Jason Voorhees? More like Jason BORE-Hees! Ha! Oh, uh, I’m sorry, Mr. Voorhees, didn’t see you there. I didn’t mean to disparage the great Friday The 13th series of horror films that had a strong run in the 1980s, following the success of seminal slasher Halloween in 1978. While F13 was an unabashed ripoff of earlier teen horrors, crazy special effects from Tom Savini made the movies stand out.
And today, if you haven’t seen some of those effects – and have cable – you can watch seven installments of mayhem occurring at Camp Crystal Lake on AMC (check your local listings). Which seven? Glad you asked…
10am – Friday the 13th Part III
12pm – Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
2pm – Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
4pm – Friday the 13th: Jason Lives
6pm – Friday the 13th (2009)
8pm – Friday the 13th (1980)
10pm – Friday the 13th Part II
I’ll be the first to admit that the Friday the 13th franchise is not my favorite slasher series. Not to say I didn’t watch almost all of them as a kid, but I feel like the quality of them dipped faster and harder than either Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street did. “What about Hellraiser?” you scream into your monitor. Well, we all know there was only one Hellraiser film. To say otherwise is just foolish.
I do love me some Jason Voorhees, though. He has a fun character design and even better make-up effects. And though I know I’m going to catch a lot of flak for this, my two favorite Friday the 13th films are Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday and Jason X, because they’re genuine trash and I get to laugh a ton at both of them.
But tell us, which of Jason’s misadventures are your favorite? Be sure to let us know and if you’ve got some time to spare today, tune in for AMC’s marathon for a healthy dose of thrills and scares.