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Friday the 13th: From Crystal Lake to Manhattan Ultimate Collection (Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part IV: The Final Chapter / Part V: A New Beginning / Part VI: Jason Lives / Part VII: The New Blood / Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan)
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DVD Cover InformationActor: Kane Hodder Brand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: English (Original Language), Unknown Format: Anamorphic, Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC Picture Format: 1.78:1 Running Time: 734 minutes DVD Release Date: 2004-10-05 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of Friday the 13th: From Crystal Lake to Manhattan Ultimate Collection (Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part IV: The Final Chapter / Part V: A New Beginning / Part VI: Jason Lives / Part VII: The New Blood / Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan)Movie Review: Fridays will never be the same again. Summary: 5 Stars
PLOT:
I. Friday The 13th (1980): The film begins at Camp Crystal Lake in 1958. Two teenage counselors sneak into a room to have sex, but before they can undress, a mysterious figure murders them both. The film then fast forwards to Crystal Lake in 1979. A young girl named Annie (Robbi Morgan) enters the Crystal Lake diner and asks for directions to the camp, much to the shock of the diner patrons, who inform Annie that the camp has been closed for over two decades. Local lore holds that the campground is cursed, in addition to the murders, a young boy drowned in 1957. After the two counselors were murdered in 1958, several attempts were made to reopen the camp, all unsuccessful, due to a series of bizarre occurrences (unexplained fires, and another year, water contamination). Annie writes off these events as superstition and coincidence. She hitches a ride with a truck driver, who drops her off a few miles from the camp after he suggests that Annie return home and not work at the allegedly "cursed" camp. Meanwhile, the camp is getting fixed up by the owner Steve Christie (Peter Brouwer). The rest of the counselors soon arrive; they are Ned (Mark Nelson), Jack (Kevin Bacon), Bill (Harry Crosby), Marcie (Jeannine Taylor), Alice (Adrienne King), and Brenda (Laurie Bartram). Steve tells the counselors that he needs to run errands in town and leaves the counselors to continue camp repairs. Later on, Annie (who is still walking to the camp on foot) is picked up by an unseen person in a Jeep. Annie appears to be making a casual, if somewhat one-sided conversation with the driver. Eventually Annie notices that they have passed the turn-off road to Camp Crystal Lake. Annie politely suggests they stop and turn around, only to be disregarded by the driver, who in turn speeds past the camp and deeper into the forest. When the driver still won't respond to Annie's frightened cries to stop, Annie jumps from the vehicle, wounding her leg. She limps away into the woods, but is cornered by the driver of the Jeep, who violently slashes her throat. Who could the driver be and does he/she have any connection to the Camp Crystal Lake curse?
II. Friday The 13th Part 2 (1981): The film begins 2 months after the first film. Alice (Adrienne King), the lone survivor of Mrs. Voorhees' killing spree, is now recovering in her apartment. She goes to open her refrigerator, only to find Mrs. Voorhees' decapitated head inside. She screams and is suddenly killed by an unseen figure. Five years later, a new group of teenage counselors prepare to open up a new camp in Crystal Lake. During the preparation for the opening, some strange things start to happen and the counselors start getting murdered off by a strange figure wearing a burlap sack as a mask. If Mrs. Voorhees is dead, then who is this masked figure and what connection does he have to her?
III. Friday The 13th Part 3 (1982): The film picks up immediately after the end of Part 2. After Jason (now played by Richard Brooker) was stabbed in the shoulder by Ginny (Amy Steel), he didn't die. He left his cabin and stole a new pair of clothes from a roadside general store, and later killed the owner and his wife. Meanwhile, a group of teenagers are setting out to spend the weekend at a family-owned Crystal Lake cabin. The party includes Chris (Dana Kimmell), whose family owns the cabin, Chris' boyfriend Rick (Paul Kratka), the pregnant Debbie (Tracie Savage) and her boyfriend Andy (Jeffrey Rogers), the bong-tokin' Chuck (David Katims) and Chili (Rachel Howard), Vera (Catherine Parks), and Shelly (Larry Zerner), an overweight kid given to gruesome pranks. After the group moves into the cabin, Vera and Shelley go into town to get some supplies at a general store. Once at the store, the two are confronted by a trio of bikers and Shelly drives into their motorcycles. The bikers, Ali (Nick Savage), Loco (Kevin O'Brien) and Fox (Gloria Charles), make their way to the cabin for retribution, where they siphon the gas from the van to burn down the barn. Before that happens, though, they're killed by Jason. Chris and her friends are the next target for Jason's murdering spree.
