Movie Review: Friday the 13th Part 2

Stars: 2 out of 5

Pros: The climatic chase scene and battle are good

Cons: Everything else before we get there

The Bottom Line:

Jason joins franchise

Despite fame of the series

This movie is weak

Even by Slasher Standards This Sequel Struggles

Hollywood has always been good at churning out sequels to hits, the sooner and faster the better.  And slashers don’t require that much thought since the plot is essentially the same for each one – a killer stalking a bunch of unaware teens or young adults and killing them.  Even by those low standards, Friday the 13^th Part 2 struggles.

After an opening scene that takes place a few months after the conclusion of the original, the action moves forward five years to summer as a group is trying to open a camp.  No, they aren’t opening up Camp Crystal Lake.  They are actually opening the camp next door, with Camp Crystal Lake being strictly off limits.  Not that that is going to keep them safe as someone is stalking them.  Who will survive?

As most fans of the genre know, this is the movie that introduces Jason, the unstoppable killing machine.  The logical part of my brain struggles with that since his death is what set up the original movie.  And yet, somehow, I don’t have that same issue when he is brought back to life for countless sequels or sent into space.  Yeah, go figure.  I guess by that point in the franchise, I know it’s ludicrous, but here I’m still trying to make things logical.

Yes, if you’ve seen the first, you very much know what to expect here.  We’ve got a bunch of camp counselors who eventually get killed.  It’s a slasher.  As I said, plot twists aren’t the biggest part of the franchise.  But, once again, I find this movie frustrating.  We don’t really get to know any of the characters but the final girl.  The rest are just cannon fodder, and the script knows it.  That makes the first half, when we are supposed to be getting to know them, rather boring.  The second half, when the majority of the killing takes place, is really just a bunch of jump scares.  The only good stalking scene is the climax.  And that’s a wonderful scene.  I’m trying to figure out why it bothers me more here than in other slashers.  I think that, while Halloween has quite a few jump scares, some of them are fake, so the tension builds.  Here’s there’s really no tension except for that minute or two before someone dies.

Having said that, this movie does have a couple memorable kills in the franchise.

I already talked a bit about the thin characters, but it’s certainly an issue for us.  I blame both the writing and the acting.  There’s a reason you haven’t heard of most of the cast of this movie.  The acting is pretty bad.  On the other hand, some of the dialogue the actors are given is so cheesy, it’s hard to tell if it is their delivery or the lines that are the issue.

The climax is a good, and they actually set up parts of it early.  It also helps that the actress playing the final girl is one of the better actresses in the cast.

Clearly, I’m not a fan of this franchise in general, and rewatching the first two movies reminded me why.  Friday the 13^th is definitely one of the better known slasher franchises, but that’s the only reason to think about watching Part 2.