fact that it wasn't really Jason, and it bothers me too a little bit. There were some problems with the story in this movie, but I see where it was trying to go with it. And whatever it lacks in story or execution, it makes up for in kills. There's a huge body count, and this movie actually has three of my favorite kills. Most of the kills weren't shown in their full glory, but actually after the fact (which is another thing I didn't like). One of those, though, is totally worth it: a girl gets her face all cut up by a pair of garden shears. We don't get to see it happen, but we get to see what's left of her face afterwards. A guy gets a leather strap bored into his eyes (I don't know how to explain it, but it was badass.) The comic relief for this one is a couple of hillbillies, Ethel and her son Junior. Junior was riding his motorcycle in circles around the house, screaming about how Tommy beat him up, and he runs right into pseudo-Jason's machete. It's all shits and giggles. Even though there were plenty of things going wrong for this movie, it still only loses .1 in my rating. I refuse to go any lower than that for any of these movies, because I would feel completely blasphemous otherwise. It was something different for the series, which I understand and can appreciate. It's not great, but it's not awful either.
Here's my favorites, in order from best to worst; so let's see if we agree on anything.
7, 1, 3, 6, 4, 8, 2009 Remake, 2, 5, 9, FvJ, X
Let me know how you feel!
Some more screen caps, 'cause I can
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