Freitag, der 13. - Jason kehrt zurück

Friday the 13th Part 2 is very similar to the original in feel and atmosphere. A little more of the killer is shown throughout the movie this time (stomping through the forest, hiding in the shadows...), but gone is the mystery factor that made the original so great. You know who the killer is within the first few scenes.

But that doesn't matter. It's an entertaining horror classic in it's own right, and features the most inventive finale to any of the Friday the 13th movies.

'Friday the 13th' may have been panned by critics when first released but since then it is one of the most famous and influential horror films, the franchise containing one of horror's most iconic villains. The film is popular enough to become a franchise and spawn several sequels of varying quality and generally inferior to the one that started it all of.

Of the sequels, 'Friday the 13th Part 2' is one of the better ones easily and one of the few instalments to be as good, even on par. It's not perfect, it's not what one would call great. It does however achieve its primary goals well, it is scary and it is fun. Plus it introduces Jason Voorhees as the antagonist, so it is an important sequel in the series in this respect.

Like the first 'Friday the 13th', 'Friday the 13th Part 2' is far from the best when it comes to acting. The exceptions are appealing Amy Steel and a truly freaky Warrington Gillette. Everybody else ranges from average to dead-end.

Nor is it the best when it comes to dialogue. Much of it is very crude and cheesy. Or character development, and what the film does worse than the original is that we don't sympathise with the characters here as much apart from Ginny. The ending is a head-scratcher and pretty nonsensical, not the truly unsettling one of the first film.

Visually, on the other hand, it improves over the original 'Friday the 13th' quite drastically. It's still creepy but has more of a professional, slicker look and like more time was dedicated to it. Like 'Friday the 13th', 'Friday the 13th Part 2' is very gory and gruesome, though not pointlessly so, but it is also very frightening and suspenseful.

This is apparent in the deaths, which are still very creative and shocking, and the hauntingly eerie music score. 'Friday the 13th' is assuredly directed and moves along at a lively pace. As said, Steel carries the film with a good deal of appealing charm and Gillette proves why Jason is often considered an iconic character in horror.

Overall, pretty good sequel and one of the better ones of a variable franchise. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Friday the 13th 2 works on some level mostly because this is the first film that features the Jason character as the killer. He's somewhat menancing but this film suffers from being kind of boring and not nearly as good as the original.

The film opens on Alice, the survivor of the original film, still haunted by the events that took place at crystal lake. in the next 5 minutes lets just say she'll won't have to think about it anymore. afew years later a camp site has opened not too far from camp and jason is not to happy with this.

It moves kind of slow and known of the characters are really that great except for our herioine ginny. The make up effects are still great and the last 15 minutes do satisfy.

As a film of its own it's pretty good, but as a sequel to a so called slasher classic it doesn't really compare

I think this movie is good because it's the real start of the real killer in Friday the 13th. I also like this and parts 3 and 4 because these are the movies where Jason actually acts like he's human rather than a zombie like in the later movies. And what's cool is Jason actually has a different disguise rather than the ol' hockey mask. What's stupid was that he actually fell for the trick believing that Ginny was his mother and yet his mother's death was the reason why he was killing all those people. Of course, then again, he was retarded, so maybe that's the reason why, I guess I'll never know. A real good start on the Jason movies.

So many refer to this as the debut of Jason Voorhees. It wasn't...simply the debut of him killing people. He left that to his mom in part one! Steve Miner didn't mess around too much with Sean Cunninham's successful formula simply adding some quite inventive kills and bloodletting.

No-one could be accused of using method-acting here, truth is its all pretty embarrassing. The high-school script though probably isn't that much out of place - they are schoolkids after all.

Jason himself, though still slightly diminished of stature is one creepy little dude, still without his hockey mask but wearing a burlap sack with holes cut out for his eyes. What appears to be his demise is of course anything but...as parts 3 to 10 will attest. The final 15 minutes are quite tension-filled and better than anything in the original.

A must-see for devotees of the series.