AWSUM MOVIES: Friday The 13th Part IV: Jason Lives

AWSUM MOVIES:

Why 

Friday The 13^th Part IV: Jason Lives

is the most awsum slasher-movie ever made

I wasn’t really into slasher movies but my elder brother was. As kids, we would watch everything from Last house on the left to James Whales Frankenstein and usually I was hiding under the sofa, (the type with legs). And so at the tender age of 12, (and too big to fit under the sofa anymore)  I was properly initiated into the slasher realm, when my brother hired out a VHS copy of Friday The 13^th Part IV: Jason Lives. 

I had never seen a Friday the 13^th movie before and it didn’t disappoint. I was hooked from the get-go. I thought (and still do) that Jason Lives is the most awsum slasher-movie ever made. 

And heres why: 

WIDER APPEAL 

Since its release way back in 1986,  I've come to realise that Jason Lives appealed to a wider audience-   even my mother liked it, so there you go. Its the type of movie you could show your partner and maybe he/she/it,  wont think you're such a weirdo. 

Its this wider appeal aspect that makes this the quintessential Jason movie. Its the one that established him as a zombie-serial-killer but more importantly did it for laughs. Still, hard-core fans of the first five movies hated it because of that humour. I guess they just wanted more of the various hot chicks getting their kit off in showers type shit, while their boyfriends got (un)-ceremoniously butchered in the basement. But that formula was getting OLD and the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise was already way ahead of the curve, by introducing humour and thus widening its appeal. A trend set (but overlooked by) An American Werewolf in London made in 1981, which has since been misconstrued as a black comedy, which its anything but. 

Thus the humour of  Part IV, put this entry in a league of its own. Director Tom McLoughlin was given free reign on his film and (after watching the previous entries), he felt they were lacking a balance between the humour and the horror (and blatantly trying to cash-in on Halloween) and so he set out to correct all that with Jason Lives. Its also the only Camp Chrystal Lake entry to actually feature the controversial idea of KIDS ACTUALLY CAMPING !? Yes thats right, you heard me, KIDS: boyscouts, girl guides, call them what you will. ACTUAL KIDS CAMPING, at Camp Chrystal Lake. 

I shit you not. I mean the whole enchilada. Out with the old boring soft-porn and in with the horrified camp stewards trying to placate a group of unruly children, in the absence of their camp councillor bosses, slain by Jason, the night before. GENIUS. 

McLoughlin was also concerned about all the copy-cat killers out there (he felt anyone can pick up a machete or an axe) and so he made all the death scenes in this film totally outrageous. What also sets this film apart is the whole getting away from the soft porn angle. Up until then, the entire series was pretty much about a bunch of teens having sex and getting picked off one by one until Jason is defeated by the final girl, who of course is a virgin. So the rule book is thrown out in Jason Lives: We get Jason's awsum resurrection by lightening, the fantastic paintball scene, great car chases, hilarious kills, actual kids, humour, great stunts, memorable characters and the sound-track features Alice Cooper. So whats not to like ?? 

QUESTIONABLE PREQUELS

It was only inevitable that I watched its precursors. All five of em: I looked forward to seeing them, figuring that they would be as good as Jason Lives. Boy was I wrong! It took some adjustment to realise that Jason Lives was simply a fluke in the larger scheme of things. After all, Jason wasn’t even in the first movie and in the second he was a deformed mongoloid with a sugar sack on his head.  I found it hard to get into these first two pictures. They were of a different time, just slow and flat and A-typical of generic slasher films riding on the waves of the Halloween tsunami. 

I also started to realise how generic the formula was, despite we already know what Jason looks like now, each sequel would reset itself and start all over again with the non reveal of Jason, typified by feet shots, POV shots etc. My interest began to peak with part three, when we finally get to see the iconic hockey mask and part 4 (The Final Chapter) was actually pretty good. I attribute this to the work by Tom Savini, who had worked on George Romero's Zombie movies. 

Friday the 13th Part 4:  The Final Chapter - almost as good as Jason Lives. 

But all in all the process by which Jason Lives came about was via five sequels, which paled in comparison. Part Five was the most painful of all. Again Jason wasn’t even in it. Technically Jason lives is actually part Four. And you could even lump it as a Hockey Mask trilogy, if you put parts three, four and six together in a DVD box set.

SEQUEL HELL

Disappointed by its previous counterparts, I was hoping the next Jason instalment would be even better. Enter The New Blood. And…oh… hmmm. It was hard to put my finger on why it wasn’t as good as Jason Lives. Jason looked pretty kool (his make-up was even better than in Jason Lives) but for some reason, the whole film seemed flat, like it was missing some vital ingredient. It had everything going for it, yet the film was just somehow…flat, two dimensional. 

