Friday the 13th, Part 2 DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

While the success of Friday the 13th came as a big shock to many, it was an almost equally big shock that the folks at Paramount wanted to actually make a sequel, almost right away, and a year after the first film out-grossed such classics as The Shining, Friday the 13th Part 2 hit theaters in 1981 and continued the evolution of the horror icon Jason Voorhes. As I said in my praise of the first film in that DVD review, it had been some time since I'd seen that film, and this one as well and, while it still is a very watchable flick, they get away with some stuff that modern audiences would never let fly.

First of all, they made no bones about keeping the formula for this one almost entirely intact. Pretty much the only difference is this story takes place five years after the first film, with a different camp that's on the other side of Crystal Lake and we actually get to see Jason, all growns up, with that famous sack over his head. Other than that, it's roughly identical to the first one. Oh sure, there are different actors who play characters with different names, but they're really all the same sorts of characters, with tiny little tweaks here and there. Here the female lead, Ginny Field (Amy Steel), is actually going out with the guy running the camp, Paul Holt (John Furey), but we still have the same sort of bunch we had the last time. We even have Walt Gorney back as Crazy Ralph, the demented townsman who keeps trying to warn everyone about the dreaded curse of Camp Crystal Lake, the first film's sole survivor, Adrienne King is back as Alice again in the film's prologue-esque opening and even Betsy Palmer once more as Pamela Voorhes . Not only do they insist on keeping the nearly-exact same formula here, but they even blatantly copy some of the signature moments from the first film. I know that the first film was a rip-off of Halloween, but just in the general premise. This film (especially since there are almost completely different filmmakers) is really, in many ways, just a rip off of the first, which kind of surprised me.

If the first and the second film would've been released in this time, I have no doubt this franchise would've been done for, because there's no way the fanboys would've stood for such a carbon copy of a film. However annoying that was to watch... it's still not too bad at all.

One thing they put a fresh spin on is the kills and we see a whole new batch of goodies that Jason Voorhes has in his killing arsenal. We get some great kills in this film and what they also tweaked with was the formula for Henry Manfredini's score as well. They didn't drastically change the music itself - in fact it's practically identical, but they really changed the way they actually used the music, which I thought was rather brilliant. The first film really took a unique approach to the music, which most horror films hadn't done, and in this film, they really turn it back on its ear and almost do it conventionally, sometimes. They really do mix it up a lot to keep the viewers guessing and on their toes and it was cool to see that sort of mind game being played with the audience through the music.

Of course, the biggest and best change was in showing Jason Voorhes as a full-grown killing machine, despite the logical arguments against how he's still alive after, you know, drowning as a boy. Still, we see the second stage of the evolution of Jason, as a grown man with this crude burlap sack sort-of thing with an eyehole punched out. While I wished they would've added a more original spin on this instead of just copying the first, the best thing they copied was how they built tension and suspense, something that these new filmmakers learned well from Sean S. Cunningham and Victor Miller, who didn't return because of said logical problems of Jason being, you know, dead. Since Jason wasn't fully grown until the second, and he didn't have the mask until the third, it's kind of interesting to think what the original film's impact would've been, had this sequel not been made. While Ron Kurz's script isn't the best in terms of originality, director Steve Miner came into his own as a director and while the story was the same, this film seemed to flow more smoothly than the first. It's just all part of this kooky evolution of this series, I guess.

While there are glaring problems I had with this film, it is a necessary cog in the franchise since it brings Jason one step further to the Jason that has become the pop culture phenomena it is today. With a new set of filmmakers - and kills - this film helped the franchise become what it is today.

We don't get as much as we do in the first Deluxe Edition disc, but there's a solid amount. First up is Inside "Crystal Lake Memories" and this is kind of weird. It's basically an interview conducted by some guy who owns a horror shop of some sort in Burbank and he's interviewing Peter Bracke, who wrote the book "Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th." I mean, sure there are some interesting nuggets from this guy who started out as a fan before writing this book and now is an expert on the whole series, but it seems pretty random - this guy who owns a horror shop in Burbank interviewing an author of a book about this movie series. It's worth a look for the info he gives on alternate endings, MPAA backlash and other things, though it is kind of weird since we don't really know who any of these people are.

Friday's Legacy: Horror Conventions is next, and they don't mean conventions as in commonalities, they mean conventions like Comic-Con-like conventions. We get some stuff from people on the convention floor at ScareFest, one of these horror conventions, and we talk with people from the films like Harry Manfredini, Tom Savini, Ari Lehman, Betsy Palmer and Victor Miller. It's a nice little six-minute feature they have on this ScareFest convention and, I'm not sure where it's at or when they hold it, but if you're a fan of this film series and genre, it seems like it would be worth checking out.

Lost Tales from Camp Blood - Part 2 is next and, if you saw the first little short, this one picks up right where the first one left off, with another young couple trying to get a hold of the last film's young couple (guess what happened to them...) and, since their car had broke down, they decided to walk to the camp. It's another eight-minute short flick that is pretty average. I'm not sure where they plan on going with this series, since it doesn't seem there are any features on the Part 3 disc, but we shall see.

The only other feature here, besides the Original Theatrical Trailer, is Jason Forever, which is a little video from 2004 featuring four of the actors who played Jason Voorhes on the same panel at a Fangoria Convention in New Jersey. The panel is moderated by the author from the first featurette and the stars of the panel are Ari Lehman from the first, Warrington Gillette from the second one, C.J. Graham from part six and, of course, Kane Hodder, the only man to play Jason more than once, from parts seven through 10. What's weird is we kind of cut between the panel and these individual interview spots. We have Lehman trying to pimp his new music project in his, which is kind of lame, and a cool bit from C.J. Graham talking about how he'd like one of his kids to play Jason in the future. We also get some pretty good questions from the fans and some interesting stories come out of these knowledgeable fans. It's a little too long at about 28 minutes and I don't know that we needed all the individual stuff, because the stuff from the panel is much better, but this is still well worth watching for any true Jason fan.

The film is presented in the widescreen format, enhanced for 16x9 widescreen televisions.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound format.

They kept all three of these Deluxe Editions pretty much the same, but changed them up slightly. There is the slipcover with the motion thing, like the first film, but this time Jason is holding an axe instead of a knife... and, well, it says "Part 2" instead of "Uncut." The back has this "2x the fear... 2x the carnage... 2x the terror!" thing (which isn't really true) and we get some random pics from the flick along with a small special features box, along with the synopsis, billing block and tech specs just like the last one is formatted. Since I can see them trying to package all these together, it makes sense to do it like this.

Friday the 13th Part 2 keeps the saga of Jason Voorhes alive and well and there are several entertaining parts in the flick. I just wish they wouldn't have blatantly stole from the first film as much as they did.