Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Kill Me, Tommy

After only two installments of the Halloween franchise, they tried to leave Michael Myers by the wayside with the maligned entry in the series Halloween III: Season of the Witch. While I love III (and if you haven’t seen the new edition put out by Shout! Factory you’re missing out on the best version of the film out there), the masses in general demanded their Shape, and sure enough six years later the franchise was born again in Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers. However, the man in the Shatner mask was not the only slasher whose franchise tried to leave him behind. Such was also the case in today’s film, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Eschewing a numerical mark on this entry in the series, A New Beginning tries to become a jumping off point to leave the mythos of Mrs. Voorhees, Baghead Jason, and the hockey mask in the dust thanks to the murderous hands of Corey Feldman in Friday the 13th IV: The Final Chapter. We all know how well that worked out. However, director Danny Steinmann, who also wrote the film, crafted a tale which is deeply flawed, but it also manages to draw from the well from which so many slashers spring, the Italian giallo. So join me for this trip to slasher country where A New Beginning slowly and surely gives way to a new life for Jason Voorhees.

Friday the 13th Part 3: A New Dimension in Mediocrity

Camp, I’ll be the first to tell you that I never went. My one aborted effort ended up with me coming home in the middle of the night rather than staying one moment more. While some may say that I missed out, and that I would never know the joys of making a wallet or swimming in a muck filled lake, I think I’m good with that. Over the years here at the Lair, I’ve talked about a lot of campers, but I’m still making my way through the most famous group of all, alumni of Camp Crystal Lake. So today I’m turning an eye to the Voorhees clan’s hat trick, and first appearance of the hockey mask,  Friday the 13th Part 3. Presented in 3-D, or 2-D with some rather silly scenes intended for the third dimension, which is how I watched it, this third entry (like the fourth after it) was intended to bring to franchise to a close. Yet, how can it, when every year there’s a waiting list for parents looking to send their snot nosed kid off to Voorhees country for a summer of terror. As long as they keep making teens and sending them into the woods, Jason is going to be there to hack them up.

Mind over Matter: Tina in Friday the 13th VII: The New Blood

When I was thinking about the films I wanted to watch for Women in Horror Recognition Month, I thought a lot about “final girls” who didn’t fit in the traditional mold. One popped into my brain immediately almost as if someone had put it there using the power of their mind. That character is Tina as played by Lar Park-Lincoln in Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood. Unlike the vast majority of women in Friday the 13th movies, Tina is not a wild, crazy camper scrambling though the woods trying to make her escape. She is a troubled young women, but she also holds an inner power making Tina a force to be reckoned with for Jason Voorhees. It is not a power fueled by the same kind of supernatural brute force as the hockey masked killer, but rather by a combination of her mind and emotions. So while Jason might prefer machete’s and harpoons, Tina is able to fight back with only her thoughts.

When Tina (Park-Lincoln) was just a six year old girl, she made a wish many children flippantly make. She wished that her father was dead. Tragically, unknown to her, she was in possession of an untapped telekinetic power, and when she made the wish, the dock of her family’s Crystal Lake vacation home gave way beneath his feet plunging her father to his death in the lake. Ten years later, at the behest of her doctor (Terry Kiser), Tina and her mother (Susan Blue) return to the lakeside cabin to confront the guilt that has haunted Tina’s life. Dr. Crews however has other ideas. He believes that Tina’s telekinetic powers are linked to her heightened emotions. Rather than trying to help her, he has brought her to Crystal Lake to provoke a response which will give him definitive proof of her ability. What he didn’t count on is what other secrets the lake holds. When Tina looks out across the water and wishes that she could bring her father back to life, it instead stirs Jason Voorhees, who had been chained to a stone and sunk to the lake bottom. Responding to Tina’s wish, Jason comes back to continue his reign of terror.

Unlike horror’s other teenage telekinetic, Carrie White, Tina’s power is never linked to either her ascension into puberty or due to emotional trauma. While trauma certainly seems to exacerbated her condition, the fact that her powers manifested in her youth suggests to me that it was an innate, though inert, ability. Psychotherapist Susan Caroll PhD states in her article “Awakening Our Full Potential”, “Strong emotion is an important element in telekinesis because emotion is ‘energy in motion.’”  While Caroll  goes on to talk about “love-based emotions” as a source for these powers in her article, there seems to me no reason it could not be grounded in the opposite. There have long been paranormal theories regarding poltergeist activity linked to unchecked telekinetic powers in young girls living in the proximity of limestone. Perhaps the intensity of Tina’s powers in relation to Crystal Lake not only are caused by her heightened emotional state, but also the makeup of the lake’s bedrock.

