Revisiting Friday the 13th Part II (1981)

The screen transitions from darkness to a nighttime suburban street. A little girl named Jessie sings ‘Incy Wincy Spider’, one foot in the flooded gutter, the other on the pavement before she is called in by her mother. Moments later, a Hitchcockian violin stab screeches in time to an adult pair of boots splashing violently into the water and from there we follow them as they walk purposefully towards a slightly decrepit detached house not unlike the house where Michael Myer’s murdered his sister. We then cut to Alice Hardy, lying on her bed, dressed in green, as she has a nightmare. A nightmare of what happened to her at Camp Crystal Lake just two months earlier. A nightmare that handily acts as prologue to the whole film…

These opening moments of Friday the 13th Part II have aged incredibly well. In fact, the whole opening section with Alice is filled with both tension and the stipulatory jump shocks before her eventual murder at the hands of an adult Jason Voorhees. For many this sequence, this film, are the peak of the early-eighties slasher cycle. The hidden killer, the cat through the window, the grainy cinematography. Of course, there is also the moment when Jason removes the kettle from the boil which raises more questions than answers including, how exactly has he both found Alice and travelled to her town? Of course, similarly to Michael’s innate ability to drive wherever he wants, it’s often best not to think about these things…

This was the first of the franchise sequels, besting Halloween II to cinemas by five months, and already the structure was set. Ironically, for a horror film, there would be no surprises. As producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. said, “We wanted it to be an event, where teenagers would flock to the theaters on that Friday night to see the latest episode”. For this to work, the filmmakers needed to begin playing up to the tropes that had come from both the original film, but also the slasher legacy before it. There would be the opening, James Bond-esque, murder set-piece (think Alice in this film or Axel and Robbie in The Final Chapter’s morgue location). From there, we would then be introduced to our victims, all playing to a type, before the inevitable slow burn to nighttime, usually with an added, often daytime, kill (goodbye Deputy Winslow) before the moon rises and the carnage begins.

Sean S. Cunningham had left the film, not particularly proud of the work but no doubt pleased with the original’s box-office takings. He did, however, leave many of the ‘Friday family’ behind to work on the sequel, including his wife on editing duties. Also returning was the secret weapon of the franchise, composer Harry Manfredini, and Steve Miner, associate producer on the first film and here promoted to director and producer. Indeed, Steve Miner would go on to be a franchise favourite as he worked on Friday the 13th: Part 3 3D (1982), Warlock (1989) and the twelve-month double-whammy of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) and Lake Placid (1999). This film also introduced writer Ron Kurz who would see Jason through to his final death in The Final Chapter. Definitely. He was definitely dead.

For many fans, this is still considered a franchise high. In Amy Steel’s Ginny Young, we find one of the favourite Final Girls, intelligent, resourceful and, doesn’t take any shit the numerous awful male characters. This includes her paramour Paul Holt, the new Steve Christie, a man who doesn’t care about the violent legacy of the area and simply wants to make some summer money. The relationship between the two is an interesting one as, perhaps similar to Alice and Steve previously, Ginny is clearly the more intelligent of the two. Obviously, been a psychology major comes in handy for her final defeat of Jason, but it is also useful for holding Paul at arm’s length, beware the bears or not.

It is in Jason that we find an interesting conundrum. Obviously, hockey-mask Jason is iconic. A staple of cinema and lunch boxes the world over. In this film though we see a burlap masked Jason who both tips a nod to The Phantom from Charles B. Pierce’s The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) but also to that other disfigured enigma, The Elephant Man (1980). Who played Jason at what point is still largely a mystery but Steve Dash is recognised as the main masked performer with Warrington Gilette as the final moment’s unmasked monster. Also, though, the first performer to play adult Jason was actually costume designer Ellen Lutter (being later replaced by actor Jerry Wallace for the scenes where Jason stalks Alice around her home). So, including Ari Lehman at the end of the original film, five actors. Of differing genders, had played Jason by the close of the second film.

Through all of this though, many people find the Jason of Part II to be far more scary than the monstrous zombie he would later become. Here, he is far more wiry, uncontrolled and, most importantly, fast (the shot of him running across the road before Deputy Winslow’s patrol car is one particularly terrifying moment). It is so different to what we see in the methodical Michael and, later in the deliberately gaunt Fred Krueger. Here, one can see a physical throughline to Ghostface in Scream (1996), brutal, reckless and clumsy. This final element, albeit comedic in the Scream franchise, here adds an element of natural terror, that he will never stop pursuing you. Therefore, if Ghostface can thank Jason, maybe Jason can thank the Looney Tunes manic chase scenes of Leatherface in the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Horror is nothing but nostalgic for nostalgia.

The special effects also stand-out but lack the absent Tom Savini’s brutality. Initially, the incredible Stan Winston was hired but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. One can only imagine the world that he could have created for the MPAA to ban there. He was then replaced by Carl Fullerton and, although not at the peak of the previous film’s gore, there are still many powerful moments. Obviously, the sex kebab of Jeff and Sandra (the latter of whose brother Rob appears in The Final Chapter and completely fails to stop Jason) is memorable, as is Scott’s upside throat slit. For many though, it is Mark’s death which stands out as a franchise high, besting Kevin Bacon, sleeping bag slap and the liquid nitrogen kill of Jason X (2001). Mark sits atop a long set of wooden steps, looking out, suspicious as the camera approaches from behind. Miner then plays a slightly dirty trick by having a machete enter Mark’s face from the front before he careers down the steps in his wheelchair, crashing and dying at the bottom. It is a brutal kill but also sums up why so many people love this sequel. There are no meta laughs, no psychokinesis and certainly no space worm of Jason Goes to Hell (1993). It’s a dirty, nasty film which sets out to fulfil Mancuso, Jr’s wishes to get audiences in on opening night and scare the shit out of them.

The final battle between Ginny and Jason is also a strong example of Final Girl versus Monster but here, her psychology qual comes back into play as she plays to Jason’s ‘Mummy Issues’ and reels him into a trance by wearing Pamela’s iconic knitwear before, with some support from Paul, rips a machete into Jason’s shoulder, thus killing him. Because, as well know, a shoulder injury always equals death. If it wasn’t for this though, we wouldn’t get the final brilliant reveal of Jason as he smashes the window of a cabin and attacks Ginny minutes later in what could be a dream.

The film was another smash hit, grossing $21.7million at the US box-office (not adjusted for inflation) and, although the idea of Jason being the killer completely negated Pamela’s motives from the first, it did properly introduce us to the future icon of summer camp horror legend. Obviously, a sequel would not be far behind but it was this backwoods slasher which was perhaps more influential on the slasher cycle than the original as it introduced the strong Final Girl versus Monster with phallic weapon trope that Carol J. Clover would define as a key trope of the genre. It also, arguably, alter the genre away from the subtle chills of John Carpenter’s original Halloween (1978) and towards a more violent form of event cinema which Halloween II would be forced to replicate.

So, all was good in the slasher world. The structure was set. The characters could be defined in one-word descriptors. The monster? Perhaps not quite monstrous enough just yet but was suitably terrifying. One could argue that all was missing was some three-dimensional effect scored to a disco soundtrack…we could but hope…