Friday the 13th Part III – Film Review

Posted on August 6, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Steve Miner

Writers: Martin Kitrosser and Carol Watson

Starring: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Tracie Savage, Jeffrey Rogers, Catherine Parks, Larry Zerner, Richard Brooker

Rating: ★★★

Friday the 13th Part III is notable for a few different reasons. Straight away it’s a 3D film and does a decent job with it. Making the slasher film a lot more fun. More importantly this is the first time that Jason wears the iconic hockey mask. While it’s not a brilliant film, it’s a massive step up from the second film, which was bland, generic, and lifeless.

The opening to the film recaps the end of the second one, but unlike the recap in Part II it doesn’t take close to ten minutes. It then shows Jason menacing and killing an elderly couple, just because he can. It’s a pretty good opening, that makes good use of the 3D gimmick which is still evident in the 2D version. The man Jason terrorises is the most disgusting person imaginable, and your kind of glad that he’s killed. It really starts out as a fun slasher film that isn’t trying to be scary, but instead just be a good time.

After the opening we’re introduced to the main characters, a group who are heading to a house near Crystal Lake, because despite the murders and massacres people still go there. It follows a similar set up to the first two films, not really going too far away from the formula. Originally Part III was supposed to be different and more of a continuation of the second part with Ginny (Amy Steel) in a hospital and seeking revenge on Jason. When Amy Steel declined the offer to come back the script was reworked in favour of something more familiar that the fans would expect.

What makes this film a lot better than Part II is mainly because there is a better bunch of characters that are a lot more developed and easier to get involved with. There is a lot of characters, and some are just fodder to give Jason a higher kill count, there are a few that feel a lot more real and developed. The main character Chris (Dana Kimmell) has a backstory that gives her more of a reason to go to Crystal Lake. Shelly (Larry Zerner) is a socially awkward teenager who seeks attention, but really just annoys the rest of the group. Instead of just getting to the killings, there’s also a good sequence where Shelly gets into conflict with a local biker gang that goes back and forth until Jason gets involved. It gives another dynamic to the story rather than it just being repetitive deaths.

While the film does become more of the same as the pervious two as it goes on, and does start to venture into feeling dull, the kills are entertaining to watch There’s some decent effects and gore. Jason isn’t basically a joke this time around and is sinister, thanks to Richard Brooker’s performance. The final fight with Jason is really awesome and goes an extra mile, really solidifying his supernatural abilities. It’s also cool to see the origin of Jason’s classic outfit.

Part III is a lot better than the second film. It doesn’t reach the same heights as the last half hour of the first film, but it’s the most solid film of the series up to that point. Hopefully the series just get better and more entertaining from this point out.

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Prey – Film Review

Posted on August 5, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Dan Trachtenberg

Writer: Patrick Aison

Starring: Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Stormee Kipp, Michelle Thrush, Julian black Antelope, and Dane DiLiegro

Rating: ★★★½

The fifth entry of the Predator series, Prey, has been released on Disney+/Hulu. This time around the story takes place in the past in 1719 taking the franchise into the past, with a story by Patrick Aison and Dan Trachtenberg. Aison wrote the full screenplay with Trachtenberg taking the director’s chair. It’s definitely a back-to-basics Predator film, with a focus on the hunting and survival.

Naru (Amber Midthunder) wants to be a great warrior like her brother, but the village want her to be a healer instead. While out training Naru witnesses the arrival of the Predator, without realising what’s actually happening. After one of the tribe is hurt, she joins the hunters in finding a lion, but believes there’s something a lot more vicious on the hunt.

The film is pretty light on plot, with everything beyond the opening basically being the hunt between Naru and the Predator with little moments that slow the pace down to ease up on the building tension. You get just enough backstory for Naru to see that’s she’s capable of being a hunter, but not as skilled in fighting as her brother. With the Predator he just arrives on Earth and starts killing everything it finds as a threat.

Prey is a pretty brutal film, especially with some of the animals being killed. The predator kills a wolf and a bear and it’s gruesome. There are also a lot of humans being sliced up and stabbed that’s full-on. It’s not the goriest of films, but there’s a fair amount of blood. The effects look a lot better than some horror films, and the actual predator looks awesome. For the most part you don’t see him, but when you get the full reveal, he’s completely menacing and intimidating.  

There are two versions of Prey available to watch. One in English, which is completely fine until Naru meets some French voyageurs who speak in French and it becomes painfully obvious that the main characters aren’t actually speaking the Comanche language. Then there’s a version dubbed in Comanche, which is hidden in the ‘extras’ section on Disney Plus, but at least it’s an option. To be honest there isn’t that much dialogue in the film anyway, so it doesn’t matter, as most of it follows Naru hunting and tracking the Predator.

