Episode 165 - The History of Friday the 13th: Part Three

The saga concludes! Abby and Alan continue with their deep dive into the Friday the 13th horror franchise with the final four movies; Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X, Freddy vs Jason and the Friday the 13th reboot from 2009. 

Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.

Transcript

Late Halloween And Series Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour Podcast. My name is Abby Brinker, and I am sitting here with Alan Kudin. Hello. And we have to say we're sorry. This was meant to be our Halloween special, but we got married and things got away from us a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

I I tried to push the wedding and Abby said no.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

So we are sorry, but we're really excited to kind of close out our Friday the 13th series with you now.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

I said the podcast comes first.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

She didn't listen.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

We even, I'll admit, we brought our microphones to record at the wedding, like you know, where we were for the wedding weekend, which we didn't end up having time to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

But amazingly, we were too busy with other things.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yes. So anyway, we are sorry, but we are excited because we are going to talk about the final four Friday the 13th movies, and they get pretty good. They get pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

They get pretty good.

Jason Goes To Hell: Plot And Problems

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Pretty good. Alright, so we are going to kick things off with Friday the 13th, part nine.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

That's Jason Goes to Hell or Manhattan.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Jason Goes to Hell.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

In 1993, the ninth movie in the Friday the 13th franchise was released. Jason Goes to Hell The Final Friday. And I love a film with a subtitle. Not only is it a part, it's like such a long, it's like a four-part title. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah, sorry. That that's important though. That's a good delineation. I don't like it when it's just a when it's just the subtitle. Sure. I need the number and the subtitle. It helps, it lets you keep track of where you are in the series.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

And it gives us a little flair. Exactly. Yeah. What's the whistle?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Because like Hellraiser Awakening or whatever, if that's even sounds like one, doesn't it? I don't even know if it is. Uh, but like, what where's that in the first franchise? I don't know. It doesn't even exist? Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Probably not. This film is the first in the franchise to be produced by New Line Cinema and not Paramount. So remember, the first eight films are all produced by Paramount. This one is a shift. Again, spoilers, we're gonna, we're here to talk about the Friday the 13th movies. If you haven't watched them and somehow you're on part three of this series, then go give them a watch and come back. But the film starts out with a bang because Jason is completely and totally shocked smithereens by the FBI.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Is it it's the FBI?

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah, I think they're all wearing FBI, FBI.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

They are definitely I thought it was like military.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

No.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

I mean, regardless, it's it's the it's you know official.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

It's Mulder and Scully.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah, Mulder and Scully bring because they have like machine guns and rocket launchers.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

It's a special special task force.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

The SWAT team. It's the SWAT team taking down Jason.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

But as we know, even the loss of a physical body can't stop Jason.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Apparently, which is dumb.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

In a truly wild plot twist, Jason's evil spirit starts to possess different people and continues to kill. Lore becomes established that only members of Jason's bloodline can kill or resurrect him.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Why?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Couldn't tell you why. I just know that that's the point that they make in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

We figure out that Jason has a half-sister, first time we've ever heard of her, and a niece.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

And it's Lori Strode.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Jessica Kimball. Jason continues to body hop until Jessica finally gets her shit together enough to stab him with an enchanted dagger and send him to hell. I don't know what there's something about the the like Friday the 13th franchise in certain movies that just is so twin peaks-y to me. And the diner in this movie, and like the personalities at the diner, they're like they just have this like quirkiness to them that feels very much like Twin Peaks.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yeah. Yeah, this was the first one where like for Jason is in it for like five minutes.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Yeah, because then it's different.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

And yes, other actors playing Jason, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Which must have been fun for them.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Yeah, for sure. But also it's like a different killer every time. So it it's I don't know. It it this did not feel like a Friday the 13th movie at all.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Plus, like the way it starts, killing him immediately, which never happens. Suddenly they figured out how to do that.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah, they blow him up.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

And then sort of like this supernatural sending him to hell, it's all I don't know. There's it, I see your point. It doesn't feel quite like a Friday the 13th movie.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Listen, I I was really for the first time in this entire franchise, I was disappointed because the title really built this up. You know, we saw what happened when he goes to Manhattan.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Uh fairly.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

We mostly saw it happen when he was on a boat.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Yes. I mean, it was too short, but while he was there, it was fun. Meanwhile, Jason goes to hell, apparently. We never see him in hell. I was expecting Jason having to fight his way out of the nine circles. Uh you know, that's the movie we need. Just you know, battling battling demons, or of him just like slashing a bunch of like bad people that are locked in hell with him, you know. Like that'd be freaking cool.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

It would be cool. Like you try to put him in whatever the circle for killer murdering is, and then he like climbs his way out. That's cool.

