Friday the 13th Upgraded
The release of Friday the 13th in 1980 is a watershed moment in horror history, but let’s not kid ourselves. It’s a flawed classic. There are pacing issues and other than Annie, Pamela Voorhees, and Marcie, the characters aren’t necessarily interesting. Several kills occur off screen too. We only see the aftermath of Ned, Bill, and Brenda’s deaths. And when Steve is stabbed in the stomach, we see his reaction instead of the knife entering him.
With the exception of Alice’s drawn out dream sequence, Friday the 13th Part II does everything right the first film did wrong. On a technical level, the shots are certainly more beautiful. For example, Jason’s makeshift cabin is lit by an oil lamp and candles, giving the entire shack a magnificent golden glow during the climax. The kills are better too. Jason throws a hammer in a cop’s head, pins a couple to their bed with a spear, and even strangles an old man with a bicycle chain.
The characters in Part II are more interesting. They’re charismatic and cool. At times, it feels like you’re hanging out with them rather than watching them secretly from behind a tv screen. My favorite characters are Paul, the stoic leader of the counselors. He’s a masculine man, but not the overcompensating type. Then there’s Jeff and Sandra, the kind of couple you can hang out with and not feel like a third wheel. I like Ted a lot too. He’s such a clown. He brings fun and humor to the camp.
Ginny
My favorite character in this movie is Ginny Field. Ginny is the final girl in Friday the 13th Part II. She’s half tomboy, half girly girl. It’s an interesting mix. She can hang with boys, throw back beers, and crack stupid jokes, and, at the same time, knock you out with her smile and feminine mannerisms.
She’s intelligent too. She’s a college student, majoring in child psychology. She uses this to her advantage when facing off against Jason in the third act. Knowing that Jason is traumatized by his mother’s death because he saw it firsthand, she disguises herself in his mother’s clothes and speaks to him. This places Jason into a trance. He actually believes he’s talking to Pam.
Ginny convinces him to kneel down before her. She grabs a machete and raises it high in the air, preparing to behead him. But she accidentally takes a wrong step, revealing Pam’s severed head sitting on the makeshift altar behind her. This causes Jason to snap out of his trance and temporarily regain the upper hand.
Potato Sack Jason
In comparison to other films in the franchise, Jason is unique in Friday the 13th Part II. He’s clad in blue overalls and a sackcloth on his head, not the hockey mask and dark overalls fixed in the public imagination. I’ve heard others refer to this version of him as “Hillbilly Jason.”
It’s an accurate description. In this film, Jason is a feral, adult. He lives in a makeshift shack in the woods and lives off animals and whatever else he can scavenge. He’s not an unstoppable monster. He’s simply a man whose stunted mentally and lost in the world without his mother. So, he embarks on a quest for revenge, a quest to take out all those who dare to enter his woods.
It’s clear writers were still in the process of developing this character and were testing the waters. According to Sean S. Cunningham and others involved with the first film, Jason was supposed to be dead. In their minds, he actually drowned at Crystal Lake back in 1957. Film executives wanted the sequel to focus on Jason, so the creative minds behind this movie brought him back.
I wonder how different the Friday the 13th franchise would’ve turned out, if Jason had kept this look throughout the rest of the sequels. Would he still be as iconic as he is now? Probably not. I hate to admit it, but the hockey mask and machete look is more menacing and sinister.
