May 1 1981
The Body Count Continues...
It honestly wasn’t a surprise when teaser posters, bearing that tagline (and a roman numeral II), began to rear their heads in theaters throughout the spring of 1981.
The previous summer, the original Friday The 13th had made mincemeat of its cinematic competitors. And for a film that had been ushered off of the big screen in both theaters and drive-ins before pumpkins could be carved that fall, the buzz surrounding the film hadn’t seemed to die until sometime in early winter.
In one of my more goofy moments, I can remember being inspired by the original and finishing Thanksgiving dinner to lock myself away to work on my own slasher screenplay. The fact that I had a psychotic dressed as a Pilgrim shouldn’t blemish your own Turkey day festivities, any time too soon.
The thing which is so monumental about Friday The 13th hanging on past its play-dates was that this was before cable television dominated the land. Aside from areas that were hooked into the then major invention, most areas still relied on three or four channels of prime time “entertainment”. The best one could do, if they hadn’t seen a film in the theater or wanted to refresh their memory, was hope that it was shown as NBC’s “Movie of the Week”; something which Friday The 13th was never destined to be.
Even if you owned a VCR in 1980, a time when the machines were roughly the size of small dinosaurs and came equipped with remote controls that were hooked into it via Christmas light wires, there was still a considerable amount of time before the film would ever hit the home medium. By today’s standards, when a film will finish its theatrical run and appear on DVD within 3 or 4 months, the wait in 1980 could possibly take years.
However, even with one slasher hit on their hands, Paramount released the sequel amongst a low-key buzz. I honestly can’t remember anyone (aside from the local die-hard horror fans) being excited for a continuation. That possibly stems back to Friday The 13th being its on undoing.
In 1981, it already seemed as if a new slasher was debuting each Friday at the local theater. And since each was modeled after Halloween and the original film (holiday settings surrounding one big kill scene); Friday The 13th Part 2 was simply considered “just another” slasher film. Unfortunately, it seemed to get lost during the shuffle.
Oh, there’s no doubt that the teaser posters had slasher fans dehydrated with blood thirst, and that the new numbered trailer (counting down potential victims) generated plenty of excited conversations surrounding the sequel, but it’s that Friday The 13th Part 2 never seemed to rise to the lofty heights of the original. Be it either from originality or box office, Part 2 simply seemed to come-and-go.
Needless to say, though Friday The 13th Part 2 arrived amidst a glut of other slasher fare, it still managed to hold its own. Its opening night was packed, and by the end of its run had managed to kill nearly $22-million at the box-office.
Shirley, who had accompanied me to the first film, stayed home for this one. So I was left to go by my lonesome. However, on opening night, it was a packed house. The audience was buzzing with the anticipation of blood-letting. And why wouldn’t they be after what they’d seen in the original? And though they didn’t get their money’s worth when it came to the red stuff (courtesy of the MPAA and Tom Savini opting to work on The Burning), they still had a good time. The theater rocked with laughter and screams at all the opportune times.
Now I need to take a moment and address individual fan reactions to certain scenes within the film:
For pure sexuality, Kirsten (“We’ve got bush!”) Baker stole the show as Terri. Her first scene, where she’s shot in the butt with a rock, definitely brought the cat-calls. So you can imagine how well the male audience reacted to her naked dip into Crystal Lake.
Stuart Charno, who performed as comical character Ted, was upstaged by Marta Kober’s Sandra. Her scene of spraying perfume into her panties brought the house down. And when she looks for her wheelchair bound partner, Mark, by going upstairs, brought audience members to yelling at the screen for how stupid she seemed to be acting.
And since it’s a Friday The 13th film, you know there had to be a centerpiece death. I can imagine that Jeff and Vicky’s shish-ka-bob act would have been more effective if not for an overactive MPAA, so Mark, who would end up with a machete in his face, brought the terrified screams.
One has to remember while speaking of “terrified” audience members that Jason wasn’t yet an “anti-hero”. There was actually a time when Friday The 13th would scare people. And Part 2 lived up to its expectations. Whether it was Alice discovering the decapitated head of Mrs. Voorhees in her refrigerator or Jason jumping through the window at the end, audiences were actually scared. And it’s a reaction that I’ve long missed.
