tek's rating: meh and a half

Friday the 13th Part 2 (R)
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This came out in 1981, a year after the first movie. I didn't see this movie until 2026 (on Friday the 13th), by which time I didn't remember much about the first movie. But to explain even a little bit of this movie's "plot", I'll have to spoil the end of the first movie. So, it turned out that the killer was Pamela Voorhees, whose son, Jason, had drowned in Crystal Lake years ago. Mrs. Voorhees blamed the camp counselors for his death, and was exacting revenge on the new group of counselors at the camp. The only survivor was a girl named Alice, who killed Mrs. Voorhees. But the next day, when Alice is out in a boat, a boy jumps out of the water and drags her under. She survives that attack, but the boy is never found. Now, one thing that I didn't remember was that, while the movie is set in 1979, Jason had drowned in 1957. But if that was Jason who attacked Alice at the end, I don't understand why he was still a kid. I mean, unless we just assume he's some kind of ghost, or something. But if that's the case, then the sequel makes no sense, either.

It begins with Alice having a nightmare, in which we see a recap of the end of the first movie. Later, awhile after she wakes up, she is apparently killed by Jason. We later learn that this happened two months after the events of the first movie. But most of this movie takes place five years later. A guy named Paul has opened a training center for camp counselors, on the shore of Crystal Lake. Jason has become a legend, which Paul doesn't believe in, but uses to jokingly scare the counselor trainees. What doesn't make sense to me is that according to the legend, Jason was still a kid five years ago, but is expected to be full grown by now. Which doesn't make sense if he's been dead since 1957. It also doesn't make sense that he was apparently fully grown when he attacked Alice at the start of this movie. But whatever. I don't believe it really bears too much thinking about.

We kind of get to know several of the trainees throughout the movie, but the only one who really mattered to me was Paul's assistant/girlfriend, Ginny. And, you know, occasionally people get killed by Jason, who is wearing a mask made from a burlap sack. (I will say I was surprised when I watched the first movie, not only because Jason wasn't the killer all along, but because he wasn't wearing a hockey mask, which he is famous for. And once again, I was surprised that he didn't wear one in this movie, either. But I guess that mask will show up in the third movie.) Ginny turns out to be this movie's "final girl", and I actually kind of liked her. I thought the way she tried to trick Jason was interesting (but I won't spoil that). I will say it's unknown whether or not Paul survived Jason's final attack, which I think is odd.

Well, all in all I'd say this movie was not as good as the first movie (and I barely liked that one). Jason just seemed so "meh" to me. Very underdeveloped and uninteresting. Nothing really to set him apart from any generic killer in any generic slasher movie. In fact that's pretty much true of this whole movie. It did have perhaps a few mildly good points, but it's kind of hard to believe the franchise even continued after this. Considering how many movies it now includes, I have to assume subsequent sequels got better, and Jason got more interesting. Well, I hope so, anyway, because I do plan on watching more of the movies, sooner or later. (I have a DVD set of the first eight movies, though I didn't when I watched the first movie, which I think I watched on Amazon.) And... I guess I don't know what else to tell you.


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