IV. Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (1984): Picking up immediately where Part 3 left off, police and paramedics are now cleaning up Jason Voorhees' (now played by Ted White) mess at Chris's family cabin. Jason's body, still with an axe embedded in his forehead, is put on a stretcher and sent to the morgue. Once delivered to the morgue, the superhuman killer rises again and kills an attendant and a nurse. He then begins to make his way back to Crystal Lake. A group of friends have rented a house on Crystal Lake. They are Paul (Alan Hayes), Samantha (Judie Aronson), Sara (Barbara Howard), Doug (Peter Barton), Ted (Lawrence Monoson) and Jimmy (Crispin Glover). The cabin next to the rented house is lived in by Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman), her teenaged daughter Trish (Kimberly Beck), her twelve-year-old son Tommy (Corey Feldman), and their dog, Gordon. The group later meets Trish, Tommy and Gordon. The next day the group befriends twins Tina and Terri (Camilla and Carey More), who live in the area, and they all go skinny-dipping at Crystal Point. Trish and Tommy, driving by, stop to see who's at Crystal Point and the group invites Trish to a party that night. Trish's car breaks down a bit further along the road, and they are helped by Rob (Erich Anderson), a hiker with mysterious reasons for visiting Crystal Lake, who soon becomes good friends with Trish and Tommy, and camps out in their yard. The Crystal Lake setting seems like the ideal place for a nice relaxing vacation, little do the teeneagers know that they are about to get a little visit from Jason Voorhees.
V. Friday The 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985): Twelve year-old Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) walks through the woods in the pouring rain to visit Jason's tombstone, just so he can make sure that the masked maniac is really dead. Suddenly he hears two men coming, so he hides in the bushes. The two men arrive at Jason's grave and start digging it up. They open up the coffin and find Jason's body covered in worms. Suddenly he wakes up and kills both of them. Jason (now played by Tom Morga) senses that someone is watching him and starts to pursue Tommy. Suddenly Tommy wakes up from this bad dream. Some years have passed since the events of The Final Chapter and Tommy (now played by John Shepherd) is an older teenager being transferred from the Unger Institute of Mental Health to the Pinehurst home for troubled teens. He has been traumatized ever since he killed Jason. At the home, he meets Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman), the assistant director, and Dr. Matthew Letter (Richard Young). He later meets other residents: "Reggie the Reckless" (Shavar Ross), his employee grandfather George (Vernon Washington), Eddie (John Robert Dixon), Tina (Debi Sue Voorhees), Joey (Dominck Brascia), Violet (Tiffany Helm), Robin (Juliette Cummins), and Vic (Mark Venturini). Tommy knows that Jason is dead and buried, but he still has hallucinations about him and he sees him everywhere. One day, Joey pesters Vic until he snaps and kills Joey with an axe in a fit of rage. Vic is arrested and ambulance attendants Duke Johnson (Caskey Swaim) and Roy Burns (Dick Wieand) come and take Joey's body away. Soon after, murders start occuring in the area. Could Jason Voorhees be the culprit? No way; Tommy watched him die. Jason may have had superhuman strength, but no one could survive a machete chop in the skull, or could they?
VI. Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986): A year has passed since the events of A New Beginning. Tommy Jarvis (now played by Thom Matthews) is driving back to Crystal Lake (now renamed Forest Green) with his friend Allen (Ron Palillo). Tommy intends to go to the cemetery, dig up Jason's grave, and cremate it into ashes so he knows that there is no chance in Hell that Jason can ever harm anyone again. The two dig up the grave and Tommy opens the coffin. Tommy sees Jason's body rotting and covered with maggots. The sight of the body sends Tommy into a fury and he grabs a steel rod and drives it into the corpse. Suddenly a bolt of lightning hits the rod and brings Jason (now played by C.J. Graham) back to life. Allen is killed trying to save Tommy, who manages to escape. The terrified young man rushes to Sheriff Garris' (David Kagen) office and warns him that Jason is alive. But the lawman recognizes Tommy and knowing that he has been under psychiatric care since killing Jason, Garris ignores Tommy's ravings and throws him in jail. What Sheriff Garris doesn't realize is that the town is about to get a visit from one of it's most infamous citizens, and he's not friendly.
VII. Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988): As a child, Tina Shepard (Lar Park Lincoln) unconsciously used latent psychokinetic powers to kill her father by drowning him in Crystal Lake after witnessing his abuse on her mother. Now as a young woman, her mother takes her back to the same lakeside residence so that her powers can be studied (and exploited) by a doctor. But during an attempt to raise her father from the dead, she accidentally resurrects someone else long ago left to die in the lake: Jason Voorhees (now played by Kane Hodder). Jason is back and now he's meaner than ever, but has he finally met his match in the form of the psychokinetic Tina?
