Director: Tom McLoughlin
Cast: Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, David Kagen, Renee Jones
Have I Seen It Before: I’m reasonably sure that I haven’t. But a TNT marathon in the 90s might have drifted across my consciousness.
Did I Like It: Is there anything to say about this series this many movies in? It’s never been anything more than the poor-man’s slasher franchise*. It never attached to anything resembling a long-term story. Even Corey Feldman is a little bit ashamed of his association with the movies.
Is it enough that there’s a little humor injected into the proceedings? People groan about getting into another mix-em-up with the Man in the Mask**, and children ask each other what they thought they were going to be when they grew up… before it became clear they had parents content to send them to Camp Crystal Lake, by any other name. It is as if they were the first horror movie characters who have ever actually seen a horror movie. That might be revolutionary, but its far more likely giving the film too much credit. Anybody who insists that this was somehow a precursor to Scream (1996) or the far-better Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) are the same kind of people who have A Lot Of OpinionsTM about Jason.
The series is going to have to take a lot of big swings to get a reaction out of me. Thankfully or horrifyingly, I’ve still got Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) and Jason X (2001) by which I can get properly nauseated.
*That feels like the kind of incendiary that will get people Mad On The InternetTM but I don’t think I’m particularly frightened by anybody who has any kind of strong feelings for Jason Voorhees.
**“He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)” the… love theme…? from the movie is probably Alice Cooper’s worst song and sounds more like something that would form the basis of a sketch on “I Think You Should Leave.”