What makes Tina’s paranormal ability really interesting to me is how it differentiates her from Jason Voorhees. Jason kills and continues to live as a supernatural force of vengeance intent on continuing his mother’s work. He manifests as a monster filled with violence and brute force, happy to split skulls or beat someone in a sleeping bag against a tree. Vengeance and brutality are so often male dominated traits, and there is no doubt Jason’s oedipal revenge directed at those who trespass against morality is a very masculine. On the other hand, while Tina’s powers first manifested in defense of her mother as well (her parents had been fighting prior to Tina’s fatal wish), she is filled with guilt, despair, and plagued by an unstable mind leading her to spend many years in a mental hospital. While Jason gains his power from rage and vengeance, Tina’s power comes from her sadness and anger, a powerful emotions in both men and women, but especially potent in young women. Channeling these feelings, she becomes aware of her ability, and though this awareness it allows her to use it to fight back against Jason’s brute force.

Much of the credit for how well the character of Tina works goes to Lar Park-Lincoln. While she was no stranger to horror movies having also appeared in House II: The Second Story, she was a stranger to psychic phenomena. Park-Lincoln has been quoted as saying, “"I took it upon myself to work with real psychics and learn what it would be like to experience a vision and what a person would go through trying to communicate the experience to other people. I was really serious about trying to do this movie right." This attention to detail greatly contributed to the areas where the somewhat lukewarm film succeeds. While Park-Lincoln nails the vulnerability of her character, she also shows a strength, which like her character’s telekinetic power, is hidden deep inside her. This was also the first Friday the 13th film for Kane Hodder who played the hockey masked killer in films VII though X. For my money, Hodder is one of the best Jasons, and here his massive, intimidating frame makes for a striking dichotomy to the diminutive Park-Lincoln.

While Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is only a mediocre entry into the series, the individuality of Tina both as a “final girl” and a rival for Jason makes up for many of the film’s shortcomings. Where many of the films series’ female characters are portrayed as stock, weak damsels in distress, Tina starts off as a traumatized girl who might be considered weak only to grow into a supernatural force in her own right. One that is powerful enough to defeat Jason Voorhees, well, at least until the next sequel. Unfortunately, Tina’s storyline is not extended beyond the confines of Part VII. Instead in the next installment Jason headed off to The Big Apple. As a formidable opponent to the supernatural killer, I don’t think that Tina, and likewise Lar Park-Lincoln, have gotten their due, and what better time to give it than my first post for Women in Horror Recognition Month. For more information on events going on this month, make sure you check out their page on facebook for links to all the great contributions out there.

Halloween Top 13: The Remake- #13: Friday The 13th (2009)

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first entry in the Halloween Top 13: The Remake. To kick off proceedings we have the only remake on the list produced by the current czars of horror remakes, Platinum Dunes. Having been thinking about this list all year, I had tentatively penciled in this Jason outing as a candidate for inclusion, but there was another flick from the "House that Bay Built" that I held out hopes for, Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). However, when Jackie Earl Kruger made his debut on the screen, it fell far short of my expectations. It suddenly made it very clear why Friday the 13th (2009) worked so much better than the Dunes reboots of Leatherface or Freddy. Over eleven films with eleven actors playing the orphaned psycho in one form or another, Jason has worked because all you need to get is a big dude (in this case Derek Mears) and have him kill the crap out of some people.

So probably most of you saw this one, but just briefly for anyone who missed it or didn’t bother, the film opens up with a quick summation of the ending of the Mrs. Voorhees driven film Friday the 13th. In this case, instead of Betsy Palmer, we have Nana Visitor, former star of Deep Space Nine and Dark Angel. Within the first minute, Mama’s head goes rolling, and “Part 1” is done. The film then slides over to "Part 2" where a posse of pot smokers comes up to Crystal Lake in search of a stash of homegrown hiding in the woods. It doesn’t take long at all for bagheaded Jason, remember this is "Part 2", to show up and start hacking away. After that gets wrapped up, this Friday the 13th begins in earnest to build the main portion of the story. Not that there’s so much story here. A group of friends is off to a cabin in the woods owned by the rich, douchy kid’s parents, and as an added twist Clay Miller (Jarad Padalecki), brother of one of the girls from the last group, is searching for her whereabouts.

