The spookiest time of year is quickly approaching, and if you're looking for a gory movie marathon,
you could do a lot worse than the Friday the 13th series.
Friday may not be the father of the slasher genre, but it's definitely the crazy uncle
— and the unstoppable Jason Voorhees' signature hockey mask is now one of the most recognizable
icons in American pop culture.
For newcomers and hardcore fans alike, we're running down every Friday the 13th movie,
ranked from worst to best.
After sprinting past the events of the original film, the 2009 reboot moves on to an adult
Jason with an intelligent, cunning characterization that seemed like a pointless change, if not
an outright betrayal of the original series.
Jason's seemingly supernatural abilities are neatly explained away, callbacks to the previous
films fall ridiculously flat, and Jason captures a girl and holds her prisoner — as if he'd
ever bother with mere kidnapping.
The film had a so-so performance at the box office but earned dismal reviews, and a lengthy
tug of war over rights issues helped sink another attempt at a reboot.
This film simply shouldn't exist — even the worst entry from the original series is
preferable.
On that note…
Just one in a long line of films that were meant to end the series, Jason Goes to Hell:
The Final Friday undoes the mythology built by the previous entries, reinventing Jason
as a vengeful spirit that can only be taken by members of his own bloodline using a special
magic dagger.
After being taken by the FBI in the beginning, Jason spends most of the movie as a spirit,
possessing random people by forcibly installing his heart into their chest cavities.
Its only notable moment comes at the very end, when an appearance by a familiar knife-gloved
hand sets up a much better movie — that wouldn't show up for another decade.
A film that definitely fails to live up to its title, 1989's Friday the 13th Part VIII:
Jason Takes Manhattan benefits only from the presence of Kane Hodder in his second turn
as the man behind the mask.
A ridiculous amount of the movie takes place in the confines of a cruise ship, while Jason's
actual romp through the Big Apple takes up perhaps 20 minutes — at the movie's end.
"You don't understand, someone is trying to kill us!"
"Welcome to New York."
Of course, director Rob Hedden had intended something very different.
As he explained in a making-of book, Jason was supposed to slay his way through all sorts
of iconic New York locations before jumping off the Statue of Liberty, but the measly
$5 million budget wouldn't allow for any of that.
Instead of that awesome-sounding movie, we got one of the most visually flat, tedious
entries in the entire series.
Every long-running horror franchise eventually embarrasses itself by sending its villain
into space.
So it's only fitting that the final proper installment of the original Friday the 13th
series would do just that.
After being captured by the government, Jason is placed into cryogenic stasis for hundreds
of years.
Revived by some students, he wreaks his special brand of havoc on a spaceship, receives an
insane cyborg upgrade, and is once again seemingly dispatched for good.
Despite its silly premise, 2001's Jason X is surprisingly solid, with a ferocious performance
by Hodder in his final outing and at least a couple of the series' most truly bizarre
and inventive methods.
A late-film sequence featuring cyborg Jason in a Holodeck-like recreation of Camp Crystal
Lake is also a nice touch, and features a remixed version of what Hodder called his
favorite slay of all time, which just happens to be featured in the next entry.
Despite being little-remembered, 1988's Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is noteworthy
for marking Kane Hodder's debut as Jason, and also for the infamous sleeping bag scene.
The film's protagonist is Tina Shepard, a telekinetic young woman who inadvertently
revives Jason from his watery grave at the bottom of Crystal Lake while trying to bring
her drowned father back to life.
Many fans felt that the "Jason vs. Carrie" premise was a bit of a stretch.
But Hodder held the film together, and he even helped the film set a record for stunt
work.
In the film's climactic battle, Tina uses her powers to set Jason on fire, a scene that
was achieved by having Hodder actually be on fire for a whopping 40 seconds as the cameras
rolled.
His dedication to the role showed early, and his hot performance helps make The New Blood
a solid entry.
It wasn't until 2003 that fans' hopes and the promise made in the last few frames of
Jason Goes to Hell were finally fulfilled.
Fortunately, the movie of fans' nightmares ended up being worth the years-long wait.
While it isn't actually part of the main Friday the 13th franchise, the crossover Freddy vs.
Jason earns its place on this list by virtue of being so awesomely over the top.
A Nightmare On Elm Street's Freddy Krueger is bummed that his memory among the living
is dying out, making it harder for him to invade the dreams of children.
He decides to free Jason Voorhees from Hell and turn him loose on his old Elm Street stomping
grounds in the hopes that the fresh wave of gruesome happenings will rekindle the legend
of Freddy.
But once Jason starts slaying, it's pretty tough to get him to stop, so Freddy maneuvers
Jason into a showdown before he can slay off all of Freddy's potential victims.
The film works far better than it has any right to after spending an eternity in development
hell.
The franchises' styles mesh well and there are a couple of genuinely creepy moments amidst
the carnage.
