His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th

Tom Savini hosts this documentary on thirty years of "Friday the 13th", complete with some cheesy segue scenes of girls getting killed by a stalking killer. Just about anyone who was anyone in the film's history (besides Crispin Glover and Corey Feldman) make appearances to talk shop.

If you're a fan of "Friday the 13th" (and I am), you'll probably enjoy this documentary. It's fast-paced, covers plenty of ground, catches us up with "stars" we haven't seen in a while. If you don't know the stories behind the films, this is a great way to learn them in a fairly short time.

If you're not a "Friday the 13th" fan, I'm not sure why you're watching this one. Is your boyfriend making you do it? Most of the information covered is something you won't care about unless you're familiar with the movies. Does the casual fan care what some minor character from part six thinks? I doubt it. But the more serious fans will eat it up like rice pudding.

That's really all one needs to know here. After you've purchased all twelve movies in the latest special edition, this film acts as sort of a nice summary piece. They even have a feature that sums up the entire series in four minutes (sadly not so much focusing on death scenes as on Joe Lynch ranting). With two discs of special features, there's really no way you can expect more "Friday the 13th" love... if you need more, you're beyond help. Go to a convention and have Kane Hodder strangle you or Ari Lehman make a "rock" pose with you. That should do the trick.

I was about to enjoy this documentary at least as much as I loved the 20 minutes bonus featurette on the first DVD edition of "Friday the 13th" Part 1. Alas, even if it has some irresistible elements (Tom Savini tremendous hosting, all the cast and crew reunited, occasional nice info...) I began to get quite irritated by some pretty obvious flaws half way through:

what is it all about this horrible and distracting heavy metal score endlessly spoiling the viewer's pleasure? It sounded as if I had an inconsiderate neighbor having his stereo playing out loud just to p*** me off.

At times, I could also get fed up with the bloody effects systematically interrupting the interviewee just when he or she was about to tell us something interesting.

Will anyone tell me what guideline exactly the editor used to do his work? It is as if the interviews had been put together pretty much at random, for all I could understand.

Finally, the last 10 minutes outrageously promoting the so called remake recently released (which I didn't much like by the way, but that's another story!) was the last straw.

And I ended up almost hating what I was bound to love in the first place. So paradoxically, I put 5/10 because the good elements just couldn't be overlooked. But, please Mr Farrands, try to be a little more modest next time. YOU'RE NOT the interesting part of the show, the SUBJECT IS. Be a little more at the service of it, not the contrary. When you get that, try and make another documentary.

If you are a real Friday The 13th fan or if you want to know more of one of the earlier slashers then I surely recommend this documentary. Especially disc one is extremely well done. You will have first of a one hour and a half about the whole franchise, even the remake. All you want to know you will know, secondly, all actors who played Jason are giving their view over their version.

Disc two is more about entertainment. Here and there there are some interesting things to learn but there are also some stupid things on it. Luckily the items on disc 2 are all shorts. The only thing that I regret is the fact that when some actors are talking about some scene's they aren't shown, so if it's a while since you have been watching the movies you will have some questions about what they are talking about. But still, if you have the book and this DVD, I guess there's isn't more to learn.

In spirit of the upcoming (reboot? remake? re-imagining?) of Friday the 13th comes a ninety-minute retrospective of the series thus far. What the fans get is a mixed bag of interesting interviews and fascinating tidbits of one of the largest franchises and yet critically maligned series in the history of cinema.

pros: The cast/crew that they gathered is very impressive, covering a good portion of the series. Anchor bay, the DVD's distributor, was able to use footage from all of the films, so it's fun to view the footage as it's being talked about. The whole experience is nostalgic for die-hard fans and for others as well.

cons: The documentary itself comes off as tacky at times. One would wish they would stick to a topic instead of going off on a few different rants all at the same time. Tom Savini's hosting was just fine, but the whole 'ride' device was distracting and unneeded. The funnest bits end up being the extras on the two-discs.

Ultimately, it's enjoyable for what it is: an hour and a half reliving the history of Jason Voorhees and thirty years of his body count.

In 1980, a little film called 'Friday the 13th' was released and it changed the horror genre forever. Now, thirty years later, director Daniel Garrands has gathered some of the most important members of the 'Friday the 13th' crew. . . and some random people (like the dude from 'Psych' (?)). . . to discuss the series as it is, was, and will be.

Approaching a documentary like this and giving it a review is difficult. The main reason is because, well, it's just not all THAT informative. The majority of the film is made up of the opinions of cast & crew & random useless people. The main plus of the film, as with many of his horror films, is Tom Savini. As the host, he commands the typical creepiness with the mixed-in humour well. He's a good relief when the sloppy editing and occasionally trite discussions get to be too much. . . luckily, that doesn't happen a whole lot. Technically, the documentary does look a little cheap. I liked that Savini's scenes take place at the Universal Studios Horror Nights set for Jason, and the effects they used during his scenes were quite fun. However, the other Powerpoint-ish effects used for title cards and name tags were a little low-grade. As said previously, there really isn't that much information that a fan of the series won't know. This lack of information really puts the documentary in a weird purgatory. . . there's not enough information to make it informative for the casual viewer and there's not enough new stuff for a hardcore fan (like myself). I would've liked to see some more behind-the-scenes segments showing the productions of the various films, or maybe revisit more sets (they did once) to show us how the places are now. It was nice, however, to see a gathering of the old stars and crew, but the most entertaining parts with them weren't shown until the credits when they were all repeating their most famous lines and having fun. Also, it seemed that the majority of them were treading lightly as to not insult anyone (though I did like when one person comments on 'Jason Goes to Hell' as his not having a clue what the plot was (because, really, who the hell did?)). Overall, the documentary is entertaining and a good watch for both casual viewers and hardcore ones, but there's not enough for either group to make it great. Is it worth the $14 that it's currently listed at? Not the movie itself, but the features might be worth a look.

Final verdict: 7/10.

-AP3-