It’s another Friday the 13th week folks! It’s time to celebrate a series of films that defined horror for a generation of weirdos such as myself. These films had it all, bad acting, bloody and ridiculous murders, boobs and most importantly other boobs. We will be celebrating all of these movies today as a show of respect to their contribution to the horror genre. These films were tailor made for the 1980’s slasher films and were all made with the purely artistic intention of making all the money while spending none to make them.
Paramount decided to keep that money train rolling down the back lot again in 1988 as theaters were graced with the 7th film in the series and 5th to include Jason as our main villain and master of ceremonies.
This Friday would go even more towards the supernatural than the last film. Not only would Jason Voorhees come back from the dead one more time, but he would face someone who had psychic abilities that would give Jason a battle unlike any our masked wearing friend had ever seen.
Jason in this movie would be played for the first (of 4, the only person to repeat the role) time by Kane Hodder. Kane gave Jason an angrier vibe than any of the previous incarnations. His ability to breath new life into the character was a bright spot in what was really a movie that could be described best as “eh”.
Release Date: May 13, 1988
Budget: 2.8 Million
Box Office: 19.1 Million
Back story and Plot: We start the film with a little girl accidentally killing her drunken father with some very “realistic” psychic powers. As she got older the powers became more and more powerful so her Doctor (real stand up guy), decided he should take her back to the place where she discovered her powers and caused her all her trauma in the first place.
The good Doctor was an ass who was only trying to exploit Tina for his own personal gain. Upon finding this tidbit out, Tina got pissed and tried to use her powers to bring her father back from the dead. Swing and a miss on old daddy, but she did happen to bring back Crystal Lake’s most famous son to begin his rampage of death and destruction once again.
Luckily for Jason a houseful of teenagers showed up next door to Tina’s to party. That gave him some people to kill for the next hour or so while we set up our final confrontation between an undead zombie murderer and a teenage witch (not Sabrina) with awful hair. On a positive note, that slime ball Doctor gets GOT after trying to save himself with Tina’s mom being a human shield. Dude was a dick y’all.
Survivor Girl: Tina Shepard (and Nick)
Tina was the first opponent Jason ever faced that had abilities beyond what he could defeat via stabbing and slashing. She was a messed up chick but boy oh boy could she do some cool shit with her mind. Think Carrie but with teased hair and a love of denim clothing.
How’d she survive?
Mother fucking telekinetic powers! She dropped a god damn house on the guy, electrocuted him, tried to crush his skull with a mask. All the stuff you do with telekinetic powers really. In the end though somehow her dead father rose from the dead (I guess when he died they just fucking left the dude there…I know he was a drunk jerk but damn) and took Jason back beneath the water to chain his zombie ass back up one more time.
BEST CHARACTER IN THIS MOVIE? Jason
Jason was just a bad ass in this movie and a lot of that had to do with his portrayal by Kane Hodder. A pissed off zombie is a thing of beauty, especially when some of the people he is knocking off are complete and total dick-bags.
An Idiot’s Opinion: If you are looking for a plot that makes sense maybe you should look at another movie. If you are looking to see a hulking zombie madman fight a chick who uses mind bullets on him and has the ability to drop A HOUSE ON SOMEONE, then my friend this movie is for you. These movies only get crazier from here folks so join me for the next movie when we see Jason go on vacation!
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