I'm sure this forum has seen countless Friday the 13th threads but as a life long horror monster fan who had somehow avoided them until this point I feel entitled to make the most of this discussion
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I have always been a fan of classic monster movies mainly - Universal Monsters and Godzilla have been my thing since childhood. As I got older I drifted in to some of the more modern horror classics - I love Evil Dead, Alien, things by John Carpenter etc.
Somehow, not intentionally but maybe just naturally, I never got to in to "slashers". I love the original Halloween and the Zombie remake, had seen Freddy vs Jason, and the first Nightmare on Elm...but I have always remained very much on the surface.
So to cut to the chase, in the last few days I have had a Friday the 13th marathon. It couldn't have worked out better - I have had an inclination to go through them and the Nightmare on Elm series for a minute now and by luck or fate - WHAM - almost all the Friday the 13ths are on Netflix streaming now.
As of this writing I've watched 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and am watching 7 as I type this. (5 is inexplicably missing from Netflix).
General impression first: I've enjoyed the series. While never being blown away, or even really impressed, with any one of the movies I have had fun with my marathon and have effortlessly watched them for hours on end in the way a lot of people do with TV shows now. I can really empathize and understand how fun (and racy and fresh) these must have been seeing them in theaters back in the eighties.
By movie breakdown:
I think 1 stands the best in the vintage horror charm department. I don't even really know why - these were released one year after another so it's not like time is much of a factor. But the first one just has more of a vintage charm.
I didn't particularly like 2. It was okay, and got better towards the end, but it just felt generic to me - not aided at all of course by the generic (lame) Jason.
I really liked 3. I think it might be the scariest. I at least found it to be the most well done. The characters were a little more fleshed out and it was very self aware - and this was more than a decade before Wes Craven's Scream. Plus there are some great creepy shots of Jason (especially in chase scenes). To me it best towed the line between campy and horror.
I really didn't like 4. At all. Maybe I was just growing weary in my marathon that day but I just found it plain and boring. It definitely didn't have that classic horror element that 3 had. And I'm sorry, I know it's a big part of the mythology, but I really hated the ending.
By contrast 6 might be my favorite. I know this is when the series jumps the shark but that's kind of what I came to Friday the 13th for - absurd iconic horror. While not as good of a movie as 3 by any means, I thought 6 was just the most fun.
I'm about halfway through 7 now and it's turning out better than I expected. I was really pessimistic in the beginning, and still don't care for the psychic stuff at all, but it's mostly straight up Jason rampage. It seems to take itself a lot more seriously than 6.
I'll probably post impressions of the last few as I get through them.
Thoughts? What are your favorites? What is the general consensus?