Body-Hopping Lore And Missed Promises

SPEAKER_01 5:35

I want to see, yeah, I want to see Jason like on a fiery plateau with Hitler, and he, you know, and he just fucking dices him up because he can. Yeah. And then he gets his pardon. Um, but I don't know, that never happens. Um, so that is gonna go into my Friday 13th fan fiction. But instead, we we see a a lot of weird actors stomping around with serious looks on their face, pretending to be Jason. Yeah, and every so often someone touches them and we get a flash of someone who looks like Jason, I guess. It's just dumb.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah. It is dumb. As we said, though Jason's character is ever present in the ninth film, Jason and his body as we know him only appears briefly in the movie. And in a head-scratching turn of events, Freddie Kruger's glove actually comes out of the ground where Jason had sunk into and gone to hell. Which you would think, oh, this is alluding to something, but we don't get there for quite a while.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Well, my understanding is that it that was planned to be the next thing. And then for whatever development hell happened, that that that's the real hell story.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Well, it makes more sense.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

So Jason doesn't go to hell, the Jason and Freddie team up goes into development hell, and then that it doesn't happen until like you know, 20 years later.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

It also just like doesn't make sense. We'll get there, but Jason Goes to Hell, and then we never come back to that again in the franchise. So the ninth movie had a budget of 3 million and brought in 15.9 million in the US. Jason Goes to Hell was directed by Adam Marcus. Marcus is a horror writer and director. He also directed Secret Santa from 2018, and he wrote Texas Chainsaw from 2013. He's also credited as a writer on this movie. Jason Goes to Hell has a 15% on Rotten Tomatoes.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

There are fun moments in this movie.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Some of the kills are kind of cool. However, it promises so much in the title alone.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

And it doesn't deliver.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

It's the same yeah, I think I know you just said this, but it's the same issue with this franchise. Like Jason goes to Manhattan, mostly takes place in a boat. Jason goes to hell, mostly takes place in a suburban town. And jumping ahead a little bit, Jason in space takes place on a spaceship. Like it's, I don't know. I just feel like it they all could go bigger than they do, and we'd be down for that.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Uh definitely. I'm here, I'm here for it. And you know, well, I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of ourselves talking about the free the future of the franchise. But Jason Goes to Hell was I was really thinking that's gonna be a high point, and it was just kind of something we glanced over. But it's also because of what came next.

Jason X: Cryo, Nanotech, And Uber Jason

SPEAKER_00 8:24

That's right. Let's talk about Jason X from 2001. Honestly, I wish again, I wish this movie jumped the shark even more. But as Jason X opens, we see that Jason is being held in a government lab. He has been captured by the government and they decide to cryogenically freeze him. Then we jump ahead over 400 years, and a group of explorers and scientists, mostly wearing knitwear, find Jason's frozen body as they explore Earth and bring it onto their spaceship. They decide to thaw him out, and as he regains his consciousness, he continues on his never-ending killing spree. Though in a fun turn of events, Jason is almost destroyed, but the ship's nanotechnology, essentially a bunch of electronic bugs, rebuilds him into a super version of himself. The surviving scientists, again, all wearing knits, which I cannot understand that choice for space.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Wearing knits?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

They're all wearing knitwear. They're all wearing 90s like crocheted garments.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yeah, that that's that's what you do. It keeps you warm.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

So all of these scientists fight to escape as Jason rampages through the ship, and it ends with a final battle as Jason is hurled toward Earth 2. It's a mix of sci-fi and slasher parody, known for its self-aware humor, futuristic setting, and over-the-top kills.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