I could go into the conflict between Clay and the douche, how incredibly centralized on boobs and pot the film is, or the fact that they chose to remake Friday the 13th as some kind of montage of the first three original films, but none of that really matters. When I go into a Friday the 13th movie, I’m looking for something pretty specific. It doesn’t have anything to do with character development or scripting or boobs (well, let’s face it, boobs don’t hurt though). It has to do with there being a big ass dude, hopefully swinging around a machete, and taking some idiots out. That is exactly what you get here. Watching it for the second time on DVD does leave something to be desired (the theater experience added something a little more glossy and fun to the gore), there’s still a enough classic Voorhees dispatching to enjoy. If you can watch the dumb blonde get a machete though the top of her head while hiding under the dock from Jason and not crack a smile, well, I suppose you’re a better person than I.

Friday the 13th director Marcis Nispel and I usually don’t see eye to eye on his films. This is a huge assumption on my part, but I generally hate them and I assume he feels at least fairly pleased with his work. Nispel first got on my bad side because of a remake when he climbed in the big chair and directed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), also for Platinum Dunes. I flat out hated that movie, and no amount of Jessica Alba would be enough to save it. Seriously, none, and that is saying something. Following up that effort with the middle of the road movie adaptation of Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein book and the Dances with Beowulf mash-up, Pathfinder did little to improve my opinion of Nispel. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Friday the 13th changed my opinion. The fact he’s directing the Conan film keeps me awake at night. That being said I think he did a solid job on this film, but with the caveat that it’s a pretty hard thing to mess up.

Like I mentioned earlier, all you have to do is get a big guy, Derek Mears, and have him kill some folks. Jason doesn’t have personality or character quirks or funny little things he’s going to have to say. Seriously, the only things that Mears had to do was look big and turn on the crazy eyes from time to time, and let me say, he nailed it. Would I want to see him do Shakespeare in the Park? Well, yeah. I think he’d make a hell of a Prospero, but I think that’s a little off topic. Mears is there to do a job, and he does it well. If they make a sequel and get another fellow would I notice, probably not. The best performer in the film is by far Jerod Padalecki of Supernatural fame (his TV brother, Jensen Ackles, appeared in his own horror remake, My Bloody Valentine 3-D which is, by the way, not on the countdown.). Padalecki and Danielle Panabaker (who will show up again in the coming days) who plays Jenna are the only reasonably non-douchy characters that you meet in the whole film. Which is not that bad of a thing, in fact, to all the actors I didn’t bother to list because your character was too stupid, assholish, or a combination or he two, this one’s to you. You may not have acted well while you lived, but you all made for some nice American Apparel wearing corpses.

Sure, it was plenty convenient placing Friday the 13th at the 13th spot on the list, but I really think that this flick has some good things going on in it. It’s at least as good as many of the weak entries into the franchise, and better than at least a couple of them. (Jason Goes to Hell, I’m talking about you.) It provides some stupid laughs, some gruesome kills, and a fresh start for everyone’s least favorite bunkmate at camp. I hear people complain about moments like when he finds his hockey mask. I can’t for the life of me understand the complaint. It’s a badass scene. In the theater, the audience made an an audible gasp when it was revealed for the first time. I’m sure there are plenty of people who don’t and won’t like Friday the 13th (2009), but for me it’s the perfect example of a remake that works. This particular try didn’t fire on all cylinders, but as long as Mother Nature still keeps producing giant dudes willing to put on a mask and pretend to stab campers, co-eds, and townsfolk, there will still be Friday the 13th in one form or another.

Bugg Rating

So there we go I hope you enjoyed my first entry in the HT13: TR (Boy, oh, boy does that make for a crappy anagram.). I got 12 more just like it, supposedly better than it, coming up over the next week and a half. I hope you all stay tuned because I’ve got a lot in store for you folks. As usual with the Halloween Top 13, I like to get other folks to chime in and tell me what they think. So far 11 intrepid souls have stepped forward to take part, but I bet two more of you have something to say so check out see the original post if you’d like more details. For today’s guest, we have a guy that is a really awesome fellow, Bill from Radiation Scarred Reviews. I’ve always loved Bill’s reviews for the passion and fun he brings to them, and now I love the guy for thinking way outside the box, and coming up with a great remake:

“My remake pick has to be Frank Henenlotter's 1990 film FRANKENHOOKER, which while not explicitly a remake, bears a great deal of resemblance to Joseph Green's 1962 film THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE. The main plot of an unorthodox med student accidentally decapitating his girlfriend, preserving her head, and then sleazily cruising for a new body to attach her head to is the same, with Henenlotter's prostitutes standing in for Green's burlesque dancers, beauty queens and fetish photography models. Plus one of Jeffrey Franken's (James Lorinz) early experiments, a floating brain with an eye implanted in the side of it is taken directly from the poster art for THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE.”

