Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

Director: Danny Steinmann

Cast: Melanie Kinnaman, John Shepherd, Shavar Ross, Corey Feldman

Have I Seen it Before: I dunno… Maybe? The odds of me drifting to this thing for a few minutes on cable at some point in the 90s are nowhere near zero.

Did I Like It: Had I watched the entire movie, one would think I wouldn’t remember it much. I had a sort of mildly above negative reaction to Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), in as much as the series had spent any number of movies wandering around a concept, only to become what the uninitiated might recognize as a movie with Jason Voorhees (here played by no one; I’ll probably get to that in a minute). As this movie opens, Feldman returns and it feels like the series will drift into a comfortable pattern.

But no. Somebody, and it feels like the Paramount brass looking out for their reliable low-risk ongoing investment have decided that their audience wouldn’t accept more entries of the series which just allow for the fact that Jason can die in one film and then reappear in the next*, so the sequel involves… some guy who wears a hockey mask. The film is supremely disinterested in any mystery regarding who has taken up Jason’ mantle, or in any kind of meditation on what Jason’s terror can do to the survivors**. It’s just interested in an array of boobs, a couple of axe and machete shots and… nothing. If those were the only things that brought you—whether enthusiastically or begrudgingly—to a Friday the 13th film, then you’ll get what you ordered from the Paramount warehouse. If you’re looking for anything else, you might want to skip the movie. If you’re looking for a lot more, you’re probably well-advised to skip the series entirely.

*The Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween series have been able to do this with far greater effect. Yes, I know. Don’t come at me with your Season of the Witch references, at the least that off-series interlude had the good sense to try and being completely divorced from the continuity before or since. None of them tried to do a sequel but forget to bring their antagonist with them.

**For a better shot at that, you’ll really have to go back to Halloween Ends (2022), a movie you all rejected and were, frankly, wrong in that assessment.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

Director: Joseph Zito

Cast: Kimberly Beck, Peter Barton, Crispin Glover, Corey Feldman

Have I Seen it Before: I dunno… maybe?

Did I Like It: And that’s the real problem with the whole series. Well, at least one of them. The whole series bleeds together. Don’t believe me? Quick, name the final girl in the first Friday the 13th (1980). No, it isn’t Kevin Bacon. I’d even give partial credit if you can name how many films in the series she appeared in. Can’t do it, can you? I can’t do it, and my horror movie literacy is at least above average, and it isn’t like I’m about to look it up.

That all sounds like I’m going to start trashing this one, too, but there’s an odd uptick in improvement. This fourth entry is certainly better than Friday the 13th Part III (1982). Dim praise, maybe, but it’s imminently encouraging that the series kept the hockey mask, but dropped things point at the center of the frame and the weird disco riffs in Harry Manfredini’s score from the previous film. It’s a reversion to the dull mediocrity of Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), perhaps, but the series can probably—and likely will—go on ad infinitum content to be a Great Value version of the Halloween series.

But there are some casting choices here that are not only back to average, but above it. Crispin Glover certainly hasn’t become anyone’s density or destiny yet, but it’s always at least a little bit interesting to see him in anything. And then there is Corey Feldman, who is something of a presence in this movie and movies going forward, and if I remember right, becomes a regular foil for Jason Voorhees (Ted White, uncredited).

Now if only I could remember the character’s name… Ah, well. Maybe that’ll stick more in future entries.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Director: Steve Barron

Cast: Judith Hoag, Elias Koteas, Corey Feldman, Kevin Clash

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, certainly. In fact, my first viewing of the film became somewhat legendary in my family mythology, but that is mostly because immediately after leaving the theater I puked down an upward moving escalator, thus ruining that particular mall in Dallas forever for a number of people.

But that had little to do with the movie itself, I think.

Did I Like It: A movie based on a cartoon primarily designed to sell action figures that was itself based on a comic book that was a spoof of 80s Daredevil comics* is going to have a hard time producing a film that would be worth watching at all. 

So, it’s saying something that this may be the best big-screen version of the turtles we are going to see. The puppet work from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop (it was one of the last projects Henson worked on before his untimely passing) is remarkable, almost bringing an air of believability to a concept that happily has nothing to do with reality. The mouths of the various creatures don’t quite match up with the voice actors looped in later, but it wasn’t exactly like the cartoons looked like they were pontificating lovingly on the subjects of ninjutsu and pizza. On that front it actually makes the film a pretty solid adaptation of the cartoons, although the more far out concepts like the technodrome and Krang would have to wait for this century and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016).

The film also works where others might have failed by pulling off its most significant illusion and convincing film goers that it actually takes place in New York City. With the massive puppetry work on display, large part of the film had to be filmed in the controlled environment of a studio, but with judiciously edited second unit photography, the film still feels like it takes place in a pre-Giuliani NYC with a crime rate spiraling out of control and a sewer system you might not want to jump into on first invitation.

*Look it up. Just once in a live-action adaptation of Daredevil, I would like to see the young Matt Murdock carrying a box of innocent looking turtles before he gets radioactive waste splashed on his face.