First off. The movie opens with Jason being held captive in a military facility, and they're gonna transfer him to some research facility. Uh, but it's like too d you know, it's uh there's like the lead scientist that says, Oh, it's we can't move him, it's it's too dangerous. And they're like, of course we're gonna move him, we need to study him. And we need to study him because he's unkillable and he regenerates all this tissue. And like, that's like a weird aspect of these like slasher villains that is never explicitly stated. I sorry, I can't think of another time where it's explicitly stated where the military wants to study Jason because, like, yeah, he's a super weapon. Like, you cannot kill this guy. You shoot him with bullets, he keeps going. You literally kill him, you send him to hell, he comes back. He's fine. Of course the military wants to study that. I think that's super cool, and I'm glad it was addressed. Uh, and then yeah, it goes awry because he pokes his little his little machete through the edge of the cryo tank, and then it leaks out, and then his scientist gets frozen, and then 400 years in the future, for some reason, no one opens the door in the meantime. That's that was an interesting plot point. But this was just such a crazy movie. First off, Friday 13th in space, someone pitched that idea, they're like, Okay, but how? And they tried really hard to make it plausible, and I appreciate that. It's a fun movie.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yeah, okay. I I agree. I think the funniest part of the movie for me is when the ship plummets, they're like they're heading towards that other space station, and the ship like kind of plummets into it, and the whole thing explodes.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

That that was that was a great moment. My favorite part that so this movie, hang on, this movie has the best kill in the entire Friday 13th franchise.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Hot take which one?

SPEAKER_01 11:35

The liquid nitrogen head smashing.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Sure, okay, it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Shoves head into the liquid nitrogen, head freezes solid in like two seconds, and like you watch it from inside the tank, and then he just smashes the woman's head on the table, and then she's like a little stump. It's so freaking cool.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Yeah, it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

It's it's a you know, it's a very it's a creative kill. The way it was filmed, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

We'll have to uh reminisce at the end of this episode about some of the best kills from the whole franchise.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

That's the only one I care about.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

I want to read you a quote from renowned film critic Roger Epert's review of Jason X.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Oh, jeez.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Quote The movie is a low-rent retread of the alien pictures with a monster attacking a spaceship crew. One of the characters, Dallas, is even named in homage to the earlier series. The movie's premise, Jason, who has a unique ability to regenerate lost and damaged tissues, comes back to life and goes on a rampage, killing the ship's plentiful supply of sex-crazed students and staff members. Once you know that the ship contains many dark corners and that the crew members wander off alone as stupidly as the campers at Camp Crystal Lake did summer after summer, you know as much about the plot as the writers do. End quote. He gave the movie half of a single star.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Wow. That's I mean, let's be honest. Jason X was not made for Roger Ebert.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

So, and that that's okay. This movie was made for me.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

It was made for Alan Coudin.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

I loved it. It's so fun.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Is it your favorite?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Uh, it's it's tough. I don't want to say my favorite until the end.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

But this is tied for first, I'll tell you that. One of my for nothing else, I love that we get Uber Jason. And that is his canonical name. When Jason is so fucked up that like the and then the nanites leak onto him, and we established this technology early on in the movie when Dove's arm gets chopped off.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Your friend Dove.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Dove Tief and Baum, that's the actor.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

From Harriet the Spy, the kid with the purple socks.

Best Kills, Budget, And Reception

SPEAKER_01 13:42

That's correct. I I did a movie with him years ago, and I had not seen Jason X at the time, and I deliberately waited until after we were done filming to watch this movie. Because and I'm very glad I did because I would have asked him endless questions about it. You know, we we see these like little nanomachines recreate the part it uh a missing part of his body, and then they do that to Jason, and then he fuses with all this metal, and he becomes this, he was already this like walking juggernaut, and now he's this like super powered juggernaut. Which like I'm there for it. I love it. You know, we've we see that in the alien franchise in I think Alien Resurrection, when like the xenomorph gives live birth to the alien alien human hybrid thing, and it's like or an even better example in Alien versus Predator, when uh they make the alien predator hybrid, which of course is just like super powerful. In this case, you have Jason that's like half Jason, half robot. You already couldn't kill this thing, and now he's also bulletproof and crazy strong and has abilities, and it's it's just cool.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

I like it. It is cool, it is cool.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

A teenage boy probably wrote this movie. A grown man teenage boy wrote this movie, and I'm so thankful they did.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Jason X cost about$14 million to make.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Should it should have cost$50.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

And it brought in$13.1 million in the US and just shy of 4 million globally.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Ugh.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Meaning, all in, it made about 16.9 million, just barely profitable from the box office.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

But now it's just raking it in.

