It’s a load of kidney stones. There, you have your review of Friday the 13th.
Oh, alright, I’ll say a little more. The second film of the “horror trifecta” (Halloween, Friday, and Nightmare) is by far the worst of the three: unpleasant, poorly-made, stupid, mean-spirited, and boring. That was what surprised me most about this movie: I was expecting it to be bad, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so dull.
The biggest problem is the charac…no, I can’t really call them that. The problem is that the film is populated with annoying, brain-dead ciphers that you don’t care a lick about (honestly, I can’t even remember their names: there’s Alice the final girl, then…well, young Kevin Bacon is running around in there too). Remember in Halloween how you enjoyed spending time with Laurie Strode for her own sake? Well, I’m glad you do because Sean S. Cunningham certainly didn’t. Scenes of the actors interacting with each other grind the film to a halt and you can tell they are only there because the writers felt they had to have them. Remember how the humorous scenes in A Nightmare on Elm Street were genuinely funny? Here they make you more nauseous than the gore scenes do (and make you thankful the comic relief character gets done in fairly early).
The film approaches the kind of ‘enjoyable normality’ of the other two in one (1) scene, in which the characters play ‘strip monopoly.’ Unfortunately the exploitative aspect of the scene kind of sucks the joy out of it, but it’s still better than nothing.
There are a couple quasi-exceptions: Alice the final girl, while never rising to the level of a real ‘person,’ at least manages to be likeable enough and to improvise one or two clever defenses (in general, though, she’s dumb as the proverbial box of rocks). Crazy Ralph, whose every line is a variant on “yer all DOOMED!” is a lot of fun and kind of iconic in the annals of horror films.
Betsy Palmer as Mrs. Voorhees, however, is by far the stand-out. A professional actress, she actually manages to sell Mrs. Voorhees’s character as someone who has been literally driven insane by grief (though she’s less good in her ‘crazy’ persona: more the fault of the script and directing, I suspect, than of Ms. Palmer).
That’s another thing: the back-story here is actually rather moving. The single mother of a deformed young boy works at a summer camp and the boy drowns because of the counselors’ neglect, depriving her of the one person she loved in her life and driving her mad at the injustice of it all (it’s implied those responsible were never even punished). It’s a solid set up and one that you could easily see being the basis of a much better film (and makes this one more engaging than it really has any right to be: again kudos to Betsy Palmer for making it work).
All the above (and below) complaints might have been forgivable (as the flaws in Halloween were), except for one fact; the movie simply isn’t scary. Looking back there are only one or two scenes that gave me a pleasurable thrill: one is where a girl wandering the camp at night is suddenly lit up by brilliant spot-lights…showing her to be at the wrong end of the archery range (we cut away there, reinforcing the rule that what you don’t see is scarier than what you do). The other is when Alice realizes just what Mrs. Voorhees is telling her and what that must mean…
But the big scare scenes? Like when a girl is stalked in the showers for well over a minute before being offed? The problem with all of them are a) I know these characters are almost all going to die anyway because they clearly have no other purpose, so it’s no surprise when they do, and b) it doesn’t matter to me because I don’t care about them at all! It sounds heartless, I know, but these aren’t people, they’re the movie equivalent of a magician’s assistant: only there to show off another gore effect.
What’s more, as noted, it’s boring. I don’t know if it was just my print, but often times it’s so dark you can barely see what’s going on during the stalking scenes (which, as indicated above, can last forever). And the climax, which ought to be a movie’s highlight, is the dullest and most drawn-out thing you’ll ever see outside an awards banquet. It lasts for over fifteen minutes while repeating the same basic scene over and over! Mrs. Voorhees attacks Alice and slaps her around; Alice gets the upper hand and beans her, flees, and hides. Lather, rinse, and repeat at least three or four times! You’d think by the second or third time Alice would have the sense just to bash the woman’s head in while she was down. Or, heck, by the first time! This is the crazy lady who just admitted to killing all her friends after all!
The rest of the film? Well, the effects are well done, of course (being done by the maestro, Tom Savini himself). I enjoy the ingenuity that goes into practical effects, but not enough that it can hold my interest for a whole movie (again, note how much more effective Halloween was with practically no blood). The music, with the famous kikikimamama leitmotif, is another aspect that shows some genuine talent and thoughtfulness.
But flashes of talent or ingenuity don’t make films good. This film comes highly unrecommended to anyone except completists (such as myself) or those merely interested in gore effects (although frankly even as a showcase for Savini you could probably find a better movie). The only other adequate reason to see this film is Betsy Palmer’s performance, which, if you can stomach the rest, just might be worth it (being a huge Kevin Bacon fan is not an adequate reason). The unlikeable, intellectually challenged walking targets, the crassly exploitative tone, and boring repetitiveness, coupled with the mean-spirited, cynical nature of the whole thing makes this a film that well deserves its dubious reputation.
And in case you were wondering, more or less all of the (ten!) sequels are just as bad or even worse (though I will say a few have flashes of ingenuity or interest that might make them worth seeing once for those so inclined). For what it’s worth, not counting the crossover Freddy vs. Jason, my favorite was number seven, which at least gave the impression of trying to be a real movie (and had a very enjoyable climactic sequence).
Final Rating: 2/5. A few points of interest might make the film worth catching once for those so inclined, but don't go to any trouble.
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