the groundhog day project

It’s daytime, hardly good for horror films, especially slasher films. They tend to take place in the dark exteriors (e.g. Friday the 13th ), or in badly-lit interiors (e.g. Halloween II ). Even when we know what’s in the dark—Michael, Jason, Freddy—it is scarier when we can’t quite see it, can’t quite gauge the moment or angle of attack. The unknown outweighs no matter how much detail is known. We fill in the gaps, we make it worse. But, circumstance leaves me blogging from my office today, where even if I turned out the lights, would be rather bright because of the big window. And, there may be interruptions; even though I have no office hours right now, other TAs with whom I share the office may be in and out, and students may be by. But, in the meantime… Friday the 13th Part VII – The New Blood . As the movie gets going—with a nice narrative setup—an interesting flashback is necessary. I found today some old reviews by Siskel and Ebert of Friday the 13th Part 2 and the origina...

Back into my comfort zone. Friday the 13th Part 2 was, I think, the first Friday the 13th I bought for my VHS collection of the entire series in my 20s, so I’ve seen this one a lot. I really should buy a DVD set of these things—assuming a boxset exists. I haven’t even checked. How sad is that? Jason is a very nice killer, taking the kettle off the burner like that. I mean, sure, he stuck a screwdriver into Alice’s face first, but does that really make him a bad guy? She did kill his mother, after all. Crazy Ralph is back. They really should have had that same guy stick around for every one of these films. Even though he dies in this one. I suppose, since this sequel comes before Halloween ‘s or Texas Chain Saw Massacre ‘s, not to mention before the first Nightmare on Elm Street , this is where the slasher subgenre really gets going. Leatherface may have survived outright, Michael Myers may have survived his wound swell enough to get up and leave, but Jason is the first real ...