Freddy Vs. Jason: Premise And Backstory

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Jason X was directed by James Isaac. Isaac had worked on many special effects teams, including for Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, and Gremlins. As a director, he also worked on Skinwalkers from 2006 and The Pig Hunt from 2008. But as much as Alan likes Jason X, I like Freddie vs. Jason. In 2003, the world was blessed with Freddie vs. Jason, directed by Ronnie Yu, and Wes Craven is credited as the writer along with Victor Miller and Damian Shannon. The film opens with a very strong early 2000s vibe. IGN's subheading on the review says, Freddie vs. Jason Review, the audience loses. The review, written by Scott B., goes on to take issue with the central plot lines of the movie, especially knowing this movie would be seen by mostly super fans of these franchises. Quote, let's start with the central conceit of the screenplay, written by newcomers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, a virtual army of screenwriters ranging from blades scribe David Goyer to the crow writer David J. Shao, took shots at unused drafts, that Freddie Krueger, Robert England, has lost his power to wreak nightmarish havoc because he has been forgotten. Excuse me? I just rewatched the original Nightmare on Elm Street, brilliantly written and directed by Wes Craven, the other night, and it's clear in that film that Freddie is virtually unknown to its teen protagonists, a real-life boogeyman who has receded into urban legend and jumping rope song warnings. But this movie posits a Freddy stuck in hell, who needs the aid of Jason, Ken Kersinger, replacing veteran Jason Kane Hotter, much to the ire of Friday the 13th fans, to bring terror back to Elm Street. Each of Jason's kills and the ensuing fear they provoke give Freddy more power. I know this probably sounds stupid and incomprehensible, but believe me, I am, if anything, actually clarifying the story far more than the filmmakers do. End quote. I wanted to include that quote because I liked some of the background that it gave into the film process and other famous horror writers who had taken stabs at this draft and kind of some of the behind-the-scenes stuff. I also just thought it was funny how much this guy hated the movie. So Freddie resurrects Jason, and Jason starts to kill again. Freddy is banking on the fact that the new fear this will inspire will get people to believe in him again. But as we all know, Jason simply refuses to be controlled. He kills Freddy's would-be victims, and it turns into a battle between Freddy and Jason. Back at Camp Crystal Lake, Freddie and Jason fight both on land and in dreams. The ending leaves it ambiguous, so we don't really know who truly wins. Jason emerges from the lake holding Freddy's severed head, but Freddy winks, suggesting neither can die for good. Which was, I don't know, I thought this was sort of a fun meta nod to the everlasting slasher motif. To me, this movie felt more like an action movie than a horror movie. I remember saying that to you as we were watching it.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

So we had a bunch of Hollywood writers working on this movie, which really speaks the fact that this movie took so long to come out. It was supposed to come out, you know, a decade earlier, at least, because we they alluded to it after the 9th, Friday 13th movie. And everyone was really looking forward to this movie, and then uh yeah, just got lost in Development Hell.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Yeah, I think it's interesting. We can look back in hindsight and be like, wow, you know, how crazy that this movie was alluded to like 20 years before it actually came out. But it's actually, you know, and you know this better than I do, but it's so complicated to get movies made, and there's so much politicking and bureaucracy that goes into it at the studio level that when you think about Friday the 13th as a franchise, it's actually like a miracle that any of these movies exist and that they're getting the budgets that they're getting, especially because Jason X, which came out right before, was like the worst ROI of any of these. And so I guess maybe that's why they wanted to combine it with Freddie to give it a chance again.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

I mean, it's also a franchise crossover. So the licensing and all the rights, and everyone has to sign off on it, it gets really, really complicated.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Right, true.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Yeah, the the mythos gets a little wonky. The quotes talking about how in the first nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy's unknown, but now he has to be known to have power. Like, okay, sure. You know what? In the first Friday the 13th, Jason couldn't body hop. In fact, he was his mom. So maybe he could.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

That's I guess the essence of a slasher franchise.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah, you reinvent shit as you go. Yeah. Uh but I don't know. I feel like this movie, I remember it in theaters. Like, I remember it coming out with such an ad campaign. Uh that I don't know, it it made quite the impression. Like, yes, I I was the exact age to be super excited for this movie.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

