filmandcinemapuritans

The middle of the eighties were the best of the Fridays when we got closer to the nineties the formula got old hat and cartoon-ish and the ideas just didn’t gel. Like part seven which has the psychic girl and part eight that took Jason out of the camp and onto a cruise ship and Manhattan, New York. However, the one good thing about these movies is the discovery of Mister Kane Hodder who played Jason a total of four times. If you speak to any other of the stuntmen who played Jason, it was just a job and they were always glad when it was over. Mister Hodder actually played into the character of Jason and actually wanted to be the famous Hockey masked killer. Kane Hodder started in stunts with a little comedy called HARD BODIES (Grant Kramer also in KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE) and worked himself up to big motion pictures as THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART 2 and PRISON. then he finally got the gig as Jason Voorhees.  He is so into his works he actually is scared for life as a stunt in the eighties severely burnt and scarred him. Mister Hodder is a family man with a wife and two children and in spare time raises money for charity for severely burned children. The man is an avid poker player and has a tattoo of the word “Kill” on his inside lip. Kane Hodder still works today in Hollywood as a stunt coordinator as of recent he did GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS, DAREDEVIL, Rob Zombie’s DEVILS REJECTS and HATCHET.

FRIDAY THE 13^th, part seven

This is the film that debuted the six foot Juggernaut that is Kane Hodder.  FRIDAY THE 13^TH, PART SEVEN: THE NEW BLOOD. Stars a girl who has telekinesis ability and while on a retreat to get her to cope with some of the horrors of her life, she accidentally resurrects Jason. Think X-FILES meets FRIDAY THE 13^TH or CARRIE meets FRIDAY THE 13^TH.  This film’s original cut was extremely violent and had some very inventive kills but was too over the top. Splitting craniums, chopping people in half, and the most famous of the kills crushing a kids head like a beer can. Again that is an amusing thought and some rough footage does exist if you can find it on the Internet, but as a movie it kind of seems gimmicky. Like Jason has met his match, a person with extra worldly abilities is the only thing that can take the evil Jason out. Another problem with the whole series is the time line. This film takes place after the sixth one, because Jason is chained down to the bottom of Camp Crystal Lake, however when young Tina sends her father into the drink she’s obviously very tiny and the current Tina is when she is a young adult so its as if they built a house over Camp Crystal Lake? After all the murders happened? But that would make no sense because the house existed when Tina killed her father. I know, I know, it’s a FRIDAY THE 13^TH movie the continuity is always sketchy, but at this point I don’t know what happened when. Why couldn’t they hire one guy for five bucks an hour to watch all the films (VHS) was very popular back then and put together a believable time line?

            This is one of the only films where Jason gets beaten up really severely and its almost a revenge movie from all the past victims channeling through Tina to beat the ever living crap out of our Hockey Masked friend. The stunts are really great and Mister Hodder is no doubt the star of this movie. In the original script, Jason was supposed to topple down a flight of stairs and Kane Hodder stated, that Jason isn’t going to fall down a flight of stairs, he is going to FALL THROUGH the stairs, and that’s what happened in the final print. Plus this film includes the infamous sleeping bag kill, where Jason traps a girl in sleeping back and breaks her spine up against a tree.

FRIDAY THE 13^th, part eight

JASON TAKES MANHATTAN! This is the movie that could have been the showstopper however it turned out to be one of the most disappointing entries into the franchise. This is the film that never was! The original trailer showed Jason looking over Manhattan with Frank Sinatra singing in the back, and then shot after shot of people screaming. What hype! What excitement! What a let down! Because of the films budget they couldn’t afford any real time shooting in New York, they could only afford two full days of shooting, so they placed seventy five percent of the film aboard a cruise ship, twenty percent on a set supposed to be New York in. CANADA, and five percent actually in Times Square and near Liberty Island. What a rip off! The film’s original script had scenes in Madison Square Garden, Statue of Liberty, Times Square, et al. The producers couldn’t secure the funds to shoot in all those locations so they had to compromise. What we got was a very insulting and stereotypical look at what New York was perceived as. The first minute our heroes step onto a dock in New York they get mugged by a bunch of drug addicts. Anybody who is familiar with New York City, they’re a million people on any given street and day a time. This film actually had an infamous advertising campaign where Jason was ripping through the classic “I LOVE NY” poster, and the advertising board for tourism for the city actually issued a complaint not to use that poster, so they used Jason’s mask overlooking the city.

The most disappointing film, it should’ve honestly just stayed on the cruise ship they could’ve sustained further, and it wouldn’t have mattered. Kelly Hu actually stars as one of the girls on the ship who gets murdered by Jason. Look for the rock and roll chick that plays her guitar in the engine room (why we don’t know) and her amp isn’t even plugged in or the cameo of Ken Kirzinger who went on to play Jason in FREDDY vs. JASON.

Avoid this film unless you want to see JASON TAKES VANCOUVER.