What a stunning idea, and a route that my brain probably would have never taken. Thanks for taking part Bill, and I encourage any of you that don’t read Radiation Scarred Reviews to get over there Bill and the gang always have something great going on. That wraps it up for today, and I’ll be back again tomorrow with another list, another film, and another day closer to Halloween!

Halloween Top 13: The Sequel #7- Friday the 13th Part 2 (1988)

As we hit the middle point of the Halloween Top 13 countdown, we’ve finally made it to one of the first franchises that come to mind when people think about horror sequels. There’s good reason for that. The Friday the 13th franchise spans 11 films, 1 remake, and one basically unrelated TV spin off. Along with Freddy’s glove, Jason’s hockey mask has become one of the most recognizable objects in the modern horror era, but when Mr. Voorhees made his first adult appearance, as opposed to the mutant thing at the end of the first films, (oops, spoiler) he was not yet dressed to intimidate Wayne Gretzky. So in keeping with the easily misconstrued statements I made yesterday about The Tall Man in Phantasm II and his balls, today we’re going to take a look at Jason’s sack.

Friday the 13th Part 2 starts as many of the films on the countdown have, with a brief recap of the last few minutes of the first film. This time, the heroine of the last film Annie (Adrienne King) is having a bad dream and reliving the events that lead up to her lopping off Mrs. Voorhees’ head. She wakes from her sleep and puts on water for tea, but before it can boil, an unseen killer sneaks up behind her and dispatches the last survivor of the Camp Crystal Lake massacre. Politely, the killer takes the boiling water off the stove before he leaves.

Up at Crystal Lake, another camp is just getting started with a group of counselors training for the upcoming season. They are warned by local nut job Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) who had unsuccessfully tried to discourage the campers in the first film. His luck is no better this time, and the kids head on up to begin their orientation. Of course, it doesn’t take too long before stories of the massacre are being passed around and naturally this gets some of the teens interested in going to see the old camp. This is where the trouble really begins. That night many of the counselors go into town for a last night of fun, and the ones that are left behind soon find themselves at the mercy of a silent killer. The killer dispatches them all until all that is left is Vicki (Lauren Marie-Taylor) who is attacked by a killer wearing burlap sack on his head. When Paul (John Fuery) and Ginny (Amy Steel) return from town, they find evidence of the killings, and soon Ginny must run for her life if she wants to escape the killer, but her choice of hiding place reveals a ghastly shrine that sheds light on the killers identity.

Okay, spoiler alert, the killer is Jason, and on the shrine is the severed head of Pamela Voorhees. If you didn’t know that already, then I apologize, but I find it hard to believe that anyone wouldn’t know. Even people who haven’t seen a Friday the 13th film seem to have that bit of trivia embedded in their noggin. Unlike supernatural Freddy or the boogieman Michael Myers, Jason has always struck me as bringing the Frankenstein monster into the modern era. He’s a big guy, there’s definitely something wrong in his head, and he is super pissed. While the Doctor made the monster, Jason was made when he saw his mom get her head separated from her shoulders. Jason is Frankenstein’s monster by way of Norman Bates, and while he would be many things in the sequels; a slug, not really Jason, a zombie, a vacationer, and a spaceman, the first time we encounter him he’s a madman with a need to kill, and just like his dear old mom, campers are his most likely target.

Unlike the first film in the series, not much time is spent building the teen counselors into characters. They are pretty much lambs for the slaughter, and that’s fine by me. I mean we’re not here to get to know Scott or Sandra of Jeff. What we want and what this film delivers is to see these cardboard characters get offed. So we get poor wheelchair bound Scott hacked by a machete and sent rolling down a long stairway, Sandra and Jeff becoming a human kabob while trying to get their freak on, and good old Crazy Ralph being strangled to death so he can’t warn any kids in a future sequel. The kills don’t reach the crazy off the wall feeling that the sequels strive for. These are still the fairly realistic actions of a crazy, but still human, nut.