You were the target demographic.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Although I I wasn't. The target demographic was super fans of the franchise. And I remember when I finally saw it for the first time, which, you know, was some uh s sleepover. Sure. When we watched it, it was very much a I had seen at least one nightmare on Elm Street movie. I had not seen any Friday the 13th. And this is very much a nightmare on Elm Street movie that has Jason Voorhees in it.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Yeah, I think that's right.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

And they also just never explain Jason Lore. They only explain they they only discuss Freddie Lore in detail. Yeah. You know, like, yes, it's it's you know, uh r Freddy Krueger doing the narration and talking about all this shit, but also like, yeah, you just don't talk about Jason, despite the fact that he's kind of the pinnacle slasher.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Like when you picture a slasher villain, you picture Jason, whether you know who he is or not.

Action Tone, Lore Inconsistencies, And Hype

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yeah. I'm actually just thinking now about the ending too, like when Jason is carrying Freddy's head, and I don't know, it would be fun. We did like the, you know, we did something many years ago where we pitted all the different villains against each other and the scary scuffle. The scary scuffle and we figured out who won. But it would be fun to kind of limit that because it got so crazy because you have so many different types of villains. Be kind of it's interesting to think about, I guess. My point is just slashers against each other. Because I think who who are the other like supernatural slashers besides Freddie? Like that they'd obviously fuck up Michael because he's not super he's kind of supernatural, but not in the way they are.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

So when we did the scary scuffle back in the day, yeah, we limited the lore to the first movie in the franchise, in each franchise.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Which was very deliberate. Did we even have I don't think we even had Jason in it? I don't remember. I think Pamela Voorhees was in it.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Right, because yeah, because that was the first one. The first one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

And it sorry, if he was, he'd be featured as Friday the 13th part two.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

We'd have to we should redo it, but we could pick whichever one we wanted. Like we could pick which Jason from which movie.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

So in our ill-fated follow-up episode of that, uh, which never happened.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Someday.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Uh, it was uh it was about sequels. Uh and so we chose I mean, I I put this together, a list of like 25 movies, and they were various sequels, and we pulled very specific versions of each villain. In this was Jason X, I remember. So we'd have Uber Jason, who would honestly he'd do pretty well. And I remember another one was Leprechaun in Space. So, you know, you get the little space version of Leprechaun.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Oh, it would be fun to do like all horror villains in space. Wait, is Jason X the strongest version of Jason, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Uber Jason is hands down technology the strongest version of Jason. Okay, and you know, this bothered me. I mean, no, Uber Jason can do no wrong, he does not bother me whatsoever. It bothered me in Freddy versus Jason, where all of a sudden Jason's weakness is water, and it's like, no, he's a fucking amphibious hunter. Right. He's he's a drowned zombie. And it's like, oh, he's afraid of water because he drowned. Oh, okay, I get that. No, no, that's not how that works. His like place of power is is the lake.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

And like he lives in like even in Freddie versus Jason, they like he lives in like a half sunken swamp.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

But he's afraid of w uh when Freddie turns on the shower, he's afraid of the water. Right. Like, no, come on.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Because that that's my only pet peeve with this movie. Everything else about it is perfect.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Freddie versus Jason had a budget of about$25 to$30 million, and it brought in about 116 million in the US. These numbers are much bigger than the previous installment and owed to the combined power of the horror franchises. And then in 2009, our story comes to a close with the final installment, or I should say the latest installment, of the Jason Voorhees saga. Directed by Marcus Nispel, the series is rebooted with two of the same writers from Freddy versus Jason. The 2009 version brings new young energy to the series. At this point, the franchise threw all caution to the wind and introduced Michael Bay as an executive producer, at least. The final installment cost$19 million to make and brought in 65 million in the US and 93 million globally. But despite that, we haven't seen a new one since.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Isn't that crazy? I mean, first off, I don't like this movie. I think it's kind of dumb. It follows the same trope that we've seen during this time period with Halloween, where it's like, you know what, we really need to bring this series back to its roots and make it scary.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

I thought it was scary. To me, it was scarier than the others. For me.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

It's scarier than the others, but doesn't that's not the charm of this franchise.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Yeah, that's fair. I guess it depends if you judge Friday the 13th by its original or by the franchise.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

I I don't really love the first Friday the 13th. I think it's just kind of boring. I love Kevin Bacon. Yeah. He does great.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

