Cast/Notable Credits:
Adam Marcus (Director)
John D. Lemay (Steve): Friday the 13th the series
Kari Keegan (Jessica): Mind Games (2003)
Steven Williams (Creighton Duke): Blues Brothers (1980), Dr. Detroit (1983), Missing in Action 2 (1985), House (1986)
Steven Culp (Robert): J.A.G. & Desperate Housewives T.V. series
Erin Gray (Diana): Six Pack (1982), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Rusty Schwimmer (Joey B): Sleepwalkers (1992), Candyman, Twister (1996), Perfect Storm (2000)
Richard Grant (Coroner): Rocky 5 (1990), The Big Lebrowski (1998), Nutty Professor 2 (2000), Special Unit 2 & General Hospital T.V. series
Billy Green Bush (Sheriff Landis): Critters
Trailer:
The film starts with a female pulling up into Camp Crystal Lake in a car late at night. She parks at a cabin and proceeds in as if she if going to stay there. She preparing for bed and is taking a late night shower as the power suddenly goes off. Uh oh. She gets out of the shower and goes to investigate. She stumbles through the dark house and eventually bumps into our beloved Jason.
Jason then chases her through the woods into a meadow opening where F.B.I. agents appear out of the bushes, heavily armed with weapons and then spotlights hone in on Jason. Oh no, it's a trap! The agents proceed to take target practice on Jason and one even shoots a rocket launcher at him, blowing him up into thousands of pieces. They all cheer in victory. Jason's dead. And then off in the distance overseeing this showdown, a mysterious black guy mutters, "I don't think so." The next shot is Jason's heart beating on the ground and then goes silent.
TIME OUT! Are you f*ckin' kidding me? New Line Cinema spends millions to get the rights to this franchise, and the first thing they do is blow him up? Really? That's how you continue the franchise under your label? I'm already pissed about the film not being able to be called Friday the 13th Part 9, and instead given some crappy He's Dead title. But after years, I understand that the title issues was all legal right battles between New Line and Paramount.
Another thing, I usually go to see these movies partly to see how they figure out on how to resurrect him from the grave. What clever idea they have and the last movie's fool hearted death. It's called a little continuity. Last time I remembered, Jason had just melted down into goo from the dreaded New York City toxic waste that flowed through it's sewer system at the stroke of midnight every night. And now he just appears all fine and dandy back at Crystal Lake. WTF? This was a key element for me going to these movies. They producers just sweep it underneath the rug like nothing happened. Arrgh!
Back to the movie...Jason's puzzle piece corpse is sent to Ohio to the governments top coroner facility. While undergoing an autopsy on his body, the coroner becomes possessed by evil and devours Jason’s heart. An evil snake-like creature transfers from the heart and into the coroner, transforming him into a “host” of the Jason spirit. Or Zombie Jason. The rest of film plays out with Jason body jumping into other “host” bodies (because the bodies “wear-out” and decay).
The mysterious black dude, Creighton Duke, shows up in town and tells them that Jason's coming back home and he's not dead. He also has a proposition for the local diner's waitress, Diana.
Diana turns out to be Jason's lost sister and the only way for Jason to fully come back to life is to jump into a host body of a blood line Voohrees descendant. Translation: Jason has to jump back into a family member's body to become Jason again. Right. Diana also has a daughter and granddaughter living near by. Creighton Duke, meanwhile, the secret on how to finally kill Jason. Good for him.
Villain:
It's Jason Voohrees...sort of. More like Zombie Jason who only appears when he passes a mirror. Kind of like a reverse vampire thing. The only intriguing aspect of this, is that sometimes we never know who is caring the "evil snake" of Jason. Oooh, suspense!
Outside of the initial sequence and end sequence…oops, I might have blown the ending…Jason appears only as the “body host” and when they pass a mirror. Then we get a quick glimpse at Jason. Lame. I want Jason! I don't go to these movies to see the Holy Ghost of Jason! I felt totally ripped off in this film.
Cast:
The film presented an older cast compared to other Friday films. Erin Gray, the hot chick in Buck Rogers (pictured left), played the role of Jason’s sister, Diana. Even at an older stage in her life, she looks hot. M.I.L.F.! John D. Lemay plays the lead character Steve. An interesting thing about Lemay is that he starred in the Friday the 13th T.V. series, which had nothing to do with Jason. Steven Williams who played the lead Illinois Highway Patrol man in Blues Brothers movie, took on the role of Creighton Duke, the notorious bounty hunter.
Creighton Duke...I loved his character. Bounty hunters are too cool. Other famous bounty hunters include: Boba Fett from Star Wars, Reno Raines from Renegade (pictured left) and Dogg the Bounty Hunter. Creighton also had a couple of cool quotes like…“she ain’t had a piece of the Duke yet.”... but I had some issues and problems with Duke’s sense of morale and good character.
Okay, this was Part 9 in the series and so far I've counted an estimate 80-83 deaths in the series, not counting the sh*t in Part 5. And all of a sudden this Creighton Duke character shows up proclaiming that he is the only one who knows how to kill Jason. What the hell? Where was this character in Part 4? He decides to finally show up 50 or so deaths later. What was he waiting for…the 100 death? He shows up a couple movies late don’t cha think?