Prey is one of the better Predator films and shows that the series still can be really great. It may not add anything original to the franchise, or do anything that unexpected, but it’s so well made that it’s completely engaging the whole ninety minute (if you ignore the ten minutes of credits) runtime.

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Friday the 13th Part II – Film Review

Posted on August 4, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Steve Miner

Writer: Ron Kurz

Starring: Adrienne King, Amy Steel, John Furey, Steve Daskewisz, Warrington Gillette, Stu Charno, Lauren-Marie Taylor, Marta Kober, Tom McBride, Bill Randolph

Rating: ★½

After the massive financial success of the original Friday the 13th it was inevitable that a sequel would be made. Released almost exactly a year after the first film Part II picks up two months after the end of the first one with Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) recovering from what happened at Camp Crystal Lake.

Initially, the film spends the better part of ten minutes recapping the ending of the first one, padding out the short run time with old footage. After the recap, we get caught up with Alice, in a pretty great opening scene that has one of the best jump-scares of Part II. It tricks you into thinking that this film is going to continue the story and do something different, and then time skips five years, and a new bunch of councillors are gathering at Crystal Lake. Like the first one, they go about their day goofing around, and then they’re slowly picked off one, by one.

Essentially this film is a copy and paste of the first film, with a bigger body count, more gratuitous nudity, and even less tension. While some of the effects are pretty decent this, and do stand the test of time, they’re not scary in the slightest. It’s the same formula as the original. One of the councillors will become isolated for some arbitrary reason and is then murdered. This time around it’s Jason killing the councillors, and that’s kept a half secret until the ending. You don’t see Jason for the longest time in the film, with a lot of first-person perspective from his viewpoint. The final jump scare is basically re-doing the one from the first film with a much smaller success of actually being a jump-scare.

Like in the first film the characters are all paper thin, to the point that by the end of the film you don’t really know any of them, or even care about them, not even the survivors. None of the characters are memorable in the slightest, and even remembering their names is near on impossible. Alice reappearing from the first one and being quickly killed works well, because at least she feels like a more realised character than the others because we spent the first film with her. The other kills just land flat.

Jason is also a joke in this film. He’s not distinct enough to be scary, and comes across as a discount Leatherface, without any of the bite. He makes his way through the councillors no problem, until the final girl fights back and he’s so inept at fighting and chasing her it’s a wonder no one else was able to fight back. He’s a bumbling buffoon. Most irritatingly his existence clashes with the plot of the first one, where he drowned as a little boy, and no explanation to how he survived is offered. 

Friday the 13th Part II is a really lazy film. It adds next to nothing to the franchise and isn’t even entertaining while it’s on. It’s very dull and it’s amazing that the franchise wasn’t stopped dead in its tracks at this point.

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Bullet Train – Film Review

Posted on August 3, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: David Leitch

Writer: Zak Olkewicz

Starring: Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki, Sanada, Michael Shannon, Benito Ocasio, and Sandra Bullock

Rating: ★★★★

The latest film from director David Leitch (who previously directed Deadpool 2, John Wick, Atomic Blonde and Hobbs & Shaw) is Bullet Train, an adaptation of the Japanese novel Maria Beetle by Kōtarō Isaka. It’s a high-octane action film that blends together Tarantino and Guy Ritchie, and doesn’t slow down at all. Once the train has left the station, it’s full steam ahead.

Brad Pitt starts as Ladybug, a hired killer, who’s returning to work with an easy mission. He needs to get on the bullet train leaving Tokyo for Kyoto, take a briefcase and get off at the next stop. Simple, right? No, everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. There are other assassins on the train on different, but strangely connected jobs, and everyone starts getting in the way.

Bullet Train is completely over-the-top and silly in the best way possible. Form Ladybug not liking guns and trying to leave a more peaceful life, despite his line of work, to the great and energetic fight sequences, it’s pure entertainment. The film doesn’t slow down once for it’s entire two hour runtime, instead constantly ramping up the action in more and more crazy ways. When the adaptation was first being worked on it was going to be a more serious action film, but instead the comedy was ramped up, and it’s all the better for it.

There is a great set of characters in the film, that makes this instantly engaging. Every one of them is a villain, and have their own distinct personalities, so everyone has someone to root for. There’s a more sympathetic character, Yuichi Kimura (Andrew Koji) a low level gang member who is only on the train to find the person who pushed his son off a building. Prince (Joey King), who just wants to be the protagonist in her own story. Brad Pitt is absolutely great in the central role, being completely charming and convincing as the lovable rogue. There’s also a few cameos that add to the excitement, popping up throughout. The characters are so well created, fleshed out with their own backstories that are told through flashbacks. Each character receives a splashy name card when they first appear, making this feel like something out of a comic-book which matches the action sequences.

