Friday the 13th: The Curse of Jason

Among the most pathetic and execrable of the Friday the 13th fan films is The Curse of Jason. It’s made in Indiana and does not lack for local color; once again we see the solidly mid-western Hoosier state doing its best to stay at par with the Confederate South. If you want to see Jason slaughtering a cast of fleshy-faced men in camo hats, then this is the fan film for you. The Trump-Supporter sensibilities make most of the victims wholly unsympathetic. The only really interesting thing that Curse of Jason does is managing to shoehorn several iterations of Jason into the mix. At first, he’s got a bag on his head as per Part 2. Then, during an early kill sequence, he conveniently finds a hockey-mask sitting on a bureau, and he upgrades to that. Variations of Jason from Part 5 and Part 3 make appearances in the ensuing scenes, thanks in part to a (spoiler alert) fake Jason “subplot” (I’ve opted for quotations because there’s not much a plot to begin with). The acting here is atrocious even relative to other fan films. In one case, a young man shows up at his sister’s soiree only to find all the partygoers slaughtered. He is mildly perturbed by the discovery. Jason appears, only to have the young man’s sister emerge from a back bedroom and push him aside, her facial expression pacific all the while. The kill scenes are moronically choreographed. In one scene that marks the nadir of the filmmaker’s imaginative capacities, Jason throws a portly fifty-something guy with a neck tattoo into a shallow marsh. But the worst directorial decision is by far the depiction of the lone African American character, whose conceptualization is southern-fried, to say the least. Playing on Southern Caucasian stereotypes of the oversexed black man, this character is introduced in the midst of seducing a white woman. When Jason appears, the African American man pushes his paramour into Jason so that he may flee. It’s no spoiler alert, to my mind, to tell you that the African American guy gets his comeuppance after the credits roll. I guess this black man’s murder is something of a parting shot or a punchline…if you’re going in with massively racist assumptions. Steer clear of The Curse of Jason unless you want to suffer through the Birth of a Nation of Friday the 13th fan films.

Don't watch it here.

Friday the 13th: Repetition

Friday the 13th: Repetition takes a schlocky, mirthful approach to Jason-related fan filmmaking. Lensed on Canada’s pacific coast, it benefits from trashy, Western-Canadian sensibilities. The script features some truly good badinage, such as the quip offered by the South Asian camper who is skeptical of his Caucasian friends’ idea to go into the woods looking for Jason: “This is what white people do,” he says, pretty much distilling the whole Friday the 13th franchise and even, dare I say, the entire slasher genre along with it. All told, the players’ performances are overblown, none more so than that of the Crazy Ralph analog, who really doesn’t look or sound like Crazy Ralph and is better off for it. With a straw, he drinks from a bandaged wound on his hand. He also issues another of the script’s restaurant-quality one-liners when he breaks the fourth wall to tell the viewers: “It’s not easy being creepy.” Amen to that. With the cinema-vérité camerawork and the occasional, purposeful graininess, the director almost lends the Friday the 13th materials a House of 1000 Corpses vibe. Indeed, the film smacks more heavily of early (and tenuous) Rob Zombie directorial efforts than it does of Friday the 13th. The cast is mostly on the heavy-set side, and I bring this up not to fat-shame the players but rather because the script itself draws attention to its body-positivity. Jason himself is fairly portly, and appears to be winded for many of the pursuit scenes. Still, he catches up with his victims eventually, though the kills are nothing special, marred by unconvincing effects. Nonetheless, Friday the 13th: Repetition is worth watching for a few chuckles, as it does not take itself too seriously—which is, surprisingly enough, rare among horror fan films.

Watch it here.

Friday the 13th: A New Wake

Fan films necessarily allow for some refreshing regionalized re-imaginings of ossified franchises. A New Wake places Friday the 13th in Europe, specifically in France. As could be expected, the dialogue is in French with English subtitles. Hopefully that’s not a bridge too far for the average American consumer, because if it is, then they are missing out on a fantastic visualization of the Voorhees milieu. The European locations add a Gothic stateliness to the Friday the 13th experience. In this way, A New Wake is reminiscent of Part VI, Jason Lives, one of the few canonical Friday the 13th films that actually benefited from the unique look of its filming location, in that case the American South. And fittingly, A New Wake has patterned its Jason after C.J. Graham's Part VI performance as the hockey-masked maniac. The staging of Jason is outstanding, easily among the best in the fan-film world and on par with any canonical Jason, save perhaps for the Kane Hodder version. This Jason has musclé, as the French say. A New Wake is lean on dialogue, which only serves to emphasize its fantastic visuals. The best example is the day-dream sequence, of which I will say very little since it is better watched than described. If A New Wake has a flaw, that would be its anemic story and short run-time. What it gives you, however, wets your appetite for more. Tres bien!

Pour le film, cliquez ici.

Friday the 13th: Extraction

Friday the 13th: Extraction stands out among its fan-film kin on account of its well-framed shots and fantastic locations. The exteriors are full of driftwood and escarpments; the interiors are constituted by claustrophobic and convincing military bunkers. The story is short and to the point, centering upon a tactical team tasked with the mission of taking down Jason. The script brims with great tough-guy dialogue, and it even addresses in some detail Jason’s persistent ability to regenerate tissues. The only downside is that Extraction's ending comes a little too abruptly, leaving the viewer wanting more.

Watch it here.