From The Vault: A Minute-By-Minute Breakdown Of The Entire FRIDAY THE 13th Film Franchise
This is a reprint of an article from last October’s 31 DAYS OF HORROR:
Anniversaries are a tricky thing. Go too big and you run the risk of making future celebrations seem small by comparison. Go too small and people wonder why the hell you didn’t go bigger. What to do? What to do? Go big? Go small? Go somewhere in the middle and disappoint everyone? What the hell is a fanboy to do?
That was the conundrum that I encountered when debating on what I should do for the third anniversary of the 31 DAYS OF HORROR column. First year of the column, I reviewed every film in the HALLOWEEN franchise (including the alternate versions) and the response was pretty positive. Readers seemed to dig the idea of me tearing into the franchise and dissecting Michael Myers.
Second year, I did nothing. I had plans to maybe review all the films in the HOUSE franchise. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a copy of HOUSE IV and had to quit after the first two installments. Then I thought about reviewing all the HELLRAISER pics …before remembering every sequel past HELL ON EARTH sucks.
CHILDREN OF THE CORN was briefly debated before also being discarded due to inferior sequels. Then I did nothing. Reviewed 31 movies and called it a day. Basically didn’t celebrate my second anniversary. I kinda feel bad about that.
So, when this year rolled around, I knew I had to do something special. Knew something grand was in order that I would actually enjoy doing and hopefully my readers would enjoy checking out. But I also knew that I didn’t want to cheat. Whatever I was going to do had to be something truly outlandish and almost a penance for me not having done something special last year. Whatever this was going to be needed to be EPIC.
Then it hit me: FRIDAY THE 13th. One of my favorite horror franchises. One that I actually own. And one I could watch in a massive back-to-back-to-back marathon. Insane? Yes. Might it result in me wanting to go outside and slaughter innocent puppies with a chainsaw? Possibly. Would it be appropriately EPIC and a grand way to celebrate an anniversary? Definitely.
Fueled by Irish coffee and cookies, AngieBee and I watched every Friday flick in chronological order (including the recent reboot) between October 9th and 10th. Made random (sometimes a little too random) notes as the films played out and kept count of every single kill, car that won’t start, awful joke, ignorant authority figure, illegal substance consumed, pre-marital sex scene and bad performance. Oh and we broke it all down on nearly a minute-by-minute basis for a little extra dose of insanity.
And being that we ended up with over sixty pages (!) worth of material to edit down and no way I could possibly post it as a single story, I’ve busted the whole thing down into six installments featuring some screencaps (mostly NSFW stuff), a plot synopsis (courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes), tons of random commentary, some trivia (some of which was provided by IMDB) and a mini-verdict for each film.
Click on the pic to check it out…
From The Vault: PIRANHA 3D
With John Gulager’s PIRANHA 3DD currently in theaters and on VOD, I thought it might be a good idea to look back at the series up until this point. Last and certainly not least, Alexandre Aja’s PIRANHA 3D. Click on the pic to check out my review…
From The Vault: PIRANHA 1995
With John Gulager’s PIRANHA 3DD hitting theaters and VOD this weekend, I thought it might be a good idea to look back at the series up until this point. Next up, the 1995 cheapie PIRANHA remake. Click on the pic to check out my review…
From The Vault: James Cameron’s PIRANHA 2: THE SPAWNING
With John Gulager’s PIRANHA 3DD hitting theaters and VOD this weekend, I thought it might be a good idea to look back at the series up until this point. Next up, James Cameron’s directorial debut PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING. Click on the pic to check out my review…
From The Vault: Joe Dante’s PIRANHA
With John Gulager’s PIRANHA 3DD hitting theaters and VOD this weekend, I thought it might be a good idea to look back at the series up until this point. First up, Joe Dante’s PIRANHA. Click on the pic to check out my review…
From The Vault: SCREAM 3
With SCREAM 4 hitting theaters today, we here at Adamantium Bullet felt that it might be high time to revisit the horror trilogy that redefined the genre back in the late 90s. Ready yourself for some heavy spoilers and no-holds-barred ranting about SCREAM, the cleverly titled SCREAM 2 and the not-so-final entry in the series SCREAM 3.
Ah, SCREAM 3, the one that killed the series. Well, killed it till today. You get what I’m saying. Had SCREAM 4 not been made, this would’ve been the last installment of the series. The trilogy capper, if you will. The one that went too far and meta’d itself into the ground. This is the film that basically ended Neve Campbell’s theatrical career, led to writer Kevin Williamson’s famous early millennium flame-out and all but killed the “new wave” slasher craze that began with the original SCREAM. After this, the horror genre had to re-invent itself and audiences ended with up stuff like THE RING, HOSTEL and the SAW series. This is a pivotal movie in horror history.
