Source: Friday The 13th Wiki
In honor of Friday The 13th I offer this overview of the infamous film series:
Friday The 13th: A sleeper hit made on a shoestring budget this little horror film is one of the most well-known examples of the slasher genre. Years after a camper named Jason Vorhees drowned while two counselors were having sex a group of young people get together to reopen Camp Crystal Lake. One by one they’re murdered by a mysterious figure. While an undead and supernaturally powerful Jason would be the central figure in the sequels the first film’s shocking twist is that the murderer turns out to be a coffee pot.
Friday The 13th, Part 2: A whole new group of young people return to reopen Camp Crystal Lake because so many parents are clamoring for the chance to send their children to the site of a series of gruesome murders. Jason Vorhees, now a bulked-up adult, wreaks havoc on the camp after being fired from his job as goalie for the Washington Capitals.
Friday The 13th, Part 3: A plucky group of young people ignore the warnings of a bizarre old man with two eyes in his head and a spare in his hand and decide to stay at Camp Crystal Lake, certain that nothing could possibly go wrong. Jason savagely murders each one. Approximately a third of the film’s runtime is taken up by Alice making coffee.
Friday The 13th, Part 4, The Final Chapter: Much lighter in tone the fourth installment focuses primarily on a love triangle between three plucky young people, Sam, Tina, and Paul. The film received special recognition at the Toronto Film Festival for its recreation of the scene from the 1947 romantic comedy Here’s Looking At You in which Katharine Hepburn harpoons Cary Grant in the groin.
Friday The 13th, Part 5, A New Beginning: While this installment brings back both Jason and survivor Tommy Jarvis from the previous film much of the plot is centered on a wayward but plucky group of young people who, as a community service project, are tasked with cleaning up Camp Crystal Lake, now renamed Crystal Lake Recreational Center And Memorial. Each one is murdered in a series of montages with music by The Bangles, A-Ha, Debbie Gibson, The Pet Shop Boys, Culture Club, Duran Duran, and John Cage.
Friday The 13th, Part 6, Jason Lives: Tommy Jarvis returns to Camp Crystal Lake, now renamed Camp Crystal Lake And Golf Course, and digs up Jason’s corpse under the thirteenth green. Jason is revived when lightning strikes a putter which fell into his grave. In the final battle Tommy sends Jason to the bottom of Crystal Lake by chaining an espresso machine around his neck.
Friday The 13th, Part 7, The New Blood: Troubled but plucky young Tina is traumatized the accidental death of her father at Crystal Lake, now renamed Club Med Crystal Lake. Years later she returns and her telekinetic powers revive Jason. When a group of young people have a party at the clubhouse Jason murders several of them before being confronted by the powerfully psychic Tina. She summons her father’s ghost who drags Jason into the depths of Crystal Lake.
Friday The 13th, Part 8, Jason Takes Manhattan: Together with pals Fozzie and Gonzo Jason falls in love with Miss Piggy and must save her from being framed for a series of high profile jewel thefts carried out by Kevin Bacon.
Friday The 13th, Part 9, Jason Goes To Hell: A bounty hunter discovers that only blood relatives of Jason can kill him permanently and arranges a Vorhees family reunion at Crystal Lake Shopping Plaza. Plucky young Jessica, Jason’s third cousin twice removed on his uncle’s side, stabs Jason with a magical dagger. In a tearful moment just before he’s pulled into the underworld Jason tells Jessica he loves her. She replies, “Ditto.”
Friday The 13th, Part 10, Jason Resurrected: Federal agents corner mass murderer and undead monster Jason at Six Flags Over Crystal Lake. Unable to kill him they cryogenically freeze his body. A thousand years later he’s discovered and revived and becomes an interplanetary delivery boy, having a series of wacky space-themed adventures.
Friday The 13th, Part 11, A Whole New Jason: Environmentalists set out to save Crystal Lake which is discovered to be the site of the largest oil deposit in North America. Jason leads the group, collecting signatures and developing strong ties to people in the community, whom he then kills. This is the only installment in the series based on a true story.
Friday The 13th, Part 12, Jason, Jason, Jason: A billionaire creates a theme park on Cystal Lake Island filled with cloned Jasons. A small group of scientists are invited to a preview of the new park but, when a disgruntled employee shuts down the electrified fencing that protects visitors from the Jasons, it’s up to a plucky young girl who’s an expert in Linux to save the day.
Friday The 13th, Part 13: The final installment pits Jason against Halloween’s Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare On Elm Street before forcing them to unite to stop the aliens from Predator who are unleashing the xenomorphs from Alien at Camp Crystal Lake, now renamed Time Warner Cable And AT&T Stadium. In the end they’re all destroyed in a final gigantic battle. The only survivor is a plucky young barista named Norman Bates.
This is fantastically hilarious! I don’t like slasher films but I would binge watch all of these because I’m plucky that way!
Since they really ended with the tenth Friday The 13th film I wish I had the resources to make the final three. And the eighth film really is called “Jason Takes Manhattan” and I’d like to see that one with The Muppets.
I never watch slasher movies, Chris, so thanks for these indispensable summaries, which totally killed me.
I say I’m not a fan of slasher films but then I think of Psycho, which fits with the genre, and I do like the original Halloween, and even the first Friday The 13th is a wonderfully intense twenty-minute film with a great twist stretched out to an hour and a half. But, like you, I’m generally not a fan of slasher films.