Cooking and Cinema

Short Stories, Film Reviews, and Recipes

Month: October 2021

Why Friday the 13th Is Better Than Its Reputation

October 31, 2021 /

Halloween is a great time to stuff your face with candy and watch scary movies. For horror film producers, cheap costume designers, and candy manufacturers, it’s a time of year to make a lot of money. I like Halloween but don’t always enjoy what comes with it.

Many of the films promoted around Halloween are more goofy than scary, and when cable networks show you marathons of movies for 31 days, most days are filled with movies I’m not thrilled to watch.

Horror critics and superfans enjoy breaking scary movies down into subcategories, such as slasher films, monster films, horror science fiction, goat horror (it exists), rodent horror, real-crime serial killer horror, and so on.

I don’t have a favorite horror movie subcategory, but I like a film when it’s entertaining—even if it’s stupid, unrealistic, and cheap.

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One of my favorite brain-dead villains, Jason Vorhees, only makes a brief appearance in the first Friday the 13th film but is responsible for most of the murders, excluding Friday the 13th Part V, in the sequels.

Friday the 13th Part IV was supposed to be the Final Chapter, but since it made too much money, Paramount produced Part V and called it A New Beginning. It’s a laughably bad movie and the only film in the series that features a different mad killer with a hockey mask.

The puny antagonist isn’t Jason Vorhees; he’s a paramedic named Roy. Roy, the killer, doesn’t sound scary for some reason, and why did they choose a paramedic? If you want to watch the best Friday movies, check out the original, Part III, Part VI (Jason Lives), and Jason Goes to Hell, the ninth film.

In Part III, Jason gets his hockey mask from a misunderstood makeup effects nerd, and you can still watch it in 3D if you can find the DVD. The 3D effects are remarkable for a cheap horror movie, and I think they spent more time making the 3D look cool than they did on the story.

Hey boy, do you wanna come with me to summer camp? They hired me as the head cook, and they didn’t care that I’m not a snappy dresser and sometimes wear long-sleeved shirts designed by the criminally insane. Before we go, I better fill up my canteen with leaded gasoline. It works great in the kitchen. I know you’re a dog, but do you know if this gas station sells unfiltered cigarettes?

Friday the 13th (1980)

Although its writer and director admitted they stole the idea from Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th is a better rip-off than the original. The original Halloween is a slasher that changed the genre and was a low-budget hit. The creators are proud of their original slasher idea, but I’m sure they watched Black Christmas in 1974.

For Halloween, John Carpenter replaced the Christmas killer in Black Christmas with another escaped mental patient who murdered high school kids instead of sorority sisters.

He changed the holiday to Halloween because who wants to watch vicious, bloody murder on Christmas? No one in 1974 wanted to watch it, but moviegoers loved Halloween, and in 1980, they fell in love (and hate) with Friday the 13th.

When Sean Cunningham released Friday the 13th in 1980, the critics hated it. They treated it like the contaminated food tossed out of a cruise ship porthole, and newspaper writers across the country made sure to include “gory,” “too much sex,” and “garbage” in their headlines.

Some went to great lengths to convince their readers it was evil trash and bad for America’s youth. Several years ago, I read an article about Gene Siskel’s militant reaction to Friday.

He called Paramount to protest the movie, published Betsy Palmer’s home address in his review, and urged his readers to send her critical letters.

I can’t disagree with everything the critics said. Still, I’m surprised that a low-budget horror film would cause a pretentious, well-paid writer to obliterate a movie far tamer and less exploitative than grindhouse films from the 1970s.

Gory, low-budget movies were nothing new in 1980, but Friday the 13th was one of the first horror films to use realistic-looking fake blood. The makeup effects in the movie are high caliber and help elevate the weak plotting and acting.

Friday the 13th and many of its sequels represent the true, bloody spirit of Halloween even better than the Halloween films. Although Jason Vorhees doesn’t begin murdering college students until Part 2, he borrows his psychotic mother’s camera angle from the first movie.