He does great.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

It's okay. It's not where the series shines. There's enough similar there's enough, there's enough things like it out there. Yeah. And maybe for its time, maybe for its time was incredible. But uh in the through the lens of history, there's better stuff out there.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

But in this 2009 remake, they try to remove as much camp as possible, despite the fact that Michael Bay is there. They still have some very memorable kills.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

The sleeping bag was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Oh my god. Yeah, I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Slinging her up like a pinata and just whacking her around. That was great. Or no, he he it puts her. No, sorry, he doesn't sling her up.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

He just whacks her around.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yeah, he just wacks her a whole bunch in the sleeping bag. Like, you know, like you know, how how you get rid of cats.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

No, don't say that.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Uh you you you put a bunch of potatoes in the sack with a cat, you swing it around. No, um, and then when you're done, you got a little stew.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

As he's petting.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

As he's petting the cat. But I don't know. That was fun. That's honestly the only part of the movie that I remember.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yeah. So let me refresh your memory. After the film's cold open, we meet a group of young adults arriving at the infamous Camp Crystal Lake. This group runs into Clay, who's played by Jared Padalecki from uh Gilmore Girls Fame. And uh what's that other show he's in? Supernatural? Searching for his missing sister. The young adults, notably not teens, explore the old cabins and woods. Jason comes back and starts to terrorize and kill them. And it is, I mean, in some ways it is quite fraught with sex and drugs, and you know, it follows the same formula that you'd expect. If you have sex, if you do drugs, you die. Friday the 13th, 2009 has a 26 on Rotten Tomatoes.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

It's not a bad movie. It's just not anywhere near what I want out of the franchise, and though that precedent has been set with previous ones.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

It didn't feel like as particularly fresh. Like it has like this young energy to it, it has a modern energy to it, but it's not like oh, that movie's something, you know, interesting, or it feels very, very formulaic by that point.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Also, the one right before it was Freddie versus Jason, which is just silly town, you know, one-on-one. Yeah. I loved it. It's so fun. And then you get to this, which is like dark and gritty, and it's like, come on, Michael Bay.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Just yeah, get you.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Make it make it silly. You can do it. I've seen you do it.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

You usually do. From a box office perspective, the opening was strong. It had one of the highest openings in the franchise for a February release, especially for a horror slasher remake. However, it experienced a steep drop in its second weekend, which signaled weaker staying power than the initial hype. The film also brings us an alternative mask origin, which I thought was interesting. It's the first time where, and it's a reboot, so okay, but it's the first time where he f he finds the mask again. Uh, and it's not from the third film when that that kid gives it to him. He just finds it in one of these old houses.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Cool. He finds it.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Yeah. It's kind of like, oh, okay. Oh, sure. You know, it it there's not it do yeah, I guess the lore that it tries to re-establish isn't all that interesting.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Yeah, it's it it treads over well-worn ground without adding much. I don't know. It it kind of reminds me of the Godzilla reboots in that the the main allure is of like the Godzilla reboots, is like you're seeing stuff that was previously incredibly low budget, campy stuff done with Hollywood level budgets, and like that's the allure. Is the story as good? Is the character development as good? No, but that's not what you're there for. With this movie, you have all the effects and zhuz, but it's also it's just it's just a slasher movie, right? There's there's no giant CGI creature, and also like the one before it had so many effects because it's a nightmare in Elm Street movie, basically.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Right. Yeah, I mean, and it's many years between these, right? It's five years or so between them, but five or six years. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

But it's been 16 years since that came out.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

I know. We're still waiting.

Why No New Films And Rights Tangles

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Still nothing. But on that note. So there is still like it it's kind of wild that there's been no new Friday the thirteenth movie.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

If with all these franchises, you think there's like it it's such a cash grab.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Well the Halloween, you know, Halloween even rebooting. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

And then they put they cranked out a whole trilogy. Was it good? No.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

But the first one was.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

It was fun. And it was like exciting to just watch a new Halloween movie, especially one with Jamie Lee Curtis. Yeah. You know, but but while she while she still got it.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

She's always gonna have it.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Apparently, they've been trying to develop a new Friday the 13th movie.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Oh really?