Jason receives very little face time in the film, or bag time as the case may be. For the majority of the film, the stalking and killing is done from the point of view shot a la Black Christmas. I’m sure this was quite effective for an audience that didn’t know everything about Jason. While the role of Jason was credited to Warrington Gillette, who had originally auditioned for the role of Paul, for the most part, the masked killer was played by stuntman Steve Dash as Gillette only really appears in the shocking reveal scene near the end of the film. Dash even suffered for the role of Jason. In one climatic scene, the timing was off, and when he went to block a machete, his finger severely cut. Dash was taken to the hospital where his finger was stitched up (some people have said with 13 stitches, oooh, spooky), and then he returned to the set where he insisted they shoot the scene again. Dash who would go on to do stunts for the film F/X (1986) and appear in bit parts in films such as Ms. 45 and strangely Julie and Julia.

The pre-hockey mask Jason definitely looks reminiscent of the killer in the Charles Pierce film The Town that Dreaded Sundown, but unlike that film, Friday the 13th Part 2 is not a terribly long winded, boring mess. In fact, it remains quite pacey throughout and the 87-minute running time flies by all too quickly. The direction of Steve Miner was nothing brilliant, but it kept much of the tone from the Sean Cunningham original. Miner would go on to direct the next installment of the series (in 3-D no less), and he would direct the first House film, Halloween H20, Lake Placid, and uncharacteristically the C. Thomas Howell in blackface “classic” Soul Man.

The Friday franchise would produce several more quality films, and if you’ve been keeping score, Friday the 13th V: The Final Chapter has appeared as a choice on several of my readers lists. I enjoy that one, and I have quite a soft spot for the silliness that is Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan and the space epic Jason X. Those films are fun for a different reason though; they’re stupid fun. Part II is a slasher film in the classic mold. The extremes of the genres had not yet taken root, and instead we’re given a killer who is mysterious, determined, and quite deadly. Friday the 13th Part II is a great sequel because it gives birth to an icon, and he won’t rest until every single outdoor supply store goes out of business. That’s the kind of killer whose purpose I can really get behind.

Bugg Rating

Another day, another sequel down, and time for another list. Today it's from Chris Bennett of the excellent blog The Horror Canon. He's got some great picks so without further ado let me turn it over to Mr. Bennett.

In my opinion, sequels can be successful if you use the right technique. You can't stomp all over the ground rules you've laid. You need to respect those, while at the same time taking everything that worked about the first film and turning it up to 11!

Psycho II - The fact is that this movie is made 22 years after it's much beloved predecessor, and everyone wants to hate it because of that. The story is awesome and keeps the viewer AND the characters on edge with well placed jump scares, creative story that builds on the original, and an ending that I can't watch without a great big grin on my face...

Friday the 13th Part 2 - This movie takes the legend of Jason from the first movie and brings it to life. So what if it makes no sense (why was Mrs. Voohees killing people to avenge her son's death if he didn't die in the first place?!). Building on the original story to create a new twist to the legend, this movie was thoughtful and creative. This is our first glimpse of Jason, and he was scary!

Phantasm II - Reggie and Mike, together again. This sequel takes the mythos from the original Phantasm, and brings the dream like quality of it into the real world. How do they handle the Tall Man at his own game when the rules have changed? This is a great roller coaster ride of a movie. You never know what to expect, and then that ending...

Hellraiser II - In keeping with the original story's rules, the sequel builds on them and let's you know that being a cenobite is not all glamorous and sexy like you originally thought. It's great to see that new villains can be introduced successfully without feeling out of place.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge - Everyone knows Freddy. But before Freddy grew a funny bone, he was scary. This sequel takes the rules we learn in the first movie and turn them on themselves to give Freddy the freedom to escape his dreamworld. And how awesome is it to see Freddy crash a pool party?!

Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers - This is a movie that understands its audience. Creative kills, nudity, and swearing will entertain the audience for 90 minutes. It took everything that we loved about the first one and amplified it to a parody of itself. The killer is never scary, but often creepy. The kills are never cringe-worthy, but always over the top. It's just a fun, fun movie.

Great stuff there Chris, and I've got to agree with you on most of them. I recently picked up a copy of Psycho II, and I'm really looking forward to seeing where they take the story of Mr. Bates. That wraps it up for today. I'll be back tomorrow with another sequel as we roll on to number 6!

