On February 13th, 2009, I left my local multiplex mostly satisfied with Platinum Dunes’s rendition of FRIDAY THE 13th. I had some qualms with the forgettable score (this series just hits different without Harry Manfredini’s iconic themes and motifs), but it was an otherwise strong effort that did exactly what it needed to do: reestablish Jason in the familiar confines of Crystal Lake, where he slaughters anyone who enters his territory. Look, I get why this series eventually strayed from its roots towards the end, sending Jason to Manhattan, Hell, outer space, and Elm Street — you can only do the formula so many times before audiences start to dwindle. And while there was a time and a place for those digressions, it was only a matter of time until the remake/reboot trend of the aughts swept Jason up for a course correction back to Crystal Lake. More than anything, FRIDAY ‘09 was exactly that, and its commercial success all but assured us that we’d be seeing plenty more of Mrs. Voorhees’ baby boy in future sequels.
Except, of course, that never happened for a multitude of reasons — the lukewarm reception to the next year’s ELM STREET retread, finicky studios, and, of course, the lawsuit that kept the franchise’s rights tangled up in court for over five years. Glimmers of hope — Nick Antosca’s killer throwback script, Breck Eisner’s prequel — flickered but quickly faded. The very popular (but now defunct) video game kept FRIDAY THE 13th lingering around in the public consciousness, and while it sported some nice credentials (Kane Hodder! Film accurate environments and characters!), it still couldn’t substitute for a new movie. Ask any FRIDAY THE 13th fan, and they’ll tell you that all of this ephemera has been great — but what we really want is to just see Jason do his thing in his natural cinematic habitat.
Now that the lawsuit has been settled, leaving a new tangle of rights issues in its wake, Miller and Cunningham essentially share joint custody. I’ll leave it to the experts (like Larry Zerner, who played ill-fated prankster Shelly in FRIDAY THE 13th III) to explain the logistics, but it’s resulted in the Jason Universe, a consortium comprised of the original Horror Inc. group (sans Sean Cunningham, who, per Zerner is no longer involved in any capacity) and Miller. After teasing various merchandising deals, the Jason Universe has hatched the first canonical appearance of Jason Voorhees in 16 years, finally answering the cries of a long-starved fanbase with… a “vignette” sponsored by Angry Orchard Hard Cider. In the words of Ralphie Parker: “A crummy commercial?!”
Okay, so it’s actually not as bad as all that — I have to admit, I originally (and perhaps cynically) envisioned a totally shameless, mercenary effort littered with product placement. Not that FRIDAY THE 13th as ever been a paragon of virtue in this respect (Cunningham freely admits he was trying to cash in on the success of HALLOWEEN), but still — something about Jason becoming a literal poster boy for booze feels undignified even for a series that spawned eleven sequels and a completely unrelated television series. But as I’ve already ceded, SWEET REVENGE (if I’m keeping score correctly, Jason Universe can’t use the FRIDAY THE 13th title) isn’t as exploitative as I feared, and it clearly has some thought behind it, even if that thought is mostly just “Let Jason fuck up yet another ill-fated camping trip.” You can’t be mad about that, of course, considering that’s the premise for most of the films in this series, and the short medium remains perfectly suited for these threadbare purposes — it’s easy to imagine a highlight reel that just cuts right to the chase and delivers the “good stuff” you expect from a FRIDAY THE 13th movie.
And for the most part, SWEET REVENGE does just that.
For the umpteenth time, a group of kids have descended on Crystal Lake for an idyllic weekend retreat, only to be met with trepidation by a local codger (Chris Carlson) bearing cryptic, ominous warnings about the area’s troubled history. It doesn’t take long for Eve (Ally Ioannides) to figure out exactly what he’s talking about when Jason (newcomer Schuyler White) bursts from the lake and drags her under to her death… or perhaps not? In a turn of events that suggests there’s a little more to SWEET REVENGE, Eve emerges from the lake later in the evening and stumbles upon Jason’s latest killing spree, which has already left most of her friends butchered, their gore-stained bodies strewn all around the lake.
That brings me to my first — and only — big qualm about SWEET REVENGE: After sixteen years of waiting for Jason to return, a lot of his carnage unfolds off-screen, leaving us privy only to the ghastly aftermath. And while the gore effects here are top notch and prove that Jason hasn’t lost his edge during his layoff, it’s a little disappointing that we don’t see more of him in action. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the brief runtime: at 13 minutes long (heh), SWEET REVENGE doesn’t have much time to properly introduce characters or knock them off one by one, so writer/director Mike P. Nelson opts to stage one climactic sequence that sees Jason dispatch a couple of characters with an outboard boat motor before it takes an interesting turn and circles back to whatever happened to Eve in Crystal Lake (more on that in a bit).
As a sort of proof-of-concept, SWEET REVENGE recognizes that this franchise has endured because it’s simply fun to watch Jason go wild with various murder implements (at one point, he nearly smushes a girl’s face with an apple* carver before he’s sadly thwarted). Nelson allows Jason to be a force of nature, and White effortlessly slips into the role — some nitpicks about the redesigned mask aside, this unmistakably reads as Jason Fucking Voorhees. The effects are gloriously practical and relatively abundant given the brisk running time, and there’s little doubt that Nelson (whose credits include WRONG TURN ‘21 and V/H/S/85) is well-suited for the material. Other nitpicks — like the inconsistent score, which sounds ill-fitting before finding a Manfrendini-esque groove — are there, but SWEET REVENGE mostly understands the assignment.
But it also strives to go slightly beyond with Eve, an atypical final girl who emerges less as a survivor and more of an equal to Jason after she rises from Crystal Lake apparently endowed with supernatural powers of her own. Like Jason, she’s incredibly resilient and bloodthirsty when she discovers her boyfriend and best friend have been hooking up in her absence. It’s an unexpected but welcome wrinkle in the formula that proves Nelson and company weren’t content to coast on Jason’s coattails. I’m not sure it completely works, just because the relationship dynamics are underdeveloped and the new lore is a little too laconic due to the short runtime (some of Carlson’s dialogue hints that the lake is a wellspring for those seeking revenge), but it’s the thought that counts in this case — though I could also hear an argument that SWEET REVENGE is overthinking to the crowd that just wants to see Jason slaughter a bunch of campers.
SWEET REVENGE also ends on a frustrating note, teasing a confrontation between Eve and Jason that isn’t likely to be paid off considering the apparent one-shot nature of this endeavor. So we’re left back where we started, wondering what’s next for a franchise that’s been sidelined for far too long. I hate to sound like a kid at Christmas greedily tossing one present aside to grab another, but it would be nice to have something a little more substantial. Luckily, the Jason Universe has confirmed a sequel feature is in the works (plus a new game!), and the streaming CRYSTAL LAKE series on the horizon promises plenty of Jason and Pamela exploits (apparently, everything from the franchise is on the table due to the streaming nature of that project). Even if SWEET REVENGE feels a little ephemeral, hopefully it’s a herald of things to come, and its message is simple but very welcome: Jason Voorhees is so back.
He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)
*While there’s thankfully very little (and unobtrusive) Angry Orchard product placement, there’s a ton of apples — I guess it’s only fitting considering Jason already conquered The Big Apple (and Vancouver).
Tags: Ally Ioannides, Angry Orchard, Brett Gallman, Chad Villella, Chris Carlson, Friday the 13th, Harry Manfredini, Jason Universe, Jason Voorhees, Larry Zerner, Mike P. Nelson, Natassia Wakey, Schuyler White, Sean S. Cunningham, Tim James White, Toussaint Morrison
No Comments