Friday the 13th Part 2: the Eighties were awesome!

It's my day off, its hot as hell, and I am super LAZY!  Perfect day to watch the little known gem, Friday the 13th Part II.

For some reason I have been hearing a lot about this flick lately, and its like the horror Gods wanted me to watch it.  I had seen it when I was a kid, but I only had hazy memories of the chick from April Fool's Day being in it and a guy in a wheelchair getting killed.  This film is so much more!  It features one hell of an awesome Final Girl, an overlong flashback sequence, and a guy in a wheelchair getting killed!

Amy Steel plays Ginny, a camp counselor/psychology major who is probably saved from getting killed in the first 20 minutes because she is on her period.  Ginny and her boyfriend Paul, who runs the camp, are training a new group of counselors.  The only thing they should really train them is "Don't have sex" and "make sure when you hit a guy with a machete that the fucker is dead!"  But they don't train them these things.  They train them to push each other in the water and have cook-outs.  It's awesome!  Paul tells the counselors the story of Jason and Camp Crystal Lake, which is nearby.  Paul thinks Jason is an Urban Legend, as do the rest of the counselors.  Ginny is not so sure.  It doesn't take Ginny long to get proven right as Jason (sans hockey mask, that comes later) starts killing left and right. 

My favorite part of this film is the Eighties fashions.  All the guys look like they are dressing for the Gay Pride Parade and all of the chicks look like they stepped out of an American Apparel ad.  Shorts that tight are not comfortable!!

I don't think I need to explain much more about Friday the 13th Part II.  It follows, and in many cases pioneered, many familiar horror tropes. There are a few good jump scares, a few to many red herrings, and very little gore.  But I loved it like I love most slashers.  They are like comfort food to me.  Bless you Steve Miner and Amy Steel and Betsy Palmer and everyone else.  You made my hot lazy day.

Flowers in the Attic

I was going to subtitle this post "Guilty Pleasures" but that really goes without saying.  To girls of a certain age the novels of V.C. Andrews were as important to their development as Seventeen Magazine or the original Degrassi.  Well, maybe just to girls like me.  Andrew's Gothic novels served as a "gateway" for me into proper horror.  I will always hold them in my heart with affection, much like I will the film version of Flowers in the Attic that was released in 1987.

I chanced upon a Video Store going out of business sale.  Most of the good stuff was gone but they did have copy of Flowers available for 5 bucks.  What a joy to watch it again!!  The bad acting, the overacting, the stunt people that look nothing like the actors!  Kristy Swanson!!  Academy Award winner Louise Fletcher as Grandmother!!  Queen Bitch Victoria Tennant (on film, I am sure she is a lovely person) as Mother!! 

The four Dollanganger children, Chris, Cathy, Cory and Carrie are taken to their Grandmother's house after their Father dies in an accident.  Their Mother is going to try to win back her Father's love after royally pissing him off by marrying his Brother (this is V.C. Andrews, this kind of thing happens often.)  The children are locked in a room upstairs.  If Grandfather knows they exist, he will cut their Mother out of the will.  What the children don't know is that Mother has no intention of ever letting them leave that room. 

As I said, I was going to subtitle this "Guilty Pleasures."  But, upon research, the more appropriate subtitle would have been: "What could have been..."  Wes Craven was planning to direct this film, and he wrote a script that was so violent and "incest-laden" that V.C. Andrews herself rejected it.  The Producers ended up giving directing duties to Jeffrey Bloom.  I WANT TO SEE CRAVEN'S VERSION!!!!!!  They remake everything, why not remake this?