In 1981 Friday the 13th Part 2 introduced a masked killer that would become a horror icon. Jason Voorhees may not be fully formed in this flawed (should be) classic…but like the film itself, the groundwork is laid for what’s to come.
Classic reviews will contain spoilers.
Friday the 13th Part 2
Directed by Steve Miner
Written by Ron Kurz
Starring Amy Steel, John Furey and Adrienne King
Friday the 13th Part 2 Review
The most fitting thing a Friday the 13th Part 2 review could do would be to commit an unspeakable amount of time to recapping Friday the 13th. That’s what Part 2 does, after all. It’s a bold choice…especially given that the existence of the first movie makes the second movie utterly implausible. What we learn from the original is that there was a boy named Jason Voorhees who drowned in 1957. His mother Pamela spends Friday the 13th slaughtering camp counselors in hopes of keeping the camp closed. In the end she is killed by sole survivor Alice Hardy. Alice later dreams of a child Jason rising from the lake to attack her. I guess I did that Part 1 recap after all.
How, then, does Friday the 13th Part 2 explain that an adult Jason is roaming the woods near Crystal Lake? It basically hopes that you won’t think too hard about it.
Another thing it hopes you don’t think too hard about is what exactly happens at the end. Having taken down Jason in his hidden shack in the woods…our final girl Ginny Field and her boyfriend Paul return to a cabin to recover from their injuries. They hear a noise outside the cabin and prepare for attack. It turns out to be Muffin, a dog we believed to have been killed earlier in the film. With their guard down Jason crashes through the window and grabs Ginny. It then cuts to Ginny being loaded into the back of an ambulance the next morning…repeatedly asking where Paul is.
What? If the implication here is that Muffin was indeed dead and this was a dream…when exactly did Ginny fall asleep? Part 3 begins with Jason on the floor of his shack indicating that in canon…he never jumped through that window. This confirms the dream/Muffin is dead theory. But then where is Paul? It’s a needlessly complicated way to end a movie. I believe they just didn’t get the footage they needed to make it make narrative sense. There was no opportunity for Ginny to fall asleep and no shot of her waking up from the nightmare.
Now…we’ve covered the flawed opening and flawed closing of Friday the 13th Part 2…and we’ve done that for a reason. Everything else in this movie is tremendous. The meat of this sequel improves on its predecessor in every way possible. They present more likable and interesting characters, chief among them Ginny. Played by Amy Steel, Ginny is the best final girl in the franchise. She’s smart, resourceful, compassionate and funny. Our other main characters aren’t too shabby either. They enjoy each other’s company and genuinely care about each other giving us a group of people who you want to root for.
Friday the 13th Part 2 is one of the rare times that the first half of a slasher movie is a joy to watch. Not only do all the characters we will see meet their early demise get time to shine…but the script from Ron Kurz takes special care to set up a slew of payoffs for later. Need to explain why there is a spear sitting around when the killing starts? The heavy exposition campfire scene introduces the weapon in a fun and memorable way. Need a way to make the “car won’t start” trope feel more natural? They make it part of Ginny’s introduction as both the reason she’s late and why she’s having trouble moving her car. Want to ward off Jason with a chainsaw? Throw in a shot of Ginny cutting wood and putting it away where she will find it later. These are all simple ideas but anyone who has watched this era of slasher movies knows…they aren’t as common as they should be.
Steve Miner provides direction that is frankly far above anything we’ve seen in the slasher knockoffs of the early 80s. He uses his camera in some interesting ways to create tension and sometimes end in an unexpected avant-garde choice. Where he really shines, however, is in the films intense final act.
Everything from the moment Jason finally reveals himself to the audience to the aforementioned ending is the high point of the Friday the 13th series. There is no comparison to be had for the extended cat and mouse sequence between Ginny and Jason. It’s genuinely terrifying in ways that most slasher movies never rise to. This isn’t just jump scares and gross out tactics…it’s not even just uneasy buildup to an expected scare…this is a breathless pursuit more akin to The Terminator.
It culminates in a unique way of confronting the villain. Ginny is a child psychology major who tries to think deeper about what an adult Jason would be like if he were to exist. Upon discovering that he does exist and finding herself trapped in his shack in the woods…Ginny uses her knowledge against Jason…allowing her (and Paul who shows up for some reason) to get the advantage. The series would go back to this well again in Part 4 in a way that made less sense but gets away with it because of what’s established here.
Scare Value
Friday the 13th Part 2 is one of those movies that makes you question why more slasher movies fail to reach its level. Nothing here seems that difficult to achieve. A little more care here, a little better writing there, and you’re on your way to the upper echelon of the genre. Which is where I believe Part 2 firmly sits. It’s not Halloween but neither are any of the other movies in the Halloween series. If Halloween set the bar for the slashers in 1978, I’d argue that no one did anything better or more interesting in that space until Wes Craven introduced us to his Nightmare in 1984. That may not seem like a lot of years between the two…but consider that nearly 30 slasher movies came out in 1981 (Friday the 13th Part 2’s release year) alone. And 1982 had even more.
4.5/5
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