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Yeah, but it's of if anything, it's gonna be a long ways off. Uh because it's completely entangled in legal issues. Uh which it isn't isn't an always. All these like super successful franchises, people just buy the rights and sit on them and just wait for someone to buy it off 'em.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

So annoying.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

It's really dumb. Uh, I guess there's a Crystal Lake TV series, which I was unfamiliar with.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Either that was done by A24 or this new one's gonna be A24.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Yeah, but A20, that's that that means that means nothing anymore. A24 is so big that it's now it's like a saying something is a Netflix original.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Wow. That means somebody else made it and then they just slap their name on it. Yeah. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

The latest and greatest Friday the 13th content is the Friday the 13th game.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Called Friday the 13th the game.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

The video game.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yep. I guess it's an it's an asymmetrical, what's the term? It's an asymmetrical something where you either play as Jason or you play as one of the counselors.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Oh, that's fun.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

And you're just one of the counselors running around trying to survive. It's an online only game because it's all live people, there's no bots.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Is that the one where I swam all for a long time?

SPEAKER_01 31:52

That is correct. You've played this game.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Uh, and they've been trying to come out with a sequel for a while. Um, that's still in development uh to that game. So uh that's uh again, it's a weird thing to put out that game. They came out like what, 2022, maybe?

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Weird thing that that came out in in 2020, if it was 2022, but around then. It was, yeah, it was around then. And then the previous the previous movie was 2009. That's a big gap in time.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

They know that people needed to scratch their itch though.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

I guess so, but usually that is in tandem with some kind of movie or TV show release. So I actually just Googled, it was 2017.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Oh, time flies when there's a pandemic.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Yeah, I guess so. Wow, I I didn't realize that's been that long. Uh the new game, they're aiming for 2026.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

All right, fingers crossed.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

So who knows?

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 32:45

This is all from one post on Reddit where Alan gets all of his information. But but this is from someone that attended the Crystal Like Nightmares, which is a Friday 13th convention.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Oh, that's fun. We should go. Now we're experts.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

And he he talked to Kane Hotter about it.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

He said, I'm not involved.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Well, why would he be?

SPEAKER_01 33:07

But he could have been bluffing.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

He's a according to this post. He doesn't have any voice acting. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

Yeah, what why would he be involved in the game?

Music, Masks, And Franchise Trivia

SPEAKER_01 33:17

I I don't know, motion capture uses likeness.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

No, they wouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Yeah. One of my favorite parts of this series has to be the soundtrack. The iconic song with its he he he he he he he he he he ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha was actually created by composer Harry Manfredini. Manfredini was whispering kill mom into a microphone and heavily echoing it. Over the course of the 12 movies, 10 different actors played Jason, each bringing their own subtle differences to the monster. Freddie versus Jason ended up being the highest grossing film in the franchise. Jason Takes Manhattan was the lowest grossing film of the bunch. But overall, the series brought in over$460 million worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing horror franchises in film history. But back to a question that you asked me, Alan, at the very beginning of this series.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

What was that?

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Is there any plot point that connects the series to the Friday the 13th title at all?

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Uh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

And as we now know, the title was originally only selected for marketing reasons, and it was loosely worked into the plot. The film mentions that the original killings at Camp Crystal Lake began began on Friday the 13th when a young Jason Vorhees drowned. Pamela Vorhees' Rampage takes place years later, also on a Friday the 13th, supposedly marking the anniversary of her son's death. After that, it never comes up again. Alright, Alan.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

So your favorite Friday the 13th movie of all time is My favorite Friday the 13th movie is Jason X. My favorite movie in the franchise is Freddie versus Jason. I just don't consider that to be a Friday the 13th movie. It's far more a nightmare on Apple Street.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

My favorite Friday the 13th movie is Friday the 13th, Jason Lives from 1986.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

What part is that? Three, four, seven?

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Part six. Which is the one where it starts in the cemetery and he gets sort of re- Ah that one rocks. Reanimated from a lightning bolt, from a metal rod from the fence. Just yeah, so good. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

So it's that might be the met the best pure Friday the 13th movie. Yeah. Jason X is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

But it's fun.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you guys so much for being here and listening to the series. It was really fun. Again, I was surprised how fun and not scary these movies were, which was a bit of a relief. We will be back very soon. We have one more installment for you, and then we're moving on to some really fun topics to close out the year. Thank you as always so much for listening. We love you. Stay spooky, stay safe. We'll talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.