After the first film did gangbusters at the boxoffice, it was only a matter of time before a sequel to 'Friday the 13th' made its way up to the big screen. And basically? this is simultaineously probably one of the laziest sequels in the mainstream slasher genre, and one of the most defining.
Because 'Friday the 13th Part 2' is basically just a tightened up rerun of the first movie, only insteady of Mrs. Vorhees being the killer, this time, it's Jason...who appears to be going through his 'Hillbilly Elephant Man' era. Sporting dungarees, a checkered shirt and a flour sack over his head for most of the runtime.
The plots exactly the same as last time, out of town kids breeze into town to take on a summer camp job at a camp NEXT to 'Camp Crystal Lake', Crazy Ralph warns them not to go to Crystal lake and to leave town as quickly as possible. He's ignored. cue goofing around at the new camp, and shenanigans. But when some of the teens do stray away to go and see why 'Crystal Lake' is off limits, they accidentally draw the attention of Jason who finds his way over to the new camp and killings galore happen again.
And, like I mentioned above, this things basically just a rerun of the first 'Friday the 13th' but in some ways its a bit tighter than the previous film and in some ways its a bit poorer.
The scripts more or less a rerun, but it's 10 minutes shorter (which automatically makes it better) the characters are much more charismatic and interesting, which only helps make the endless scenes of them running around and causing mischief more engaging. The pacings a little quicker than the previous entry and we're slowly losing that 'Whodunnit!?' aspect of the series in favour of folk tales and more slasher oriented fodder. Which I quite liked.
The kills are a bit more subdued this time around compared to the last one, which is a bit of a shame, im led to believe a good chunk of the kills ended up on the cutting room floor due to MPAA restrictions (they were recently recovered on a VHS tape and feature on Scream factories 'Friday the 13th' bluray set)
Most critically though, theres no ambiguity over who the killer is in this film, last time the film basically misled the audience by using a male body double in place of Betsy Palmer. making her reveal as the killer feel like a bit of a cheat. Here, it's all Jason, through and through, which at least means it doesnt feel quite as meandering, and it helps keep the rewatch value up!
The direction and cine are pretty much on a par with the last entry, maybe just a smidge above the 'studio grade' average you'd expect of a Paramount production, it's to standard and does get a little creative here and there which is nice. But theres nothing here that particularly blew me away and for the most part I just kind of got on with whatever it was trying to do, it does put more focus on trying to make the cabin and night shots look a bit more interesting with more use of blue lighting and yellow lighting for the cabin sequences. But this isnt a particularly stylish affair...really something a bit more utilitarian.
The performances have shifted slightly, the previous entry seemed to want to try and capture a real and more naturalistic side to the campers, here they're much more filmic in tone, a little obnoxious, a little overly jokey, they have knowledge that normal people wouldnt typically possess letalone actively use. These are people who, in the real world, would have got bopped in the face MULTIPLE times before the thing had even got to the second act. But in the 'film universe' they're the standard, so they're tolerated.
They're animated across the runtime, they really do help bring the film up a bit in terms of quality, they're a tad annoying, but you show me a slasher with sincere and genuine character models and i'll show you a green dog.
Throw in a return of the wonderful Harry Manfredini scoring, now with a couple of new tracks helping to shore things up, and 'Friday the 13th part 2' is basically just a '2.0' redux of the original. They looked at what didnt quite work in the first one, tightened it up, tried a couple new things which I feel worked more than they didnt...and the end result is the basic template not only for how the rest of this franchise will run for the next 27 years, but it'll basically chart the blueprint for most of the contemporary slashers of this era.
Do you need to watch this one? Well...if anything I'd recommend starting with this one over the original. All the essential notes needed to understand whats going on from the first film are shown in a quick recap sequence at the very beginning of this film (which is notable as they only show footage from the last 10 minutes of the original...mainly because bugger all else happens in the first one) and this one basically manages to do everything the first film does WAY better. PLUS this film is referenced in parts 3 and 4 and some later entries...So i'd say if you wanna do an F13 marathon, you could save yourself 95 minutes and just start with this one. Its worth watching at least once.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/friday-the-13th-part-2/
No comments:
Post a Comment