A question I’ve been asked many times is that of “Did audiences know that Jason was going to be the killer?” For many, I honestly don’t think they gave a damn. There was going to be thrills and blood spills, so it didn’t matter. But to hardcore horror fans, it was obvious. Information was readily available (in that long ago time before the internet) that “Country Bumpkin” was behind the murders.
Now, the same question was of “What happened to Paul?” was asked then as it is now by perplexed fans. It didn’t have the convenience store crowds buzzing, but it was asked as audiences filed out of the theater.
Even Famous Monsters of Filmland, the bastion of horror magazines before Fangoria took over its mantle, was asking the same question. And another interesting bit about FMoF was that they ran a slew of B&W photos of Warrington Gillette undergoing his make-up transformation into Country Bumpkin. This, of course, was before the heavy-handed “Gillette vs. Dash” debate over who played Jason.
I also caught the film on its opening night at the local drive-in. I can still remember those fluorescent lights illuminating the opening to the Starlight Drive-In. The film was on a double-bill with Kingdom Of The Spiders (how they were paired together is beyond me).
One interesting tidbit about the drive-in was that at the concession stand they had a woman lying in a wooden box. While she would lie there, she’d smile at you. Of course, the fact that she was covered in snakes was an added bonus.
Unfortunately, the event ended in a torrential downpour that drowned the film. I can still remember my late grandmother saying that we “weren’t missing anything”. And yes, this is the same grandmother that I took to see The Shining and ended up having me sink into my seat with embarrassment at the naked woman coming out of the bathtub.
I can also remember the debut of the film on HBO. This was before Rated R movies would play in the daytime on pay channels, and it first appeared on a Friday night. I was on a family vacation in Florida. Somehow, instead of being on a moonlight walk on the beach, I and the wife were holed up in our hotel room watching the movie. The memory of her sneered nose as Sandra sprayed her crotch with perfume is still fresh in my mind. Unfortunately, I have to admit that my wife isn’t a fan of Friday The 13th or any slasher film. She’ll watch them, but only accompanied by disdainful comments. And I love this woman? Strange things happen…
What wasn’t strange was that Friday The 13th Part 2 made money, and that its fan-base had grown. And Paramount was ready to respond.
As Forest Ackerman would write in FMoF, the coffin-lid was open for Part 3...
Written by Trever Palmer
The Body Count Continues...
It honestly wasn’t a surprise when teaser posters, bearing that tagline (and a roman numeral II), began to rear their heads in theaters throughout the spring of 1981.
The previous summer, the original Friday The 13th had made mincemeat of its cinematic competitors. And for a film that had been ushered off of the big screen in both theaters and drive-ins before pumpkins could be carved that fall, the buzz surrounding the film hadn’t seemed to die until sometime in early winter.
In one of my more goofy moments, I can remember being inspired by the original and finishing Thanksgiving dinner to lock myself away to work on my own slasher screenplay. The fact that I had a psychotic dressed as a Pilgrim shouldn’t blemish your own Turkey day festivities, any time too soon.
The thing which is so monumental about Friday The 13th hanging on past its play-dates was that this was before cable television dominated the land. Aside from areas that were hooked into the then major invention, most areas still relied on three or four channels of prime time “entertainment”. The best one could do, if they hadn’t seen a film in the theater or wanted to refresh their memory, was hope that it was shown as NBC’s “Movie of the Week”; something which Friday The 13th was never destined to be.
Even if you owned a VCR in 1980, a time when the machines were roughly the size of small dinosaurs and came equipped with remote controls that were hooked into it via Christmas light wires, there was still a considerable amount of time before the film would ever hit the home medium. By today’s standards, when a film will finish its theatrical run and appear on DVD within 3 or 4 months, the wait in 1980 could possibly take years.
However, even with one slasher hit on their hands, Paramount released the sequel amongst a low-key buzz. I honestly can’t remember anyone (aside from the local die-hard horror fans) being excited for a continuation. That possibly stems back to Friday The 13th being its on undoing.
In 1981, it already seemed as if a new slasher was debuting each Friday at the local theater. And since each was modeled after Halloween and the original film (holiday settings surrounding one big kill scene); Friday The 13th Part 2 was simply considered “just another” slasher film. Unfortunately, it seemed to get lost during the shuffle.
Oh, there’s no doubt that the teaser posters had slasher fans dehydrated with blood thirst, and that the new numbered trailer (counting down potential victims) generated plenty of excited conversations surrounding the sequel, but it’s that Friday The 13th Part 2 never seemed to rise to the lofty heights of the original. Be it either from originality or box office, Part 2 simply seemed to come-and-go.