The first-person killer view is used throughout the original Friday, and though it’s well done, it was done with more style in Dario Argento’s Susperia three years earlier.

Friday’s setting appeals to me more than other films like Halloween. The location was an authentic camp in New Jersey, and Sean Cunningham and his low-budget team were lucky to land a spot that didn’t look like a cheap Hollywood set. Halloween wasn’t shot on a stage, but the locations in California are dull and unremarkable.

The wooded landscape and sparkling lake in Friday are gorgeous in the daytime, but the atmosphere becomes frightening when the sun drops. When an intense thunderstorm rumbles into the camp, the violence ramps up, and you see more of Tom Savini’s gory effects.

The movie’s script was written while the film was being made, and you shouldn’t search for any hidden meaning in the dialogue or plot. Some of the film’s opponents believed the filmmakers were evil peddlers of sex and murder, and somehow, the movie could convince the country’s youth to embrace violence and wreck society. However, Friday the 13th isn’t that manipulative or nefarious.

Kevin’s Bacon gets tenderized. The false neck and shoulders are not as obvious when you watch the film on VHS.

It’s only the result of Sean Cunningham trying to make a higher-quality, more successful horror film than Halloween. Although it’s dipped in sleaze in some scenes, it’s not as lurid or controversial as some critics claimed. It doesn’t contain subliminal images or satanic sound effects.

Some parts of the soundtrack sound oddly similar to the music in Psycho, and like the film itself, it’s a world-class rip-off. Without the screeching violins and the weirdo that keeps whispering “Kill, Ma” when Mrs. Vorhees is stalking counselors, the movie wouldn’t be the same.

The cinematography and music are impressive for an amateur team. Cunningham created a scary film without good acting, a cohesive plot, support from the media, or a big budget. It’s ridiculous and amusing, and I’m still confused as to why some critics complained about the sex.

There’s only one brief sex scene, and it teaches teenagers a valuable lesson. If you make love or smoke pot at summer camp, you’ll be killed. The filmmakers weren’t destroying America’s youth; they were encouraging the kids of 1980 to live like Puritans and avoid vices and matters of the flesh.

The film provides valuable lessons, such as the importance of well-lit bathrooms, how hitchhiking can kill you, and why playing strip Monopoly doesn’t sound sexy.

Aliens and the Fifth Sequel

When I went with my father to see Aliens in 1986, there was a group of drunken college students in the front row. When the previews began, they kept hollering and carrying on, but suddenly, they got quiet.

A teaser trailer from Friday the 13th Part VI had them mystified. A lightning bolt struck Jason’s tombstone at the end of the trailer, and the subtitle Jason Lives roared onto the screen. The front-row fools erupted in applause and started cheering Jason! Jason! Jason!

I remember being surprised that the movies were still popular, especially after the disaster of Part V. There are 12 Friday the 13th films you can view, but someday, another filmmaker will resurrect Jason and kill him again.

Jolt Review

October 19, 2021 /

Online streaming services like Amazon Prime have been criticized for producing a massive amount of unwatchable material. They make award-winning films and clever, original series, but they also closely follow popular trends and try to guess what the public wants. Sometimes, they succeed, but recently, they’ve scored more than a few misses.

From the trailer, Tanya Wexler’s Jolt looks like a mindless popcorn movie you can enjoy without thinking too hard. In the past, you may have had days when you were stuck on the couch and too lazy to look for the remote.

A bad (sometimes awful) film draws you in with explosions, hilarious dialogue, and pretty faces. Watching the film makes you regret wasting the afternoon, but eventually, you enjoy the movie and laugh at all the unintentional humor.

Popcorn films are entertaining when they’re either well-made or hilarious. Action films don’t need a big budget. The 1977 classic from Elliot Silverstein, The Car, is a good example. It’s full of bad acting and plotting, but it made me laugh in all the wrong places, and I had a blast watching it.

