HIS NAME WAS JASON
:30 Years Of Friday The 13th
An exclusive Horror Drunx review
by
Jason Grove
No my name STILL IS Jason. Oh, wait, you mean that other guy named Jason that wears a mask...
Anchor Bay has released this retrospective of the FRIDAY THE 13TH series. Usually I like Anchor Bay releases, but part way through this one I asked myself their reason for even releasing it.
It comes off more like a giddy Star Trek convention geekfest than anything else, with gushing interviews from a group of people (those that worked on the film, and for some reason people on staff at the worst and most pandering of the horror fanny websites) that can't seem to say anything at all bad while they are licking the brown puckered eye of the camera operator.
Then I smelled something REALLY rotten in Denmark. Call me slow on the uptake, but then I suddenly realized that the
only reason that this film was made and released just in time for the release of Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes REMAKE of Friday The 13th is
because it is nothing but one big commercial for the fucking REMAKE! Really, did they think they were pulling the wool over my eyes so easily?
There is one quote in this film (pardon me if the persons name that I am paraphrasing here escapes me) that is very telling. In fact in a way it sums up the
entire Friday The 13th film series for me.... "The formula was simple, we (they) made movies where the audience could feel smarter than the
people on the screen".
Well, in my book the only people dumber than the characters in a Friday The 13th movie, are the idiots that would gladly pay good money to buy or see THIS movie. And all are victims.
It is easy to see why the films makers didn't come to www.TheHorrorDrunx.com for any interview footage. We'd have told them the truth...
EXAMPLE #1: Throughout this film everyone tried to tote the party line that FRIDAY THE 13TH and most notably JASON was the guiding light that invented the slasher movie. Not one of them mentioned once that OTHER movie named after a holiday and starring a slasher named Michael Myers that Friday The 13th ripped off. Typical of those in the horror community and those with some product to sell, selective memory keeps them from giving credit where credit is due. In this case it was the 1978 film HALLOWEEN and its creator John Carpenter that they fail to give one lick of credit to. News Break: Friday The 13th didn't come out until two years later.
But that is a truth that no one involved with this film wanted to hear... Which makes this movie come off as bias and
self serving. If it was said by any of the countless interviewees, that little bit of fact conveniently ended up on the cutting room floor. After all, this
film was designed to be one big commercial for a remake remember, not sell or give any attention to a film franchise that they didn't somehow own a piece
of.
In fact I have my suspicions that Michael Bay's production company Platinum Dunes (who are now releasing the FRIDAY THE 13TH remake) had a hand in not only
funding this film, but also in paying the licencing for any film clips used... Which would have been otherwise unaffordable for the group of young film makers
who supposedly put this piece of crap together independently. Isn't it funny how HIS NAME WAS JASON is coming out just just two weeks before the remake?
EXAMPLE #2: Friday the 13th was one of the most unfeeling and cruel series ever conceived. It was after all about a developmentally handicapped
special needs child who the films makers turn into a serial killer in a mask. Even this documentary threw around the words "Retard" and
"Mongoloid" for strained comedy relief. I'm sorry, but I just don't find that one bit funny. In fact, if someone used those phrases for a
joke at any party I ever went to, if I didn't show them the business end of my boot I'd at least get in their face about it. That was the problem with
the 1980's and most horror films made in that decade... People were so fixated on the yuppie pastime of making a quick buck that they didn't care whose
expense they made it at and all good sense, taste and scruples went right out the window. It was a "let's pick on those who are incapable of fighting
back" time. No don't get me wrong, I'm not going all PC on you here, it is more about them needing to be a better person and not a sociopathic
bully. (That's MY job you infant humping cave pigs.)
But I will say it only made me long for the days when the handicapped were portrayed with humanity and respect. The blind hermit in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN anyone? THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME if you please? They were the ones we rooted for, not the villains who disemboweled countless teenagers for the sake of a body count.
If HIS NAME WAS JASON is your cup of tea and you'd like nothing more than watching actors you've never heard from again rehashing their 15 minutes of stardom and the people from FatBaldNeverHadSexHeDidntPayForFanboy.com then gushing over said actors, by all means this is for you. Otherwise, don't buy into the hype, the lies, and the publicity machine for a remake. Anything of importance that may have been in HIS NAME WAS JASON was already covered in the "Camp Crystal Lake to Manhattan" extras of the FRIDAY THE 13TH box set, thankfully minus the circle jerk from the Horrorfanny website crew... That documentary renders the HIS NAME WAS JASON crapfest redundant and makes me wonder why the makers put it together? Oh yeah, for a healthy kickback check from Michael Bay, that's why.
"My name is Jason Grove and I am a Horror Drunx"
Jason Grove
Hollywood, California
February 2009
Copyright 2009 The Horror Drunx and the Author. This article
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