There’s a pair of assassins, Lemon (Bryan Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who have been sent to rescue White Death’s (Michael Shannon) son. Lemon is obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine, seeing it as a way to interpret the world around him and labelling everyone as the characters from the children’s show, while Tangerine comes is a cocky assassin who thinks he’s one of the greats when he clearly isn’t. They’re one of the highlights of the film, with great presence and delivering some of the funniest lines.

Everything in the film is connected to an extreme level. Nothing is wasted on screen, from the news broadcast telling a snake has been stolen, or the mascot that keeps on appearing, right through to a water bottle getting its own flashback sequence. Everything has a reason to be there on the train, and if something gets any focus at all it will become important later. It’s all part of the stylishness of the storytelling, where the whole story is wrapped up nicely within itself with a nice little bow on top.

The action is slick, with some great choreography and close-up fights. There’s also some pretty brutal kills, with people being sliced up, shot, and even poisoned. Likewise, the comedy is funny and isn’t over relied on. It’s completely style over substance with its ridiculous contrivance of everything being connected, flashy action and a silly bunch of characters, but it all comes together to make an entertaining thrill-ride. Braindead fun that makes for a perfect evening.

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Friday the 13th – Film Review

Posted on August 2, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Sean S. Cunningham

Writer: Victor Miller

Starring: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannie Taylor, Robbi Morgan, and Kevin Bacon

Rating: ★★½

Hot on the heels of the original Halloween, director Sean S. Cunningham and writer Victor Miller got to work on their own slasher, with the title Friday the 13th. Sean S. Cunningham actually took out a full page advert for the film, even before the script had been finished. He was worried that someone else would have the copyright for the name and thought an advert would bring them to his attention before the film was properly marketed.

Now considered a classic, at the time of release Friday the 13th was met with mixed to negative reviews. It was seen as being overly gory, stealing too much from Halloween, and not being scary. There was some praise, and rightly so, for the unusual score and cinematography. Over the years opinions have softened and it’s now considered a horror classic, mainly due to the many sequels it spawned.

The opening sequence is completely stolen from Halloween with a first-person perspective slowly moving around and finding two camp councillors who are then murdered as we watch from the killer’s perspective and with little explanation. The film then skips twenty-two years into the future to the present day, so 1980. The camp where the killings happened is being re-opened and a new group of councillors are finding their way there, just in time to help finish the renovations. One by one they are murdered by an unknown killer, without any motive being given until the final revelation.

For the most part, not a lot really happens in this film. We get to see the councillors getting on with their chores, messing around, and then getting butchered. There’s next to no tension for well over the first half of the film, as none of the councillors even notice that others are missing, and when they encounter the killer, they’re dead in seconds. It’s close to an hour when the survivors, at that point only two of them out of the original seven, suspect something is going on. It just takes way too long to get going.

Before we get to see the camp, there is a good amount of build up with Annie (Robbie Morgan) being warned by locals not to go further and to turn back now, similar to the opening to the novel Dracula, but all that build up is wasted with the repetitive killings that aren’t scary or tense. We don’t know anything about the characters, so there’s just no reaction beyond shock at the gore (which is beyond tame forty plus years on). It feels very hollow. Maybe at the time this would have been scarier, but it’s dated really poorly in this sense. The characters don’t feel real, and it doesn’t help that the acting is really bad as well.

Thankfully, the final twenty or so minutes are absolutely excellent. Once the killer and motive is revealed everything picks up. The film ramps up the terror and manages to keep it up right until the closing moments. You almost forget the borefest of the first two acts with how engrossing the final one is. Without spoiling anything, just in case you don’t know the story, it works really well and the actor playing the killer does a fantastic job of being sinister and genuinely creepy. 

One of the most iconic parts of the original film is the effects from Tom Savini. While some look dated now, they still hold up. The biggest highlight is a moment when an axe is used to kill one of the councillors. You don’t see the axe actually going in, but you see it sticking out of their face and it looks incredibly real.

The biggest crime the film commits is killing a real snake early in the film, for absolutely no reason. The scene adds nothing to the film but offers a quick cheap shock. Reportedly the snake’s handler didn’t know what was going to happen and had to be held back by members of the crew and was really upset about it. Watching the moment now, it really takes you of the film with just how pointless it is.

Despite being iconic, the original Friday the 13th is a pretty poor film in all honesty. It takes way too long to actually get going, and while the final act is absolutely brilliant it doesn’t make up for the dull seventy minutes leading up to that point. Still the film spawned one of the most successful horror franchises as all time so it deserves respect for that. 

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