Jolt is not one of those films, and the talented cast cannot save or handle the awful (worse than the rough drafts for Reefer Madness) mess. Kate Beckinsale usually excels in science fiction/action movies, and she has a talent for sarcasm.

She is great as a half-vampire killer in the Underworld movies and creepy as the antagonist in the remake of Total Recall. She can act, but only a complete rewrite of the script and soundtrack would’ve saved her electrified heroine.

In Jolt, she’s plagued with anger management issues so severe that she has to shock herself continuously to keep from murdering the world.

Bad Dialogue and Music, but Nice McLaren

Susan Sarandon narrates the film’s opening and introduces the adolescent version of Lindy (Kate Beckinsale). The painful monologue is a harbinger of a rough road ahead.

As a young girl, Lindy pushes a friend’s face into a birthday cake and beats a young boy repeatedly with a baseball bat.  Although violent sequences with children can be framed with a lighter touch (as in Christmas movies) and portrayed as funny, Wexler’s scenes are darker and more exploitative.

Since the early 20th century, films and television shows have displayed violent children with more grace, humor, and class.

For instance, the kids in the Umbrella Academy kill henchmen with their superpowers; sometimes they do it in twisted and graphic ways, but they never seem like cheap thugs, and most of the time, they’re humorous.

Young Lindy acts like she could bite the head off the Antichrist, but she’s so unlikeable and one-dimensional you don’t care about her struggles.

As for the soundtrack, it only adds to the misery. I can tolerate music I don’t like when it seems to fit the scene as long as it’s brief. Jolt’s soundtrack, put together by Dominic Lewis (a British composer for television and film), is one of the worst I’ve ever heard, and I lived through the ‘80s.

Whether it’s death metal from Latvia, hip-hop from a sociologist, or a Kenny G song recorded in a Geritol factory, the songs have to complement the action in the movie.

Lindy struts down in the street and tries not to stab pedestrians while the soundtrack tears into your eardrums and rips them to shreds.

Repeat the Same Joke Several Times, and It Just Gets Funnier

Lindy goes on a rampage when she discovers the guy she went on one date with is dead. Her loose connection to her one-night stand is frequently brought up throughout the film, and after the seventh or eighth time a new character asks Lindy about her almost-boyfriend, you might laugh out of boredom.

It’s a shame that Stanley Tucci and Kate Beckinsale couldn’t save the mess, but they’re not merely handicapped by the script. They act like Charles Bronson in Death Wish V. They don’t care enough or seem interested in making the film better. However, maybe the most entertaining Death Wish film is a bad example.

Bronson cruises through Death Wish V without much emotion, but at least the story involves a psychopath named Flakes with a dandruff problem.

Throughout the film, the cold-blood killer brushes dandruff off his shoulders in disgust. At one point, the dialogue focuses on Flakes complaining about his new medicated shampoo.

Ah, the Red Light District looks heavenly this evening!

He is a repulsive character. He runs people over with cars, slams Bronson’s girlfriend headfirst into a bathroom mirror, and complains about his itchy noggin. However, he’s more appealing than the heroes and villains in Jolt.

He dies when Bronson calls out, “Hey Flakes, I gotta cure for your dandruff problem,” and triggers an explosive remote-control soccer ball that sets Flakes’ head ablaze. Now, that’s quality bad cinema.

Here are some other bad movies you can watch instead of Electric Beckinsale:

  • Death Wish IV
  • Return of the Killer Tomatoes (starring George Clooney)
  • Hudson Hawk
  • Return of the Living Dead
  • Gotcha!
  • License To Drive
  • Our Man Flint
  • In Like Flint
  • The Presidio
  • Loaded Weapon
  • The Last Temptation of Christ
  • Night Patrol
  • The Big Chill
  • The Ice Pirates
  • Witchboard
  • The Night of the Comet
  • Throw Mama From the Train
  • Moonraker
  • Surf Nazis Must Die
  • Flash Gordon

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