Paramount was forced to replace the original teaser poster for Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan after the New York Tourism Board filed a complaint!

PHOTO CREDIT - MoviePoster.com

Edmonton - July 13, 2012 - Welcome to Part 2 of my look back at the Greatest Movie Franchise of all time...FRIDAY THE 13th!

FRIDAY THE 13th PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD (1988) - while New Line Cinema was basking in the glow of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, which had really overtaken the F13 franchise in terms of box office grosses, Paramount decided to change directions again after the positive reception for Jason Lives, delivering the film most fans refer to as ‘Jason Vs. Carrie’. That’s right, for part 7, makeup artist John Carl Buechler stepped behind the camera to direct this fast-paced and clever new take on the F13 legend, as young Tina Shepard (played by Lar Park Lincoln) uses her powers of telekinesis to take on the now supernatural and pretty much immortal monster known as Jason Voorhees. Again, the MPAA was happy to butcher nearly all the gore from this chapter, and Paramount has never bothered to release an ‘uncut’ version on DVD or Blu-Ray (despite countless reissues and ‘limited edition’ releases of every film in the series).



FRIDAY THE 13th PART 8: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1989) - Paramount’s final kick at the Friday the 13th corpse is this bottom of the barrel stinker that the most ‘can’t miss’ premise of the series: Jason in New York?? Bring it on! And the brains at the Paramount marketing department even came up with one of the greatest posters of all time (before the City of New York threatened to sue) - the iconic ‘I Heart NY’ logo, with Jason slashing through it (see sidebar photo). But, my GOD did they muck it up. It’s hard to narrow down the most egregious sin committed here: is it the fact that the first 70 minutes of Jason Takes ‘Manhattan’ actually takes place on a BOAT? Or the fact that most of the film was actually shot in Vancouver? To be fair to writer/director Rob Hedden, he did write more of the film to take place in New York, but Paramount balked at spending any more money on the film, so he was forced to downsize most of the action to the Love Boat setting. Great trailer though.



JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY (1993) - After acquiring rights to the Jason character from Paramount (but ‘not’ the Friday the 13th name), New Line Cinema (aka: ‘The House that Freddy Built’) took a few years to allow the stink of Jason Takes Manhattan to wear off, re-introducing the character of Jason Voorhees in a pretty clever way (as the ‘supernatural’ Jason is seen body-hopping from host to host). It was a clever concept that bore more than a passing resemblance to New Line’s 1987 horror/sci-fi hit, The Hidden, and it ended with one of the all-time great moments in horror movie history - teasing the long-anticipated ‘Freddy vs Jason’ matchup that audiences had been dying for (in fact, the main reason New Line acquired rights to the Jason character was to team him up with their own serial killer superstar, Freddy Krueger). Alas, audiences didn’t warm up to this new, ‘supernatural’ version of Jason, and after a strong start, the film quickly faded from view.



JASON X (2001) - Oh, where do you even begin…let’s just let the trailer speak for itself, shall we?



FREDDY VS. JASON (2003) - …this long-awaited, often-times delayed epic clash between the two biggest horror movie icons of the previous 2 decades FINALLY happened, and for most fans, it was worth the wait. One great byproduct of slasher movies having such longevity is that they no longer were cast with no-name actors who’d never be heard from again, the 21st Century slasher flick gathered the hottest young stars of the WB…or the CW…or UPN…you get the picture, and this film was actually headlined by some pretty decent actors in Jason Ritter, Monica Keena, Kelly Rowland, Brendan Fletcher, Lochyn Munro, and Kyle Labine (Tyler’s brother!). It also features epic battles, inventive kills, and a truly grand finale that gave the fans exactly what they wanted - Jason battling Freddy to the bitter, bloody, end. And with a 36 million dollar opening weekend, the proof was in the proverbial pudding that these horror icons may have been ‘gone’ for a few years…but were definitely not forgotten! Despite the massive success of this film, the studio has been unable to secure the rights to any other iconic horror characters for a long-gestating sequel…a sequel that sadly now looks like it will never happen.



FRIDAY THE 13th (2009) - with a decent budget ($19 million), recognizable cast (Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti), record-breaking opening weekend ($43,000,000+), and worldwide boxoffice of nearly 100 million bucks, the success of this reboot surprised a lot of the so-called ‘experts’! And despite some longtime fans of the franchise expressing their disappointment at the quality of this remakes (specifically the ‘cleverness’ of the kills), this well-made remake far surpassed my expectations. A sequel was announced almost immediately, with a target release date of Friday, August 13th, 2010…and a few months later, was officially declared dead. There’s a script ready to go, Platinum Dunes (the company behind this remake, as well as the remakes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Nightmare on Elm Street) wants to make it, but with 2 studios (Warner Bros - who now control New Line Cinema - and Paramount) and original series creator Sean Cunningham all needing to be on the same page, I guess we’ll all just have to be content with the 12 films that already exist…



Hope you enjoyed this look back at the Friday the 13th series…email me at glavallee@ourhometown.ca and be sure to let me know which F13 film is YOUR favorite!