Friday the 13th: Part II

And welcome to another episode of Stanford Cinema, the film discussion podcast where you choose it, I watch it, and we discuss it. As always, I am your host. My name is Andrew. Thank you very much for joining us. If you are new to the channel, please subscribe, rate, review, tell your friends. And if you're a longtime listener, hello, welcome back. I appreciate you. And you too should rate us, leave a review, and tell your friends.

In this week's episode, or season finale, season five, in fact, we are going to have a special Friday the 13th edition of Samper Cinema. That's right. If you recall earlier in the season, we did break down the very first Friday the 13th film. I say we, but really mean me. But whatever. I say me because we didn't have any guests, right? But just like before.

We're going to do that same thing today, meaning there will be no guests, but that's OK, because I think that episode came out really good. The feedback was really strong. You continue to listen that episode. So I'm going to I'm not really going to attempt to replicate what I did then, but maybe even level it up a little bit because, you know, this is the sequel, baby. You know what?

I'm going to shut up for a minute. Have a listen to the trailer from the 1981 Friday 13th Part 2. I don't want to scare anyone. And I'm going to give it to you straight about Jason. Hey, you guys, look at this. It's camp blood. This place is not the same lake as we're going to be. You all do it.

He's still out there. Jason. Some sort of demented creature. If I was you, I'd have located an ex-county. Quiet for five years, and that's the way we want to keep it. Legend has it that Jason saw his mother beheaded, and he took his revenge. A revenge that he'll continue to seek if anyone ever enters his wilderness again.

I mean, I thought that was a pretty decent trailer. I think it paints a little picture on what the film is going to be about. Now, regarding the cast, the movie stars Amy Steele as our final girl, Jenny. John Fury plays Paul. Adrian King returns as Alice, albeit, you know, in a much smaller role than the original. What else do you need to know? Oh, Tom McBride plays the nice guy.

Mark, who is the wheelchair bound athlete in this film. Little side note, the actor Tom McBride died in 1995 due to complications from AIDS. Really, really sad story. Atomic Bride was a pretty popular model back in the 1980s. He was an openly gay model and actor, but unfortunately he had a very tragic passing. There was a documentary.

I forget what it's called. I might put something in the show notes for you. But what else do you need to know? The original actress that played Pamela Voorhees is not in it this time around. Betsy Palmer takes on that role. And then you've just got a couple other actors that... make their rounds respectfully. It was directed by Steve Miner. He was not the original director or creator. Victor Miller obviously wrote the original and this time...

around Ron Kerr's directs or writes it. Now, a little bit more backstory. Originally, Friday the 13th 2 was intended. to be a bit of an anthology based on that Friday the 13th superstition. Now, if you recall, in the previous episode that I did on Friday the 13th, I did take a look at the lore of Friday the 13th as a date, but...

Because of the fact that the original film was so popular, they decided that they wanted to kind of expand the story around Camp Crystal Lake. So that way it could kind of turn more into a franchise. As the film was being made, they faced opposition from the MPAA due to all the violence. So when you watch this movie, kind of like the kills are abbreviated. They had to do that and make a lot of cuts to kind of keep it like toward an R rating and came out May of 1981.

And even though the movie only had a budget of around just over a million bucks, which was, you know, a jump from the previous version, it made a whopping 21.7. So...

hugely successful, although it does feel a bit rushed at times. I think it's pretty OK. So what is the movie about? Let's actually go ahead and give you a little bit of a breakdown as if the trailer didn't already do it. We pick up two months after the events from the first film. Alice, who's the lone survivor, is still dealing with that trauma that she faced losing all of her friends.

beheading Mrs. Voorhees, almost being killed by Mrs. Voorhees, maybe jumped by this weird, you know, kid in the lake, right? So, you know, she's back home and she's having a bit of like a trauma bonding conversation with her mother. She gets off the phone and is immediately killed with like a sharp object, maybe like a screwdriver, like straight through the temple. And wouldn't you know it, she's killed by Jason. That's right. That that boy in the lake that nobody could find.

She wasn't sure he existed. Well, guess what? Yeah, he exists and he's no longer a myth and he's very real. And oh yeah, he's now also an adult, but he's very kind enough, even though after he kills you, he's going to take the kettle off the stove, like that boiling kettle. He takes it off the stove, which is still nice. So he's a murderer, but he doesn't want the house to burn down, right?

So that happens right as the movie jumps. But then we pick up five years later and there's a new counselor training camp that's open near Camp Crystal Lake. Again, I said five years later. I guess that means this film takes place in 1984, even though it came out in 1981. It's not really clear.