The Halloween Top 13: Number 13: Friday the 13th Part 1

Welcome to The Lightning Bug's Halloween Top 13. I'm very happy to be counting down my personal favorite horror flicks to watch over the season. I want to state right off that these might not all be the best made films or even ones that spring to mind instantly when people think about Halloween, but they are what I love. They may well not be what you folks out there love. That's why I'm proud to include with each of the 13 posts a top 5 list submitted from my readers and friends. So make sure you scroll down and check them out after the trailer. Now on with the show.

Friday the 13th Part 1 (1980) starring Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, and Kevin Bacon. Directed by Sean Cunningham. Special Effects by Tom Savini.

Synopsis

Before the mask, before Manhattan, Hell, and Space, and well before he met Freddy, Jason was just a dead kid in a lake, and Camp Crystal Lake was just a run down camp that fueled local legend. Back in 1958, two counselors snuck away from singing campfire songs to have some more private fun, and ended up getting killed before they could even get into heavy petting. Fast forward to the present day of 1980, and the camp is looking to open back up again. Kids from all over are coming to the camp to take jobs as counselors.



Annie, the camp's cook, is hitch hiking her way there, and she stops in a small town to ask directions. She's greeted by many a strange look, and even the local nutter, Ralph, comes along to let her know that "You're all doomed" at "Camp Blood". One of the townsfolk, Enos, gives her a ride out closer to the camp site and fills her in on the tales of a drowned kid, the murders, and mysterious fires that plagued the camp before its closing. Enos drops Annie off and she accepts a ride from a driver in a jeep who's face we never see. The driver speeds past the camp, and Annie leaps from the moving vehicle. She runs into the woods only to be tracked down and summarily stabbed to death.



Ned, Jack Marci, Brenda, and Alice, the other campers, know nothing of Annie's death. So when the head of the camp, Steve, goes into town to get some supplies, they have no idea that they are being hunted. As each of them gets isolated, they meet their grisly ends. They get killed with a variety of implements including a very nice axe to the head and Kevin Bacon's Jack gets an arrow through his throat. The campers are whittled down until only Alice is left, and she barricades herself in the main cabin. That is until she is saved by the kindly Mrs. Voorhees.

Film Facts

--The script was written by Victor Miller who's other credits mostly include writing for the soap opera's All My Children and Another World. Strangely no one's mom showed up to cut apart a group of teens in either of those series.

--Our Lord, Tom Savini, was the first person approached about joining the film crew as the producers had loved his makeup effects for Dawn of the Dead. Savini was personally responsible for the gushing and bubbling of blood from Kevin Bacon's neck. When the original plan for the effect fell though, Savini got under the bed and blew the blood through the tubing himself.

-- The "Ki Ki Ki Ma Ma Ma" sound heard throughout all the Friday The 13th films is the brainchild of composer Henry Manfredini. It was intended to evoke the sound of Jason in Mrs. Voorhees' head urging her to "Kill Kill Kill, Mom Mom Mom." As to why it continues to crop up the Jason based sequels is anybody's guess.

Why Do I Love It?

Well when I was a kid and just getting into the gorier slasher fare, I started all the series at the beginning. At the time I was not aware that the legendary hockey mask wearing madman did not appear until the second installment (and the mask even later). However I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and I think I hold it in a special place because of when I saw it. After all you never forget your first.

It might well be that Betsy Palmer seemed utterly scary as Mrs Voorhees because she seemed so much like she could be any one of my friend's moms. In her cable knit sweater and her short cropped mom hair, she seemed completely realistic in my young mind. Unlike what her son would become or his friends Michael and Freddy, there was no otherworldly nature to her. She was just a lady gone totally batshit crazy. Between that and the now classic (and a bit cheesy) jump scare that ends the film, it cemented itself as a Halloween classic that I go back to time and time again.

Bug Rating

And now for the first Top 5 List. This one comes to us courtesy of Bradd from the Web-comic Gloomy Roomies.

In No Particular Order:

Psycho (1960)

Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Young Frankenstein (1974)

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Great List, Bradd, and thanks for contributing. All of those films almost made it on my list, and each and every one is a classic. Make sure you go check out Bradd's comic as I'm sure he has lots of Halloween fun in store, and make sure you're back here tomorrow for another installment in the most diabolical countdown you'll ever read. See you tomorrow, Moonies.