Friday The 13th Part 2 Movie Review (1981) "A True Slasher Classic!"
8Friday The 13th Part 2 Movie Review
Friday 13th Part 2 Review (1981)
Friday 13th Part 2 Review
Friday the 13th Part 2[a] is a 1981 American slasher film produced and directed by Steve Miner in his directorial debut, and written by Ron Kurz. It is the sequel to 1980's Friday the 13th, and the second installment in the franchise. Adrienne King, Betsy Palmer and Walt Gorney reprise their respective roles from the first film as Alice Hardy, Pamela Voorhees, and Crazy Ralph. Amy Steel and John Furey also star. Taking place five years after the first film, Part 2 follows a similar premise, with an unknown stalker killing a group of camp counselors at a training camp near Crystal Lake. The film marks the debut of Jason Voorhees as the series' main antagonist.
Originally, Friday the 13th Part 2 was intended to be an anthology film based on the Friday the 13th superstition. However, after the popularity of the original film's surprise ending, the filmmakers opted to continue the story and mythology surrounding Camp Crystal Lake, a trend which would be repeated in every film in the franchise.
Like the original film, Friday the 13th Part 2 faced opposition from the Motion Picture Association of America, who noted its "accumulative violence" as problematic, resulting in numerous cuts being made to allow an R rating. The film opened theatrically on May 1 in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco on May 1, 1981.[4][5] Friday the 13th Part 2 received generally negative reviews, and was less financially successful than the first film, grossing $21.7 million in the U.S. on a budget of $1.25 million. A direct sequel, Friday the 13th Part III, was released one year later.
Two months after the murders at Camp Crystal Lake, sole survivor Alice Hardy is recovering from her traumatic experience. In her apartment, when Alice opens the refrigerator to get her cat some food, she finds the severed head of Pamela Voorhees and is murdered with an ice pick to her temple by an unknown assailant.
Five years later, Paul Holt opens a school for camp counselors on the shore of Crystal Lake. The camp is attended by Sandra, her boyfriend Jeff, Scott, Terry, Mark, Vickie, Ted, and Paul's assistant Ginny, as well as many other trainees. Around the campfire that night, Paul tells the counselors the legend of Jason Voorhees, a boy who drowned at Camp Crystal Lake in 1957, sending his vengeful mother on two killing sprees in 1958 and 1979, until she herself was eventually murdered. According to the legend, Jason survived and is now living in the woods near Crystal Lake; enraged at his mother's death, he will kill anyone he comes across. As Paul finishes the story, a man with a spear scares everyone, but it's revealed to be Ted wearing a mask. Paul reassures everyone that Jason is dead and that Camp Crystal Lake is now condemned and off-limits.
That night, Crazy Ralph wanders onto the property to warn the group but is garroted from behind a tree by an unseen killer. The following day, Jeff and Sandra sneak off to Camp Crystal Lake and find a dog carcass before getting caught by Deputy Winslow and returned to the camp. Later, Winslow spots a man wearing a burlap sack mask running across the road. Winslow chases him into the woods and finds a shack. The man kills Winslow with a hammer claw.
Back at camp, Paul offers the others one last night on the town before the training begins. Six stay behind, including Jeff and Sandra, who are forced to stay as punishment for sneaking off. At the bar, Ginny muses that if Jason were still alive and had witnessed his mother's death, it may have left him with no distinction between life and death, or right and wrong. Paul dismisses the idea, proclaiming that Jason is nothing but an urban legend. Meanwhile, the assailant appears at the camp and kills the counselors, one by one. Scott has his throat slit with a machete while caught in a rope trap, and Terry is killed off-screen upon finding Scott's dead body. Mark has a machete slammed into his face and he falls down a flight of stairs. The killer then moves upstairs and impales Jeff and Sandra with a spear as they have sex, then stabs Vickie with a kitchen knife.