You know, that might actually be a fun kind of like little sidebar as I do more of these Friday the 13th, keeping track of the year and the time jumps, because I think there are a few more time jumps. So stay tuned for that. Should I continue to? this Friday the 13th saga. Anyway, sorry, I digress. So this training camp for counselors is led by Paul and his girlfriend, Ginny. And anyway, as things happen as they tend to do in a slasher film.

One by one, the cancelers begin to fall to Jason. And Jason, this time around, is kind of adorned not by the hockey mask, but like a... I don't know, like a like a potato sack or like a like a like a bag over like a sack was over his head. Right. You know, it's just him. Just Jason in grimy ass hands living in a dirt cabin. He's got like a shrine to his decomposing like dead mother's face. He's very like feral and primal. He's not kind of that.

that demon, if you will, that we end up coming to know and love in the later franchises. But anyway, Ginny, she's our final girl. She bests Jason and thusly evil is punished, right? Boom. Yay. Rating from a viewing, I think I did slap like machetes, like a number of machetes out of 10. I think this time I will give this movie six machetes out of 10.

um it's not bad it's not great i mean it's not as good as the original certainly better than some of the ones that'll come up afterwards but it's a fun you know it's a fun introduction

to the character Jason Voorhees, right? Because remember, he was nothing more than a footnote in the very first one, right? So in fact, let's actually, you know, let me take a moment and start talking a bit about Jason because he's really interesting, right?

I mentioned that he's not that hockey mask wearing Jason yet. He's like a sackhead. He's raw. He's emotional. He's primal. He's been living in the woods possibly since childhood. It's never really... explain but if he's been in the woods just living like a ghost for since I guess he would have potentially drowned in the lake in the 1950s so you look at if he drowned in the lake what was it 1958

This movie technically is 1984, 68, 78, 88. So like 36 years. So yeah, Jason's probably in his 40s at this point. Anyway, his movements are kind of erratic. He's awkward. He's just not like this unstoppable machine that will come to know. He's... He he's still deformed. Right. I mean, we get a good look at him toward the end of the movie and kind of looks like something straight out like the hills from eyes. The hills have eyes rather interesting this time around as he runs.

He trips, he even grimaces. Really, when you think of his personality, he's motivated strictly as just like a vengeful child, right? He's driven by this rage of seeing his mother's death. And... now he's got like this creepy little shrine he's built for her. And so I guess like the big question you want to know is, did Jason see his mother beheaded in the first one? It kind of stands to reason because he...

He stalks Alice, kills her. So it's this idea that he's been kind of like watching from the shadows like the whole time. Or is there... the supernatural force that brought him back to avenge his mother, and then also to ensure that nobody comes back to that camp, that, you know, that legendary Camp Crystal Lake, right? So...

But those are just questions you ask because the film doesn't really address it. I don't even know if any of the follow up films really get into it. But it's it's intriguing, you know, because the fact that I do want to toe this line very carefully. I want to I want to keep these. discussions chronologically because at this point there is no hockey mask so at this point you know the that that potato sack is our only canon right but it is still impossible to shake that truth that

that there is more to come. But what I like about this Jason, I don't know if it's necessarily my very favorite Jason, but it's certainly the most interesting Jason to me because this Jason is certainly the most human of them all. right um and i'm sure we'll get into it certainly when we when we do friday 13th part six but of the jasons that we are explored to and this is our first real introduction to him in the franchise

He's certainly the most, you know, human of the bunch. Yes, he has quite a deformed face, but his motivations, although, like, you know, he's very primal and kind of feral, you know, there are...

kind of human elements from just this idea of being that vengeful child, which I think is interesting. I think it's really interesting. So another caveat that you want to talk about this movie is just like in the context of the slasher boom, right? Because this movie came out in 1981, which, you know, it followed the likes of Halloween and Prob Night and a couple other slack terror train.

So it leaned into that formula that has gone on to be synonymous with the slasher genre, right? You've got attractive young adults. You put them in a remote setting. You've got a creepy, mysterious killer. And universally, sex, alcohol, drugs, they equal death. You know that drill. But that... That trope has kind of helped evolve the genre. As a result, we've introduced that legacy killer.

This movie is kind of cool because of the fact that Jason wasn't the original killer. He picked up where his mother left off, which now creates this new idea of evil where it can be reborn. Now, it's a trope that we see repeated over and over again. A scream is a great example of kind of leaning into that idea. So it's intriguing. Of course, critics didn't quite love it.

