So - the first thing here is that I was born on a Friday the 13th. I thought that might be a fun reveal at this moment. Perhaps it's why I gravitated to trying to cover this series, I don't know.
What I'd like to know from everyone is - what's your favorite & least favorite Friday film? Where do you think this franchise lands compared to other big horror franchises? Where do you think Jason lands as a villain? Would you like to see more Friday films....or have they exhausted the concept?
I really enjoyed doing this. Some films I had seen before, some I hadn't. But I think I enjoyed the experience of going through the films knowing I was going to try to write about them more than I enjoyed actually watching some of these films.
The experience satisfied two sides of my personality. There is the side of me that likes to intellectualize and analyze....but there's also the side of me that has fun watching boobs and blood. These films weren't meant to withstand critical scrutiny, but they are no doubt fun to sit back when you've had enough of the world and just have some fun for a little bit.
It's an interesting series in that we, as the audience, are really a lot more like Jason than we are his victims. We watch Jason slash his way through 12 films made over the course of 29 years. Of the 146 people Jason killed, it's hard to think of a single death that had any consequence or left any mark. Even in horror films, death can make an emotional impact. But as Jason felt no emotions or empathy towards any of his victims.....neither do we. We watch waiting and looking forward to the next kill....not caring at all about the consequences of those kills.
What is also interesting, yet a failure of the series, is that for all this time we've spent with Jason, we barely know a thing about him. We know nothing more about his history or family than what can be said in two sentences. He never speaks & hardly ever shows signs of having any sort of humanity. He is neither a killer we are actively rooting for or against.
As a whole, I'm sure some of the stronger Friday movies were better than some of the Halloween or Nightmare films....but Friday NEVER made a film as good as the original Halloween or Nightmare films. It never had that ONE movie that was truly a work of art. The failure to ever take the concept and expand on it in a truly successful way is the series' shortcoming. But perhaps with a villain as silent and inhuman as Jason, maybe that's a limiting factor that even the greatest filmmakers would have trouble overcoming.
Why was the Friday the 13th franchise so popular and so successful and ended up resulting in, to date, 12 films? I have to think that a large part of it is simple marketing. Jason looks fucking cool. He makes for a great image and the hockey mask has become so iconic that it has carried the franchise. Where would that series be without that mask? I think this is a rare instance of the parts being greater than the whole.
I'm going to try to attach a mathematical score to the franchise through a very simple rating method. 1 point for a film that I felt was genuinely good & fun. 1/2 point for a film that was OK...glad I watched it...wouldn't watch again. 0 points for the dreck.
I'm giving 1 point to Parts 1, 2, 4 and 6.
1/2 point to Goes to Hell, Jason X and F v. J
0 points to 3, 5, 7, 8 and the 2009 remake.
That's 5.5 points out of a possible 12. Which gives the series, overall, a 4.8 out of 10.
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