VIII. Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989): A year after the events in The New Blood, Jason (Kane Hodder) lies dormant on the bottom of Crystal Lake. A boat with two teenagers, Jim (Todd Shaffer) and Suzi (Tiffany Paulsen) drop anchor for a romantic evening at the lake. The anchor hits a cable tow at the bottom of the lake which sparks and revives Jason. He stows aboard the boat and kills the occupants. He then pulls up the anchor and lets the boat sail with the current. The boat later comes to a harbor and Jason climbs aboard a ship called the Lazarus. The ship is boarded by a group of graduating high school seniors who are going on a trip to New York City. What they don't realize is that they are carrying an extremely dangerous stowaway.
COMMENTS: Along with Freddy Krueger of the Nightmare On Elm Street series, Jason Voorhees was the other most infamous boogeyman of the 1980s. As a little kid, I was just as afraid of him as I was of Freddy. The writer of the first film, Victor Miller, was just trying to make a horror movie about a summer camp, but his creation grew into something beyond his wildest dreams. How ironic that Jason Voorhees went from being a seconds long cameo appearance in the first film to the main focus of all of the other films. Most people don't even know that Jason isn't the killer in the original film. Jason was originally meant to be a normal child, but make-up and EFX wizard Tom Savini (Dawn Of The Dead (1978)) felt that the Jason character wasn't special enough. He decided to base Jason on a drunk that he used to see around his neighborhood as a child; the man had one ear lower than the other, one eye lower than the other, etc. Savini ultimately designed Jason to be a retarded, deformed, hydrospephalic pinhead. I feel that the original film was the most classic and inventive out of all of the films, even though Mrs. Voorhees was the killer instead of Jason. Victor Miller ultimately never had any involvment with any of the sequels and he has reportedly never even seen any of the sequels as well. The second film is allright but it is nowhere near being the best. In this film it is discovered that Jason didn't actually drown in 1958, but most likely washed up on shore and lived in the woods as a reclusive hermit for the next twenty-something years. Apparently he witnessed his mother's decapitation from afar and set out to take out revenge on Alice, as well as all teenagers in general. What most people don't know about this film is that Jason Voorhees does not wear the hockey mask which became such an iconic symbol, but rather a burlap sack with one eyehole. Jason is seen without his mask in a dream sequence at the end of the film, and he looks deformed but with a full head of hair. Every other film depicts him as being completely bald, including Part 3 which takes place immediately after this film. Since this is a dream sequence, I guess it shouldn't be taken seriously but it should be noted that many of the other sequels also contradicted previous entries in the series. Part 3 is a very good film and is sometimes referred to as Friday The 13th Part 3-D, because it was made during an early '80s revival of 3-D films along with Jaws 3-D (1983) and Amityville 3-D (1983). This would explain why so many objects seem to pop out at the screen. Unfortunately the film is presented here in flat screen 2-D. I wish they would have released this film with 3-D glasses like Freddy's Dead in the Nightmare On Elm Street Collection. It just looks really ridiculous when it is not shown in the intended 3-D. When Jason is shown unmasked, his make-up looks very similar to his child-like version of the first film but now as a 40-year-old man. This is also the first film where Jason wears the infamous hockey mask, which he steals from one of his victims. After this film, Jason just basically became a copy of Michael Myers from the Halloween series. The Final Chapter is a very good entry in the series and (along with the first film) is my personal favorite. This is the only other Friday film in which Tom Savini did the make-up and effects. He designed Jason unmasked to be a 40-year-old version of his original creation. It looks very similar to the make-up in Part 3, but I feel that Jason's face in that film was much more animated. This film was really meant to be the "final" film, but the fans still demanded more. Ironically, this wouldn't be the only sequel to contain the word "final" in the title. A New Beginning must be one of the worst slasher films of all time. It is just bad-bad-bad. Fans were really dissappointed to find out that Jason wasn't even in the film. It turns out that the killer was just a guy pretending to be Jason. This was a really stupid attempt to try to bring back the franchise and whoever gave this script the green-light should be shot. The fans would never accept anybody else as Jason, so Paramount Studios decided to bring him back. Since he was dead for good, the studio decided to bring him back to life Frankenstein-style via a bolt of lightning. From this film on, Jason is a Frankenstein-like zombie and more-or-less unkillable. This was another very good entry in the series and a huge improvement over A New Beginning, which many fans discount altogether. The New Blood was another good entry in the series