On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 33% out of 46 reviews with an average score of 4.6 out of 10. Yeah, you know, generally speaking, it's pretty not great, but that's okay. It doesn't have to be perfect. Slasher films, even though most of them aren't fantastic, they're still an enjoyable ride. Although Roger Ebert, I think, has a much different take on it.

because he said Friday the 13th Part 2 is a cross between the mad slasher and the dead teenager genres. About two dozen movies a year feature a mad killer going berserk, and they're all about as bad as this one. Some have a little more plot. Some have a little less. It doesn't matter. And interestingly enough, Ebert never wrote another review.

for any other Friday the 13th movie in this franchise. And he gave this movie a half star and he closed out his review by saying, this review will suffice for the Friday the 13th film of your choice. So, yeah, you know, critically not great, but so what? So what? Right. It's still a fun, fun ride, but definitely, you know, you're not going to it's not going to blow you knock your socks off. Right.

What else? I did mention that Steve Miner, who directed this one, this was his film debut. It was filmed mostly in Connecticut. It faced heavy censorship, as I mentioned, which meant several of the kills had to be trimmed or even cut. Jason, as a character, was played by two different actors, one of which was the stuntman.

Ooh, ooh. Okay. Let's talk a little sex. Or, you know, let's get this little, you know, funky right now, right? Okay. So because of the fact that slasher genre films often do have sex, right? Sex equals death. Now... An interesting fact is one of the actresses, Marta Kober, she was under the age of 18 at the time of filming. And she and her onscreen boyfriend have a sex scene.

And she was nude. And so they had to remove that scene as soon as they discovered that she was underage post-production. It's kind of a big deal because of the fact that after this film dubbed the Sandra incident. you know, it essentially influenced industry-wide changes when it comes to forecasting verification, right? So just ensuring that you can't just say you're at least 18. You have to actually prove that you're 18. So that was...

Really important and also kind of impacted, no pun intended, the death scene that happens between Sandra and her boyfriend where they're double impaled by like a big old spear. Right. So kind of. Kind of interesting. It's actually inspired by an Italian giallo film called Bay of Blood. What other miscellaneous facts can I give you?

Oh, let's talk about the mask, right? Obviously, it's not the hockey mask, but it's, you know, it's kind of that sack that he's wearing. It was inspired, you know, for anybody that knows the 70s film, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, right? So a reference to that. In one of the original versions of the screenplay, or rather one of the alternative versions of the screenplay, Jason decapitates Jenny, where this one...

You know, she survives. And speaking of the end, let's just go ahead and get right to it. The ending in this movie is a little whack, right? It's misleading because of the fact that we think she bests Jason and... She then sees her boyfriend Paul and a dog and everything is fine. And then Jason returns back from the dead, jumps into a window, and you think that they're in trouble.

But nothing that happens. We pick up the next morning and then we just see Jenny. We don't see Paul. We don't see the dog. So what the hell happened? Where is Paul? Did Paul make it? Did she dream that that that that sequence where Jason jumped through the glass? Like, what was the final scare? You can't help but think that.

You know, when they were doing editing or they're doing screenwriting should definitely got cut. Right. Because the ending as a whole just kind of whack. It doesn't it doesn't really feel complete. So I find that find that. But that, again, just goes right back to the fact that this movie was heavily censored by the MPAA, right? Several scenes, several kills were trimmed. So stands to reason that the ending was...

was edited out as well. So let's talk a little bit about kills. And then I'm going to go into some some theories, some listener questions. But all right.

So here are my we'll call my top five kills and there are 10. There are 10 kills in this movie, but I'm going to give you my top five. Let's see. OK, we're going to do. But let's just start off with Crazy Ralph. Now, Crazy Ralph returns from the first one. He's that weird, well, crazy guy that tells everybody, you're doomed.

And he returns this one to tell a new group of teenagers that you're doomed. But he is strangled with a barbed wire from behind a tree. Now, if we think about the physics of that. It doesn't make any sense. How can you really be strangled from behind the tree with barbed wire unless like the tree has been lopped off? Right. I mean, or unless.

You already were behind the tree. You had the barbed wire on both sides of the tree. And you just had to wait for somebody to come stand up against that tree and not see you. and then drop the barbed wire over their neck and strangle them right it just doesn't make sense it's just a weird it's a weird death um it's a little shocking because it's a tree but obviously how they had to film that is it was more of a stump but

It's just a death that doesn't make any sense. But as a result of it not making any sense, it's definitely in my top five. So we'll call that number five. The deputy, he gets hammered to the head after discovering Jason Shaq. That was pretty cool. Number three. Let's see, Scott. We'll talk about like Scott and Vicky. Wait, was Vicki? I'm sorry. I said Vicki, but I don't know if that was her name. Who is... No, Terry. I'm sorry. So Scott and Terry.

