Marvelous follow up to the original that does everything the first one did well and improves and expands on it by leaps and bounds.
Let's start with the cast. There isn't a name actor in the bunch but they all serve their roles finely and a few key characters even shine.
Something I guess I knew but never really thought about is the fact that although both movies are set around a camp for kids, neither of the first two films contained children. In the first one the camp is being set up for summer camp but everything goes down before opening day. In this one the camp is being set up as a counselor training center. This entry also is not set at Camp Crystal Lake but at another camp site a wee bit down the lake. That doesn't stop Jason though.
As the film opens we're treated to Alice, the lone survivor from the first film, laying in bed and having flashbacks via dream, bringing us all up to date on how the original concluded. We're then treated to the first appearance of adult Jason, and what an interesting calling card he leaves in the fridge.
So all the teenagers show up for the training course and man are there a couple of fine bitches. Kirsten Bakers ass has to be seen to be believed, especially for 1981. She's got a mid 90's ass a good decade before it became en vogue, and her pert little nipples spice up any scene they're in. Then we got Marta Kober who looks like one of those underage internet models that were all the rage a few years ago. Girl also has some magnificent coconuts.
The great thing about this movie is that for the most part, the cast of kids carry it for a good 50 minutes and it never drags or feels cheesy. They work, they joke around, they chill out, Kirsten Baker goes skinny dipping and gives me a boner. Even without Jason as the centerpiece it's an enjoyable watch. There are a few moments sprinkled in that let us know that shit is gonna get messy, such as when the Sheriff stumbles upon a shed in the woods and poor crazy Ralph, whom I've always suspected might of been Jasons dad, get's offed.
As night falls and half the group go into town to get drunk before the work officially starts in the morning, we're treated to some fine scenes featuring what the film makers really understood about this kind of movie. Sex, titty, flirting, anticipation, all leading up to all hell breaking loose. It's seems like such an easy thing to achieve but in the decades since it very rarely has been done better than it's done here. The early killings aren't particularly gory, but they are inventive. The wheelchair dude getting a hatchet in the head and rolling down the stairs is still aces.
Before I get to the films climactic scenes let me stress that the Jason in this movie is not yet the Jason we'll come to know. It's explained and set up that at this point Jason is still believed (and this plays out over the rest of the movie) that Jason is pretty much just a man child who has grown up in the woods, kept away from society and raised with a vicious hunters mentality. Seeing his mothers head chopped off, it's hypothesized, didn't help his mental well being much either.
So once a mostly unseen Jason is finished with the campers who stayed behind, we're treated to what is still an iconic sequence. Ginny and Paul arrive back at camp and the ensuing chase is just so magnificent. From the moment they step into the cabin and Ginny utters the words "Paul, there's someone else in this room", it's all systems go. Fuck man, that line haunted me as a kid and it haunted me re watching it now. Paul fighting with a hooded Jason (he had yet developed into the "character" we would come to know) and chasing Ginny provide what I think are still some of the best shots, angles and direction in a horror film ever. Ginny hides, and while she can't see Jason, the viewer can. It creates an awesome tension.
As I said, Jason is not yet this superhuman killer and actually sells a nut shot and a chair shot. The sequence where Ginny is hiding under the bed and is scared so bad by the rat that she pees herself, allowing us to see Jasons reaction and know that he knows, is just awesome.
The penultimate scene deep in the woods in Jasons shack/altar where Ginny uses what little knowledge she has of Jason and his mother to trick him is made all the more creepier by the single eye hole in Jasons hood as we see his mind working. The decision to show us Ginny remove the hood from a presumed dead Jason but not allow us to see his face, only the guttural reaction the couple has is pure mastery.
And lastly, after Paul and Ginny think it's all over, and the little dog we thought was dead shows up, queuing the sweet music as a callback to the first film, we get treated to one more fright/shock that concludes the film in almost the exact same way the original did. The sweetest part of the ending this time is that we have no idea what happened between the time Jason came through the window and Ginny is carted off in the ambulance. Where is Paul? What happened in that lost time? Fucking aces man, fucking aces.
What can I say? Knowing that the original was not about Jason it sort of made me a little tepid in enjoying it. And I was worried that this one wouldn't stand up to my memories, but boy oh boy was I wrong. This fucker takes it to a whole nother level. The foundation layed in the original is used to knock it out of the park in this stirring sequel. The only thing lacking, interestingly enough, is the gore. Sure there are slicings and stabbing and blood but it's not like the film lingers on the gore. I would also say that the tension in the first is better overall as all the kills in this one come kind of quick and without anyone really knowing what's about to happen.
Is this the best horror movie of all time? I'm having trouble finding a reason to say no.
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