and many fans feel that the look of Jason in this film is the ideal look for Jason. The make-up and effects artists in this film decided to make him look like he has gone through seven films of being drowned, shot at, stabbed, burned, etc. His mask looks extremely damaged, his skin looks like rotting flesh, his clothes are basically scraps, and you can even see bones exposed through his skin, most notably his spinal cord through his back. When shown unmasked, he looks very skull-like. This film was nick-named Jason vs. Carrie, since the psychokinetic teen Tina Shepherd has many similarities to the title character from Carrie (1976). Jason Takes Manhattan is ultimately a let-down in the series and many fans feel that the film was falsely advertised. Most of the movie takes place on a ship, as opposed to Manhattan. The filmmakers were really trying to make a Freddy vs. Jason film, but it didn't pull through and unfortunately they decided to go with this horrible script. One thing I really hated was Jason's ability to move from one location to a distant other in only a few seconds span of time. The film also depicted Jason as being a normal child originally, who deteriorated from being underwater for so many years. This film is loaded with contradictions to previous entries. Interest in the franchise was already going down, but Jason Takes Manhattan was ultimately the final nail in the coffin and the franchise was later sold off to New Line Cinema (who also owned the Nightmare On Elm Street and Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchises.) The only films on this DVD box-set are the ones which were produced by Paramount. The other sequels which followed were Jason Goes To The Hell: The Final Friday (1993) [ironically it also wasn't the final film], Jason X (2002), and Freddy vs. Jason (2003), which teamed up Jason with Freddy Krueger of the Nightmare On Elm Street Series franchise. This film ultimately became the most successful film of either franchise. At the moment, there are plans to make a follow-up to Freddy vs. Jason and even adding another horror franchise boogeyman to the fold such as Pinhead (Hellraiser franchise) or Michael Myers (Halloween franchise). Whether this film gets made or not, production is already underway for a remake/reboot of the original film. The film will supposedly have Jason as the killer, as opposed to Mrs. Voorhees, and he will be wearing the hockey mask. Friday The 13th has ultimately become one of the most successful and long-lasting horror franchises of all time. Many of the films also featured many well-known stars in some of their first roles, such as Kevin Bacon (Tremors (1990)) in the first film, Crispin Glover (Back To The Future (1985)) in The Final Chapter, and Corey Feldman (The Goonies (1985)) in The Final Chapter and A New Beginning. Overall I would recommend this film to any die-hard slasher film addict. All of the films are presented in the original widescreen format (though I still wish that Part 3 was released with 3-D glasses.) Some, but not all, of the films are presented with a feature commentary. The box set also comes with a seperate disc entitled Killer Extras which is loaded with trailers, interviews, and several other goodies.
Summary of Friday the 13th: From Crystal Lake to Manhattan Ultimate Collection (Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part IV: The Final Chapter / Part V: A New Beginning / Part VI: Jason Lives / Part VII: The New Blood / Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan)Friday the 13th The film takes place years after a young boy named Jason drowns in a lake while attending Camp Crystal Lake and shortly thereafter, the camp closes. Flash forward to the present, where the owner decides to re-open the camp and one by one, the counselors have mysteriously been murdered by an unseen person.
Friday the 13th, Part 2 The second installment picks up with Jason Voorhees, presumed dead from drowning years ago, exacting revenge on the innocent campers at "Camp Blood." Living as a hermit in the woods all these years, Jason witnesses the graphic murder of his mother and decides to wreak havoc on everyone at the camp - killing each camp counselor one by one.
Friday the 13th, Part 3 Vacationing teenagers take off for a weekend of relaxation at Camp Crystal Lake. Planning a few days of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, they are in for a series of frightening surprises when a local motorcycle gang follows the teenagers back to their campsite, only to find a persistent Jason with an agenda of his own. Adorned with his trademark hockey mask for the first time in the series, Jason delivers non-stop chills and thrills as everyone on the lake must fight for their lives. Part III includes cast commentary by author Peter Bracke and actors Larry Zerner, Paul Kratka, Dana Kimmell and Richard Brooker.
Friday the 13th, Part IV: The Final Chapter Jason resurfaces from a seemingly deadly massacre and returns to Camp Crystal Lake to a new set of prey. Starring a young Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis, it seems Jason has finally met his match in the 12-year old horror movie maven. Enlisting the help of a local hunter, Tommy and his sister must rely on one another to help defeat Jason, while also trying to avoid their own demise.
Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning With Jason dead, someone new has begun a killing spree of their own, using Jason's M.O. and preying on inhabitants of a sanctuary.
Friday the 13th, Part VI: Jason Lives Tommy returns to the grave to ensure that Jason is indeed dead. Instead of remaining dead, Jason is accidentally brought back to life by Tommy and now Tommy must stop all the mindless killing and make sure Jason dies for good this time. Part VI features commentary by director Tom McLoughlin.
Friday the 13th, Part VII: The New Blood The film centers on Tina Shepard, a young girl with telekinetic powers who believes she drowned her father in Crystal Lake. Returning to the site as a method of supposedly helping her cope with her grief, Tina accidentally frees Jason from his watery grave, only to lead to more killing sprees by the man in the infamous hockey mask. Part VII features commentary by Kane Hodder and director John Carl Buechler and Part VIII features commentary by director Tom McLoughlin.
Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan A graduating class of a local high school vacation on a cruise ship and unbeknownst to them, Jason is a stowaway on the same ship. Slowly killing students one at a time, Jason eventually sinks the boat, stranding the few lone survivors in Manhattan. Among those survivors, is Rennie, who believes Jason attempted to drown her as a child. Fighting for her their lives, Rennie and the other survivors must make sure Jason dies once and for all.
A featurette "Tales From the Cutting Room," in which exclusive deleted scenes and footage is revealed for the first time. An 8-part featurette "The Friday The 13th Chronicles," which looks at the legacy of the films throughout their history, featuring cast and crew commenting on each film and why they appeal to audiences. Includes Adrienne King, Amy Steel, Corey Feldman, Kane Hodder, Lar Park Lincoln, Betsy Palmer, Tom Savini and directors Sean Cunningham, Tom McLoughlin, Rob Heddon, Joseph Zito and John Carl Buechler. A 3-part featurette "Secrets Galore Behind The Gore," which looks at the work of master make-up effects designer Tom Savini in Part 1 and Part IV and John Carl Buechler in Part VII. Includes rare and never-before-seen footage, drawings and stills illustrating the make-up techniques used to create Jason and achieve elaborate death scenes. A featurette "Crystal Lake Victims Tell All!" in which cast and crew from various films share amusing anecdotes. Includes Corey Feldman, Larry Zerner, Adrienne King, Amy Steel, Lar Park Lincoln and directors. A featurette "Friday Artifacts and Collectibles," which looks at props and collectables from the films. The theatrical trailers from all 8 movies except Part VI, which is represented by the teaser trailer. Five discs gather the first eight movies in the Friday the 13th series, plus a batch of behind-the-scenes featurettes. You can track the rise, fall, and endless resurrections of Jason Voorhees, from the original 1980 film to Jason's self-kidding trip to the Big Apple. Horror fans eat up packages such as this, but there's something odd about the deluxe treatment for a series that spotlighted atrocious acting, pitiful production values, and inane storytelling. You'll spot a few future "name" actors in various installments: Kevin Bacon is morbidly dispatched in the first one. But in general, the dominant focus is how to kill horny teenagers, most of whom have gathered at Camp Crystal Lake in the misguided belief that the curse of the impossible-to-kill Jason has worn off. The first movie has a certain raw, crummy ability to shock, Part 2 is a dismal retread, and Part 3 actually features interesting use of 3-D, which doesn't translate to its flat DVD version. The fourth is boldly subtitled The Final Chapter, and we all know where that went, but it does have Crispin Glover doing a funky dance. A New Beginning and Jason Lives continue Jason's bad mood, maybe because the hockey mask doesn't fit right. The seventh chapter, The New Blood, stakes Jason against a worthy opponent (Crystal Lake's answer to telekinetic Carrie), but the result is the same. Part 8's subtitle, Jason Takes Manhattan, is wittier than the movie itself, as Jason menaces an unlucky cruise ship of high-schoolers bound for New York--where Mr. J fits right in. Some of the films come with commentaries from directors or cast members, including heralded Jason performer Kane Hodder. Brief documentaries (ranging from five to 15 minutes) cover separate installments with amusing anecdotes, including interviews with Sean S. Cunningham, Tom Savini, and various actors. In another doc, actors speak of the fraternity of young actors who've been slaughtered by Jason over the years. A deleted-scenes section is skimpy and not very interesting, while the tricks of special-effects gore merit a film to themselves. It's a customer-savvy DVD box, even if the effect of watching a bunch of this stuff together is a little dispiriting. --Robert Horton
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