They have they have a little like sexual chemistry going on. But Scott, he gets caught in a rope trap and then he gets his throat slit. So we'll call that number three. Number two, definitely the double impalement. Of course, you just have more of an idea. It would be cooler if you just would have seen them. you know, really like stabbed through it, some really good makeup effects. But of course, Tom Savini did not return for the special effects and makeup effects.

Different guy this time around. And again, Sandra was underage, so that kill scene definitely did get edited out. But as a result... We'll go ahead and put that at number two. Our number one, without question, easily the best, also saddest kill of the whole film is our poor guy, Mark. He takes a machete straight to the face. Remember, Mark is in a wheelchair, so he gets that machete to the face and then he in his wheelchair.

Rolls back down several flights of stairs with machete stuck in his face. Really, really sad, but also really gruesome, really cool. Definitely. The lasting image of this film is Mark taking that machete to the face. So RIP to all of our lovable teenagers that died this time around. And I'm curious to see.

If that machete to the face will when I'm done with this franchise, if I'll have that in my top five or my top 10 favorite kills. But in this movie, it's easily, easily, easily my favorite kill. OK, so. What have we covered? Just as a recap, we've covered some best kills. We've talked a little nudity. We've talked some miscellaneous facts and production notes. We've talked how critics thought. We've talked a little bit of the slasher boom.

Jason, the cast, what the plot of this movie is all about. So what else can I talk? Goofs. Well, let's we'll cover some goofs of this movie. I know it's not really super structured.

I'll get better at this as I break down these movies. So obviously no film is perfect. And this movie is no exception, right? Again, very, very tight budget. I did mention that there are two Jasons who have two different heights. We have some head scratching moments in this film. So, yeah, Jason, two different actors, two different heights and the body type changes between scenes. There's some clothing continuity. So.

There's literally outfits that change in from scene to scene. Clothes dry like magically, even though they were just in the water. You can see characters breathing after their body has been discovered. So you can see corpses breathing, which is really funny. You can see some crew equipment. when uh in jason's shack which is funny and lastly the dummy jason right so that that sequence at the end where jason jumps through the window

It's, you know, it looks like it's a silly like dummy mask just that crashes through the window. So, you know, just some goofs on the film. Now. Scouring the internet, I have found some fan theories that I want to take a look at. And one of the theories that people have is that Jason didn't drown. He survived. He saw his mother die, and that is what has triggered this rage. Now, that makes sense. I mean, that's the most logical theory out there, as opposed to, you know, he's the undead.

Right. You know, I mean, so if we want to look at this as purely like a revenge film, the idea that he didn't drown makes sense. But of course, if he didn't drown and his mother's been hanging around, don't you think he might? have wanted to go see his mother. It doesn't really make sense, right? So I just kind of contradicted myself. It makes sense, but then it doesn't make sense. But then that's Friday the 13th, I guess. The film.

yeah another theory the film's messy timelines some say it's intentionally dreamlike kind of like this world and camp crystal lake is kind of like a uh a form of purgatory that's interesting because of the fact that as i mentioned at the outset The timeline in this film is very odd. In fact, even when you factor the original, it's still very, very odd because. Jason drowned in the 50s. The movie opens up technically in the 60s or 70s, but then we pick up with everybody in 1980.

And then this movie starts two months later and then it picks up five years later. So we go from the 50s to the 70s, the 80s, the mid 80s, all into movies. So the timelines in the in this franchise certainly is all over the map.

And one other theory is Ginny, our final girl, she forms a psychological link with Jason, possibly even absorbs some of his trauma. It's interesting, but Ginny as a character is... fascinating because spoiler alert she doesn't return to any other versions of this franchise at least i'm

I say that, but I don't think she's in Friday the 13th part two. I say that like I was going to die on a hill saying that she wasn't in it, but now I need to verify. I know Amy Steele certainly wasn't in the third one, but the character Jenny, let me find out. Part 13, part three. Let's look at our characters real quick. Yep, no Ginny, right? So there is no Ginny in this one. So Ginny, our final girl, survives.

never returns to Camp Crystal Lake in the sequel. So there is some interesting thought behind that. But there you go. How about some questions? I found some questions and I reached out to a few friends and I'm going to try to answer these relatively briefly, but let's see what we've got here. Okay. What is Jason's motivation? in this movie, if he didn't drown. Okay, so if he didn't drown, that means he lived. His motivation clearly...