The fifth film in the series, 1985's Friday the 13th: A New Beginning is a near-perfect
Friday the 13th film...that fans absolutely hate for one totally understandable reason.
The ending of the movie reveals that the Jason who's been slaying his way through a teen
rehab facility wasn't ever actually Jason at all, but just some...random guy — specifically
a paramedic, upset over the passing of his son early in the film.
Okay.
The Jason copycat's weak motivation was especially disappointing considering the interesting
psychological thriller angle the film takes before the reveal.
A now teenaged Tommy Jarvis, who as a child put a brutal end to Jason's reign of terror
with the slayer's own machete, is among the residents at a home for troubled teens when
the happenings begin anew.
The implication that Tommy may be responsible for this new round of mayhem is teased throughout,
and his ultimate face-off with the Jason copycat is truly nerve-jangling.
But for most fans, the fakeout ending wasted all the good will the movie engendered with
its crazy ways and high body count.
It all makes A New Beginning a very good franchise entry with one king-sized flaw that ultimately
shouldn't keep it from being enjoyed.
The third entry in the Friday the 13th franchise had the misfortune of being produced in 1982,
smack in the middle of the early '80s 3-D revival.
But if you can get past all the unnecessary 3-D shots that only exist to throw something
at the audience, Part III is a tight, suspenseful shocker that features some jaw-dropping things
and sees Jason put on his iconic hockey mask for the first time.
The film's plot is nothing special: Jason removes a bunch of teenage friends and their
biker gang rivals.
Producers toyed with the idea of definitively ending the franchise with this entry, scripting
a conclusion in which Jason's head is lopped off by protagonist Chris.
But ultimately, Jason's fate is left hanging after a nightmarish false ending that illustrates
how fakeout dream sequences should be done.
At a scant 87 minutes, 1981's Friday the 13th Part 2 is short, dark, and efficient.
When the carnage starts, it comes fast and furious.
The movie wastes no time unceremoniously dispatching Alice, the sole survivor of the first film,
within its first few minutes.
This installment's Jason is a mute, ferocious beast.
And the means by which he's defeated — confusing him by invoking the memory of his dead mother
— would become a reliable means of at least slowing him down in future entries in the
series.
Despite the departure of the first film's special effects wizard Tom Savini, Part 2
offered passing sequences creative enough to invoke the wrath of the MPAA, who insisted
that a total of 48 seconds be cut to avoid an X rating.
It's still a brutal, relentlessly paced entry and a worthy sequel to one of the greatest
slasher films of all time.
The film that launched a seemingly unstoppable franchise is actually more of a crazy mystery
than most of the slasher flicks it inspired.
The third act reveal that the guy is former camp cook Mrs. Voorhees, driven insane by
the drowning passing of her weirdo son Jason, was absolutely jaw-dropping — as was her
ultimate fate, thanks to the film's special effects genius, Tom Savini.
According to director Sean Cunningham, Savini obsessed endlessly over how to accomplish
Mrs. Voorhees' final scene, and he also designed young Jason's look for his surprise appearance
at the end.
Friday the 13th was a film born of pure money-making opportunism, but Savini's groundbreaking makeup
effects work turned it into a horror classic.
Of course, it also doesn't hurt that the performance of veteran actress Betsy Palmer as Mrs. Voorhees
is super creepy.
"Slay her, mommy.
slay her."
The second-best film in the franchise has it all: tons of campy takings, skin-crawling
scares, and great performances all around.
The film opens with a delirious sequence in which Tommy Jarvis literally digs up Jason's
grave on a stormy night, impales the corpse with an iron stake from the cemetery's fence,
and angrily tosses a hockey mask and machete into the grave.
"F--- you, Jason."
Anybody who's ever seen Frankenstein can guess what happens next: there's a freak lightning
strike, and a newly reanimated Jason — an explicitly supernatural being for the first
time in the series — goes on a slaying spree.
The opening sets a self-referential tone that continues throughout the movie, successfully
making audiences laugh between the jump scares and brutal happenings.
The film is simply a blast: the body count is absurdly high, and stuntman C.J. Graham
is second only to Kane Hodder in his menacing portrayal of Jason.
It's almost the best Friday the 13th ever.
Almost.
As the name suggests, the fourth installment of the series was indeed intended to be the
final one.
And if it had been, the franchise may have had a completely different legacy.
The film begins with Jason escaping the morgue and getting set to embark on another rampage
— before finally meeting his match in an unlikely adversary.
Jason's soon-to-be long-time nemesis Tommy Jarvis makes his first appearance as a 12-year
old, played by a young Corey Feldman.
Tommy ends up saving his sister's life in the film's nerve-wracking climax, one of the
most intense and graphic final scenes in any mainstream horror film.
Ask any truly hardcore fan, and they'll tell you: The Final Chapter is the quintessential
Friday the 13th film.
Unbelievably brutal, and at times unbearably tense, it's not only the best film in the
franchise, but one of the greatest slasher films ever.
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