MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Friday the 13th Part 2" (1981)

What happens after Mother's gone? Well, if you're Jason Voorhees, you pick up a machete and start chopping away at teenagers.  Thus is the entire set up for Friday the 13th Part 2.  Jason Voorhees actually takes up the machete (no hockey mask yet) after the death of his mother (Betsy Palmer) at the end of the first movie (spoiler alert!) at the hands of Alice (Aridenne King).  To set up what would be the standard treatment for protagonists in the series (with the exception of Tommy Jarvis, but we'll get to him), Alice is unceremoniously killed off in the first twenty minutes by a mysterious man who breaks into her home near Crystal Lake (having come back two months later to try and find some closure after the terrible events) and has some very interesting ideas about what to put in her fridge.

This was done as King's request, as she was stalked by a fan after the first movie had premiered and given her some prominence, and started the long trend in slasher movies of the previous protagonist being killed off so as to allow a new cast to deal with the killer...even though, ironically, most protagonists within the Friday series would never actually appear again after their first film even if played by a different actor.

Nevertheless, it's five years after the first film, putting this firmly in 1984...and beginning an arc that would carry the series through to Part 4, some confusing hiccups in continuity notwithstanding.  A new group of late teenage/early twenties youths are, rather than being counselors, being trained as summer camp counselors not too far from the original Crystal Lake. Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) is still biking around spreading his gospel, and a new arrival to the trainees comes in the form of Ginny Field (Amy Steel).

Yes, she's the Final Girl. Don't be shocked.

She is the first protagonist to realize the untapped potential of the series by pointing out that Jason may have survived his drowning and lived out in the woods in Crystal Lake as some kind of feral man thing, and that he had potentially witnessed the death of his mother...

This movie isn't one of the well-remembered ones in the series, but it's definitely not bad by any means. Nobody's favorite, certainly, but it was the springboard by which the entire rest of the series flows...for good and for ill.

This was also in the era where film makers were still aware that the people in their films were actual people and not just crash test dummies filled with blood that occasionally went topless for the T'n'A quota to be fulfilled, so there is several scenes dedicated to building character so that we actually care when the killing starts.  It's certainly not to the level of Aliens or Predator, but we do get a sense of who these twenty-somethings are, how they interact with one another, and even a bit of their histories.  It's really something I can't praise highly enough, seeing as we almost never see that anymore in movies, and that's a real shame.

It's the reverse of the problem I have with the Godzilla movies I've seen - not enough humanity to make me care.  So, it's honestly nice to see those bits of character development, make some actual investment with the characters before they're thrown into peril.

Apart from that, yes, this is a paint by numbers slasher film.  Killer kills, victims die. Rinse, lather, and repeat.  Though it's important to remember that this is one of the first in the big craze that followed Halloween.  Take it for a nice viewing in a marathon, enjoy some of the cheesier bits, then move on to others that will follow.

...maybe not Part III, though.

Friday the 13th Part 2 is brought to us by Paramount Pictures with the current rights behind help by New Line Cinema.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.