That's actually really interesting. We assume that if he didn't drown, he lived in the woods, stayed in the cabin, didn't see his mother. Why he didn't see his mother, I don't know. He lived in the cabin. He saw his mother die. And so his motivation is just kind of that idea that I've mentioned a couple of times in this episode is the idea of kind of like a vengeful child, I would say.

Question number two, how does Jason go from a backwoods guy to a supernatural killer? Definitely just from discussing screen. I would think that's just that's a writer decision, studio decision to make him more and more leery. Again, the slasher boom was in full steam. Michael Myers, obviously, the Halloween franchise was there. Other slasher films were coming. So...

You just you level up, you level up your your franchise killer. You make him more and more powerful. Certainly that's what happens in this in this franchise. And where Michael Myers. is man that just can't be killed. This one just does go a little bit more of a supernatural route. Certainly as soon as we get to Friday the 13th part six, we go full supernatural. supernatural killer in that one. Why does Jason wear a sack and why not the hockey mask?

Didn't have it yet. The sack they used was inspired by the town that dreaded Sundown, right? That's where that idea came from. This movie, again, they kind of rushed through this film. So they didn't really... develop some of their ideas it kind of stole some of the stuff that was going on in other franchise they borrowed here and made it work there so that's how that sack came to be but in friday 13th part three

we do see that hockey mask that Jason is known to wear. Okay, and two questions that both kind of tie into the ending. One, did Ginny survive mentally intact? And two... What really happened to Paul? Great, great questions. So I think Jenny is fine. Although, you know, it does raise another question. I call Jenny the final girl.

But there's a good handful of people that still survive this movie that were camp counselors. Because the night that everybody gets offed, a bunch of people went to the bar. there's this nerdy guy who's in the beginning of the film. He seems to be kind of like one of the other people that live in that town. I can't remember the actor's name, but he also appeared in the movie Just One of the Guys.

But he survives and a few like randos that don't really have any lines, but they were at the at the camp during their like the training session. They also go to the bar. They don't return to the camp. So you assume they survive. So what the next day looks like for them, I don't know. But I think Jenny survives mentally intact, even though she saw a few people die. As for Paul...

I don't know what the hell happened to him. You have to assume that he probably was killed, but due to budget, due to the MPAA, due to... maybe just bad screenwriting. I don't know. It just doesn't show. So yeah, we don't know whatever happens to Paul. Don't know. Maybe in a alternative universe, Paul. becomes another Jason, which maybe I'll bring up in, what was it? Friday the 13th, part five. I'll talk about that much later, much later. But that is, I think, all I've got for you.

Again, I'll give this movie six machetes out of ten machetes. I enjoy it. It's not great. But again, this franchise isn't... It's not great, y'all. But it... It ties in lovely with the lore of this super, not supernatural date, but this kind of...

you know, creepy date of Friday the 13th, right? And again, if you want to know a little bit more about the backstory behind the date of Friday the 13th, please listen to the first episode I did. Please listen to all the episodes I do. If you're still listening to me now. Thank you. You've actually gone through, I don't know how long I've been yapping at you, but you've gone through this episode of me just nerding out on this film.

That's all I have for this season. Season six will be returning really soon. I'm really excited about some of the episodes I've got coming up for you. I might even do a couple more episodes like this, not necessarily Friday the 13th, but. single episodes of me just nerding out on a film for you. But...

As always, I appreciate everybody who listens to the show. If you aren't subscribing, please subscribe now. Tell your friends, rate us, review us. Check out my website, StamperCinema.com. You can listen to the entire back catalog of everything I've done. I've got a few blogs on there with the promise of writing more. I will write more. I just need to actually do it. And if you ever want to show support for the show, you can leave a donation. I've got.

I've got a link there where you can lead a little donation to the cause here. Obviously, this show is always free to listen to, but if you want to give me a little something-something, I wouldn't object to that. To recap what we've covered here, we've discussed Friday the 13th Part 2. We've broken down the plot. We've talked a little bit about Jason. We've gone through the context of this movie within the slasher boom, the cast of this film.

production notes, what the critics thought of it, what I thought of it. We covered some facts. We discussed a little nudity in the show. We covered some of the goofs, my favorite kills, some fan theories, and questions from you. If you would ever like to ask me a question, shoot me an email, SanfordCinemaPodcast at gmail.com. You can do it on my website, SanfordCinema.com. Or you can find me on social media, Instagram, Facebook.

Whatever. All right. Well, that's all I've got for you. That wraps up season five of Samper Cinema. Again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. So, you know, until next time, you know, if you hear a little. Twigs snap in the middle of the woods. Don't check it out alone. We'll see you next time on another episode of Stanford Cinema.