I quickly realised that it was simply following (YET AGAIN) the boring so-so slasher template set up by the first five films and lacked any fun. 

Still, its worth watching for the whole Carrie type showdown with Tina but the MPAA board of censors cut it to shreds. Even so, part 7 lacks the vital humour of Jason Lives. Subsequent sequels, Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason X etc didnt fare much better and so my interest in Jason movies waned but Part Six still has a place in my heart. 

COMEDY VS TRAGEDY

And so its obvious that Part Six is remembered by most as one of the best of the series, mainly because it didn’t take itself too seriously, where as every other sequel maintained a rather serious, flat one-trick-pony approach: consisting of generic couples having sex, hearing a strange noise, being separated and killed off in shock horror moments of inventiveness. 

Certainly, these inventive deaths were the pulling power of the series but for my money, Jason Lives topped the lot for its inventive gags. Its slapstick-horror still holds up, even today. Where as its contemporary’s failed miserably and look dated. That’s not to say they are bad films but they certainly lack all the ingredients that made Jason Lives a classic. 

No sequel since has equalled it and a lot of that goes down to the directive prowess of Tom McLoughlin. Famous of all things for playing the black sentry robot STAR in Disney’s The Black Hole!

But I digress.

LICENCE TO KILL 

Gags are prevalent throughout Jason Lives: The paint-ball scene is a good example of this, where several meek office workers play soldiers in the forests near Chrystal Lake, only to be slain by Jason in various humorous ways.  The three head capitation scene however, was severely censored by our good ole pals the MPAA. 

Also the camper van scene is great, where Jason rams a teenagers face into the aluminium wall, making a perfect indent of her face, like a Wylie Coyote  cartoon. This effect was achieved by using a rubber membrane, over a tank of water and the actors face pushing through. 

Gags like this, remind us that Jason Lives is almost a parody of the tired formulaic ideas of the slasher genre itself.  This can be clearly recognised by the James Bond style gun barrel intro, where Jason walks on and slashes the screen! Fantastic! 

 

A NEW DIRECTION: ZOMBIE JASON

As a stand alone film, without any knowledge of the previous sequels, Jason Lives holds itself together pretty well. It is also the first time we see the main character develop, as Jason returns for the first time as an unstoppable zombie. Another thumbs up for McLoughlin, who had learned the lessons of the previous instalment (A New Beginning) which attempted to have another serial killer merely imitating Jason. A bad idea in anyone’s book. 

Not taking heed from the mistakes made in Halloween III (where Michael Myers is also totally absent) the producers of part five didn’t seem to think the plot twist of no Jason would be a problem. But having a Jason movie without Jason is like having a Freddy Kruger Movie without Freddy or a Herby movie without Herby. It becomes an anthology series riding on the success of the goose laying golden eggs, it has just killed.

So obviously if the next instalment was to work at all, it would have to (somehow) bring Jason back from the dead and thus McLoughlin made his genius gamble with the Jason Zombie Frankenstein Monster idea, which ultimately paid off, making his Friday instalment the best of the series so far and raising the credibility of the franchise. Since then, Jason has been regarded as the terminator of all zombies. But never again would the series touch upon the humour enthused gags that made this instalment, a slasher film classic.

A BREED APART 

It is this balance between comedy and tragedy, that makes this film memorable.  For one movie at least, it broke away from just being another stale Halloween imitation. Here was a fresh approach, which was fun and injected new life into the franchise, struggling to compete with Freddy Kruger.  

If only the network had signed Tom McLoughlin up to do a few more Jason movies. Why he was not, is in my opinion a major problem with the subsequent sequels, who’s various porn-directors all tried to put their own stamp on the franchise, only muddying the waters further. Leaving us, (the audience) rather dismayed at the rather messy lore that followed Jason Lives, all reverting to a more serious tone which ultimately fell flat on its ass. The only thing going for them was Kane Hodder as Jason but that was it. 

Imagine part Seven: The New Blood directed by Tom McLoughlin. – it would have been a hoot. Or part Eight: Jason Takes Manhattan (it might have even featured Jason actually in Manhattan!).  And part nine and ten would have been amazing. Alas it was never to be.

However, there are rumours in the pipeline that McLoughlin will be returning to the franchise to make one more Jason movie! So lets just hope that happens and the humour that made Jason Lives a success returns to the series.