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Friday the 13th Part II (1981) - Directed by Steve Miner
"I don't wanna scare anyone, but I'm gonna give it to you straight about Jason."
Slashers aren't really my thing, but they're very easy to get through. So far, the Friday the 13th series is the easiest. It's simple and monotonous, and it doesn't require too much mental energy for one reason: the series is mostly braindead. The first film was pretty much just a bunch of killings with an exciting ending, and Two is barely any different.
Five years after the events of the first film, another group of counselors is hoping to open up a school for them at Camp Crystal Lake. Even though they hope to erase the memory of the past and make the camp a great place for kids again, the legend of the "dead" child Jason Voorhees lives on. Now, the torch has been passed from the psychotic mother Pamela to Jason himself, and all the murder weapons that go with it. And Jason is expected by the memory of his mother to seek revenge for her.
OK, I know sequelitis (as Rotten Tomatoes likes to call it, and so do I for that matter) is an incredibly contagious disease on the film industry. How is it contagious? Simple. The box office success worked once, so it can work again. Two is one of the worst examples of that. There's probably less of a story than before, the killings are much less scary because you know what's going to happen, and the acting is just as bad if not worse than the first film's cast. This film suffers from the same lack of originality that leads to the myth of sequels never being as good as the original, and the original didn't even set a high bar!
I admit that I liked the climax involving the shrine for Pamela Voorhees. That psycho stuff made the ending a bit creepy. But that's the only thing I really liked about the film. Otherwise, it's an empty shell of a slasher.
"I don't wanna scare anyone, but I'm gonna give it to you straight about Jason."
Slashers aren't really my thing, but they're very easy to get through. So far, the Friday the 13th series is the easiest. It's simple and monotonous, and it doesn't require too much mental energy for one reason: the series is mostly braindead. The first film was pretty much just a bunch of killings with an exciting ending, and Two is barely any different.
Five years after the events of the first film, another group of counselors is hoping to open up a school for them at Camp Crystal Lake. Even though they hope to erase the memory of the past and make the camp a great place for kids again, the legend of the "dead" child Jason Voorhees lives on. Now, the torch has been passed from the psychotic mother Pamela to Jason himself, and all the murder weapons that go with it. And Jason is expected by the memory of his mother to seek revenge for her.
OK, I know sequelitis (as Rotten Tomatoes likes to call it, and so do I for that matter) is an incredibly contagious disease on the film industry. How is it contagious? Simple. The box office success worked once, so it can work again. Two is one of the worst examples of that. There's probably less of a story than before, the killings are much less scary because you know what's going to happen, and the acting is just as bad if not worse than the first film's cast. This film suffers from the same lack of originality that leads to the myth of sequels never being as good as the original, and the original didn't even set a high bar!
I admit that I liked the climax involving the shrine for Pamela Voorhees. That psycho stuff made the ending a bit creepy. But that's the only thing I really liked about the film. Otherwise, it's an empty shell of a slasher.