Why? Because SCREAM 3 went too far. Just like that HALLOWEEN pic with the exploding masks and the FRIDAY THE 13th that featured “Roy”, this was the sequel that was made for the money. Not made because the series demanded another installment, not made because the writers (Williamson came up with the story, Ehren Kruger wrote the script) had some amazing genre-breaking idea and not because director Wes Craven felt the need to conclude the trilogy. This flick was made for money, pure and simple.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, allow me to say this: SCREAM 3 isn’t as bad as you (or I) think. Click on the pic to find out why…
From The Vault: SCREAM 2
With SCREAM 4 hitting theaters today, we here at Adamantium Bullet felt that it might be high time to revisit the horror trilogy that redefined the genre back in the late 90s. Ready yourself for some heavy spoilers and no-holds-barred ranting about SCREAM, the cleverly titled SCREAM 2 and the not-so-final entry in the series SCREAM 3.
Rushed into production thanks to the unexpected box office success of the original, SCREAM 2 is one of those rare sequels that manages to go bigger without losing sight of what made the series special in the first place. Strangely enough, I found myself enjoying the movie now than I did when it hit theaters over a decade ago. I guess my tastes have changed. Click on the pic to read my full review…
From The Vault: SCREAM
With SCREAM 4 hitting theaters this Friday, we here at Adamantium Bullet felt that it might be high time to revisit the horror trilogy that redefined the genre back in the late 90s. Ready yourself for some heavy spoilers and no-holds-barred ranting about SCREAM, the cleverly titled SCREAM 2 and the not-so-final entry in the series SCREAM 3.
I really don’t need to tell you that the original SCREAM is awesome, do I? This is the film that single-handedly revitalized the slasher genre at a time when it was considered dead and done. It rebooted the career of Wes Craven (who, at the time, was fresh off directing VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN), made Kevin Williamson into a screenwriting powerhouse, made household names out of David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, Jaime Kennedy, Rose McGowan and it launched Drew Barrymore to the top of the Hollywood A-list. Simply put, SCREAM is one of the best horror films ever made, it deserves that honor and I’m not going to waste your time telling you a bunch of stuff you already know.
Click on the pic to read my full review of the original SCREAM…
From The Vault: The Original ARTHUR And ARTHUR 2: ON THE ROCKS
In order to prepare myself for the remake of ARTHUR starring Russell Brand, I decided to revisit the original Dudley Moore classic and it’s much-maligned sequel. This is a common trend with me. Prep for a reboot or sequel by checking out the ones that came before. Probably a stupid thing to do being that I am almost immediately reminded that the originals are far better than the remakes and then that ends up influencing my rating of the remake. In the case of ARTHUR and ARTHUR 2: ON THE ROCKS though, I remember these movies being far more substantial than they really are. Lightweight doesn’t begin to describe these films. Weightless would be a far more appropriate descriptor.
Click on the pic to read more…
From The Vault: RED (2010)
RED is a movie that I can’t really love, but I really can’t hate it either. It rests somewhere in the middle of my cinematic brain nestled next to other “don’t love it, don’t hate it” flicks such as OCEAN’S THIRTEEN, LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN (which, ironically enough, shares a couple of actors with RED) and THE LOSERS. Not that any of those movies have any connection outside of actors to this flick because they don’t. Matter of fact, RED is nothing like any of those movies. They just happened to be the first ones that popped in my head when it came to this particular brand of filmmaking.
Based on a Warren Ellis comic series, the plot of RED is not why you should see this flick. To say the plot here is underdeveloped would be an understatement. The set-up is good, what with Bruce Willis playing a retired CIA assassin suddenly thrust back into action because of some mission-gone-wrong from his past. I can get behind that. I can even get behind the fact that he kidnaps the pension caseworker (a very miscast, but likable, Mary Louise Parker) that’s he’s phone-flirting with because he’s afraid that whoever is after him might try to kill her. And I can even buy that he enlists a bunch of his old assassin buddies (Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Brian Cox and John Malkovich) to find out who is after him, why they are after him and who he has to kill to put everything back right. That’s a solid idea, one that’s been done many a time before, and one that I support when applied to an action-comedy.
Unfortunately, the only thing RED seems to get right is the performances. Freeman, Cox, Mirren, Parker and Malkovich are all at the top of their game, but did you expect anything less? All of them are old pros and they know how to make even the flimsiest of films work. Malkovich gets mad props for going all out with this one. Dude scores the two best scenes in the entire movie. One involves him taking down an RPG with a pistol, the other involves “The Pig”. Won’t spoil what exactly “The Pig” is, but you’ll be hard pressed to forget it once you’ve seen it.
Click to read my full review…
Theatrical Reviews
- STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
- IRON MAN 3
- SINISTER
- PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4
- TAKEN 2
- PITCH PERFECT
- HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET
- DREDD 3D
- LOOPER
- RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION 3D
- THE EXPENDABLES 2
- TOTAL RECALL
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