Friday 13th Series (1980 - 1993)

This is an overview of the classic Friday 13th films and not the 1987 TV series.

On Friday 13th of May 2011, myself and some friends decided to have a marathon session through the classic slasher movies of the same name.
I hadn't watched any of these films before and the plan was to watch 9 films in total.

These films are based around a character called Jason Voorhees who drowned as a boy at Camp Crystal Lake. This was due to the so called negligence of the camp staff who were too busy enjoying some sexy time to watch the kids.

Years later, the lake is rumored to be "cursed" due to his untimely death and is the setting for a series of mass slayings, in numerous creative ways.

Jason is featured in all of the films, as either the killer or the motivation for the killings.

As with all classic slashers, each one features a bunch of teens with short life spans, lots of nudity and those stupid twats who think its a good idea to investigate that sound in the dark, alone and with no weapons.

We managed to make it through 7 of the 9 films planned. I must say films 1, 4, and 5 were my favourites. The first is a classic and parts 4 and 5 are, in my opinion, when the series was at it's best. Everything afterwards starts to become a bit old, stale and increasingly far-fetched.

It is difficult to review a whole series of films without mentioning any spoilers, but there is fun to be had later on in the series when trying to work out if the killer is actually still Jason or somebody else. Also, Some of the death scenes are repeated throughout the series, as a sort of trademark. For example, throwing a dead body through a window to scare those inside and the grisly killing that befalls a certain famous face in part 1.

Because of the themes and occurrences running through the entire series, we managed to enhance the session with a little drinking game!
Some rules were as follows:
Drink whenever you hear Jason's 'ch-ch-ch' theme music.
Drink whenever anyone died.

Drink once for every nipple on show.
Down your drink if there is full frontal nakedness (luckily this doesn't happen very often!).

Drink whenever Jason goes through a door without opening it.
and everyone picks a way to die (i picked decapitation) and if someone is killed in your chosen method, everyone else takes a drink.

Overall this was the perfect way to spend Friday the 13th and, I think, the best way to be introduced to Jason and his machete. These are not intelligent films that demand a lot of concentration and therefore are great to watch with like-minded friends, snacks and drinks.

Friday 13th was remade in 2009. I will watch it eventually, but am not going to rush as most remakes have been great dissapointments. I would, however, love to be proved wrong!

Decapitations and kisses
Madame Deggly Bones X