Sunday 22 March 2009

Friday 13th Horror Franchise

Friday 13th (1980) The original
* Paramount spent approximately $500,000 in advertisements for the film, and then an additional $500,000 when the film began performing well at the box office

* Friday the 13th, inspired by the success of John Carpenter's Haloween was made on an estimated budget of $550,000

* Friday the 13th was a horror classic that set the standard for slasher flicks of the 1980s.

* The film was made in a comic book and novel version afters its success

* The writer for this film was Victor miller and the director was sean cunningham

* It is based on a story where many years after a boy drowns one summer and two camp counselors are killed, a new owner decides to reopen which sparks a series of grisly murders

* The film came in at 31 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for the ending sequence, and was voted 15 in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Scariest Moments.


Other films that followed in the franchise


Friday the 13th Part 2- April 30, 1981- Mrs. Voorhees is dead, and Camp Crystal Lake is shut down, but a camp next to the imfamous place is stalked by an unknown assailant. Is it Mrs. Voorhee's son Jason who didn't drown in the lake some 30 years before


Friday the 13th Part III-August 13, 1982/ May 13, 1983- Two years ago, Chris Higgins had a traumatic experience at her family's lakeside resort when she was attacked by a mysterious and disfigured man. Now she returns with some friends to the very same...


Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter-April 13, 1984-After the confrontation with Chris, Jason presumed dead, is taken to the Wessex County Morgue. There he escapes killing an attendant and a nurse, making his way back to Crystal Lake Camp. Six teenagers rent a cabin next to the Jarvis' in Crystal Lake. Soon Jason finds his way to eliminate all who trespasses his way, but not for long


Friday the 13th: A New Beginning- March 22, 1985- While Jason lies unconscious, a local man decides to use Jason's old M.O. and wreaks havoc at a halfway house for troubled teens


Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives- August 1, 1986- Tommy returns to the grave to make sure Jason is dead and accidently brings him back to life. Now it's up to Tommy to stop Jason's mindless killing and put him back where he belongs.


Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood-May 13, 1988- A distraught little Tina dreams of the time when she believes she drowned her father with her anger-triggered psychic powers. A trip back to the site is supposed to help Tina, but her doctor merely wants to exploit her. In a rage, Tina accidentally frees Jason from the bottom of the lake with her powers, and he begins to slaughter the teens next door

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan- July 28, 1989- The graduating class of the local high school is going on a cruise with Jason as a stowaway. The heroine believes she was almost drowned by Jason as a child. Jason eventually sinks the boat and kills many of the students on it, but many of them escape to Manhattan.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday-August 13, 1993- The secret of Jason's evil is revealed. It is up to the last remaining descendant of the Voorhees family to stop Jason before he becomes immortal and unstoppable. This is the final (?) battle to end Jason's reign of terror forever


Jason X-April 26, 2002- Jason Voorhees returns with a new look, a new machete, and his same murderous attitude as he is awakened on a spaceship in the 25th century


Freddy vs. Jason- August 15, 2003- It's been nearly ten years since Freddy Krueger terrorized people in the dreams, and the towns folk want to keep him erased from their memory. Freddy still has one more plan on getting back to Elm Street. He resurrects Jason Voorhees and sends him off to kill. The more bodies which fall to the ground, the stronger in which Freddy becomes. This is until, Freddy realizes that Jason isn't going to step aside easily, and must be taken down himself

Friday the 13th (2009) - February 13, 2009- The movie starts out in 1980 with Pamela Voorhees chasing the final surviving victim of the original Friday the 13th killings. She blames the counselors for Jason's death and is about to stab the last girl when the girl picks up a machete and cuts off Mrs. Voorhees' head before running away. Meanwhile, a young Jason is watching from above in a tree and jumps down to retrieve his mother's body and the machete


Summurary of franchise

It seems that the Friday the 13th franchise has come a long way since the original movie in 1980 with other 10 different remakes of the film all featuring the main lead character Jason but with new plots, twists and characters directors have managed to keep alive the franchise through the freshening up of the film. The last 3 movies in the franchise were made post 2000 and is clearly different to their predecessors mainly through the zeitgeist that is reflected in them compared to the ones of the 80s and 90s.

For instance the use of new 21st centenuary style machetes to show the evolution of technology throughout the decade, and the powers that the villains have are a lot more complex and dynamic of what they possessed in the first few movies in the time. Directors have had to change how the movies were perceived because the audiences through that time have also changed and with the theory that genre never stays the same being more evident through joining the sci fi and horror genres together in particular relation to the Freddy vs Jason movie where two separate characters form different genres and eras are brought into one movie to appeal to both sets of elder and younger fans

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