Needless to say, though Friday The 13th Part 2 arrived amidst a glut of other slasher fare, it still managed to hold its own. Its opening night was packed, and by the end of its run had managed to kill nearly $22-million at the box-office. Shirley, who had accompanied me to the first film, stayed home for this one. So I was left to go by my lonesome. However, on opening night, it was a packed house. The audience was buzzing with the anticipation of blood-letting. And why wouldn’t they be after what they’d seen in the original? And though they didn’t get their money’s worth when it came to the red stuff (courtesy of the MPAA and Tom Savini opting to work on The Burning), they still had a good time. The theater rocked with laughter and screams at all the opportune times.
Now I need to take a moment and address individual fan reactions to certain scenes within the film:
For pure sexuality, Kirsten (“We’ve got bush!”) Baker stole the show as Terri. Her first scene, where she’s shot in the butt with a rock, definitely brought the cat-calls. So you can imagine how well the male audience reacted to her naked dip into Crystal Lake.
Stuart Charno, who performed as comical character Ted, was upstaged by Marta Kober’s Sandra. Her scene of spraying perfume into her panties brought the house down. And when she looks for her wheelchair bound partner, Mark, by going upstairs, brought audience members to yelling at the screen for how stupid she seemed to be acting.
And since it’s a Friday The 13th film, you know there had to be a centerpiece death. I can imagine that Jeff and Vicky’s shish-ka-bob act would have been more effective if not for an overactive MPAA, so Mark, who would end up with a machete in his face, brought the terrified screams.
One has to remember while speaking of “terrified” audience members that Jason wasn’t yet an “anti-hero”. There was actually a time when Friday The 13th would scare people. And Part 2 lived up to its expectations. Whether it was Alice discovering the decapitated head of Mrs. Voorhees in her refrigerator or Jason jumping through the window at the end, audiences were actually scared. And it’s a reaction that I’ve long missed.
A question I’ve been asked many times is that of “Did audiences know that Jason was going to be the killer?” For many, I honestly don’t think they gave a damn. There was going to be thrills and blood spills, so it didn’t matter. But to hardcore horror fans, it was obvious. Information was readily available (in that long ago time before the internet) that “Country Bumpkin” was behind the murders.
Now, the same question was of “What happened to Paul?” was asked then as it is now by perplexed fans. It didn’t have the convenience store crowds buzzing, but it was asked as audiences filed out of the theater.
Even Famous Monsters of Filmland, the bastion of horror magazines before Fangoria took over its mantle, was asking the same question. And another interesting bit about FMoF was that they ran a slew of B&W photos of Warrington Gillette undergoing his make-up transformation into Country Bumpkin. This, of course, was before the heavy-handed “Gillette vs. Dash” debate over who played Jason.
I also caught the film on its opening night at the local drive-in. I can still remember those fluorescent lights illuminating the opening to the Starlight Drive-In. The film was on a double-bill with Kingdom Of The Spiders (how they were paired together is beyond me).
One interesting tidbit about the drive-in was that at the concession stand they had a woman lying in a wooden box. While she would lie there, she’d smile at you. Of course, the fact that she was covered in snakes was an added bonus.
Unfortunately, the event ended in a torrential downpour that drowned the film. I can still remember my late grandmother saying that we “weren’t missing anything”. And yes, this is the same grandmother that I took to see The Shining and ended up having me sink into my seat with embarrassment at the naked woman coming out of the bathtub.
I can also remember the debut of the film on HBO. This was before Rated R movies would play in the daytime on pay channels, and it first appeared on a Friday night. I was on a family vacation in Florida. Somehow, instead of being on a moonlight walk on the beach, I and the wife were holed up in our hotel room watching the movie. The memory of her sneered nose as Sandra sprayed her crotch with perfume is still fresh in my mind. Unfortunately, I have to admit that my wife isn’t a fan of Friday The 13th or any slasher film. She’ll watch them, but only accompanied by disdainful comments. And I love this woman? Strange things happen…
What wasn’t strange was that Friday The 13th Part 2 made money, and that its fan-base had grown. And Paramount was ready to respond.
As Forest Ackerman would write in FMoF, the coffin-lid was open for Part 3...
Written by Trever Palmer
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