How does this man sleep at night? He has no regard for human life, or he would’ve shown up three or four sequels earlier. Think of the lives he could have save. And on top of it, he offers to kill him for $500,000. Mercenary! But I like it.
His character is a nice concept, but the writers could have altered his background a little bit. They could have written something like he was in jail for years, or researching on how to kill Jason. But instead he shows up late for the party holding the secrets on how to kill Jason and then pulls out a “here’s the sacred dagger that could do it” out of his boot. What!? Where the hell did that come from? Give me more background info!!! Where the f*ck did the knife come from? Maybe it’s in the fuckin’ novelization!
SFX/Gore:
Despite many of the other flaws in the movie, it came through in slicin' up people! How 'bout a number reflective of Michael Jordan's jersey. No. Not that number 45 crap. But it would have been cool, but the other one...23. Sweet. Yeah, most of them were over kills in the film, just bodies to pad the stats.
The special effects were borderline here. Right before the CGI era blow up, we were treated to probably the last of the cheesy special effects. Like the glowing light beacons at the end, what was that? Pink Floyd live at Crystal Lake? Another thing to my disliking is the over use of gore in the unrated version. I love gore and all, but I've said before, the more doesn't make the merrier. Do it right, give it taste.
TNA:
For the TNA portion of the grade, we have six hot chicks (Shark Factor), three sets of twin fun bags, two shower scenes, and a sex act in a camping tent. I'm all for that! But somehow it felt a little out of place or forced. I thought that they could have done more with those stats.
T.Gun's Take:
Frankly it was a bad sequel...period. There were a lot of background holes in the film. If you're going to introduce some new ideas, then take a little effort to explain some things. Not even "the plot can be explained in a news paper clipping or police report". So many questions. Outside of him coming back to life from toxic waste and hiking back to Crystal Lake, we have the origin of the dagger, why it can kill him, and Jason had surviving family members after all these years.
Speaking of family members, I liked that the film gave us a little insight on his family tree, even if it did feel "forced" and unbelievable. In the beginning we learn from a cheesy America's Most Wanted T.V. show report that his father's name was Elias. Wow. Is that true? Was that the name the novelization of Part 6 gave us? And a sister? It's not like Obi-Wan droppin' the sister bomb in the Return of the Jedi. That was like the third movie (at the time) of the series. This is like the 9th movie. She just all of a sudden appears here. Also there's a Voohree's house in town now?
Hidden in the film are little Easter Eggs. Well not too hidden, but they are there. The directors used many nostalgic props on the set during filming. The play ground jungle gym at the end during the final show down is the same used on Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. The crate in the basement of the Voohree's house is the same crate used in Stephen King's 1982 Creepshow movie. And finally one last prop of note. The Necronomicon from the Evil Dead franchise is laying on the coffee table in the Voohree's living room. Army of Darkness was filming in the lot next door during production. They were happy to lend the Book of the Dead to the Friday set. Oh yeah, or course there's Freddy's glove at the end. But that one is obvious.
Through out the years I always pondered on how to kill Jason. For years, I thought that you needed to shoot Jason to kill him. I don’t know why I believed that. Maybe that was the dumb little kid in me. My love for guns at the time might have played into it. Back when I was young, the gun was the most powerful weapon. Just look at Rambo, Red Dawn, Missing in Action, and all of those other action packed movies. I never said that I was a smart child.
In Part 4, Jason broke the rifle in Rob's tent. Ha! Proof that Jason was scared of guns. My theory grew, Jason was afraid of getting shot so he broke the rifle. Bingo! I'm smart after all. Then in Part 6, the cop shot him several times as he approached him. Finally! I was right. But even at the time, I knew that Jason wasn't dead, and he lived. Crap. Throw that theory out the window. So my next theories on how to kill Jason were to:
A. Cut off his head
B. Blow him up
Well Part 9 took care of plan B, and he still lived. Son of a bitch. Okay, plan A is still alive. No it's not. By blowing him up, his head did get lopped off. Noooo! I can't win.
And then Creighton Duke steps in with his mumble jumble garbage. “A Voohrees can only die by a hand of a Voohrees.” And then he pulls out a “special dagger”. BULL SHIT! BULL SHIT! BULL SHIT! That can't be the way. Eventually we learned that it wasn't...he he...Jason X and FvsJ. Screw it. There's no way to kill him. I've just accepted that.
The movie itself I hated for years. I loved the Jason character. I felt that they took him out of the movie a little too much by making him Zombie Body Jumping Jason. It screwed with me for year to come. Years later I re-watched the film on DVD with the Director’s commentary on (unrated version), and learned their intentions to the film.
The commentary was hilarious. The two guys were fuckin’ awesome even though they couldn't make a good movie. They explained on the studio wanted something fresh and new. And get him out of the mask. Why!? Damn studios.
They also explained that they had “formulas” to abide by. The first formula: “Seven minutes of fresh breast or seven minutes of violent death.” Basically to keep the viewers happy they had to show nudity or death within every seven minutes. Genius!
They also talked about M.I.L.F., as in Erin Gray, and MPAA rating bull shit. As far as nudity goes, they broke down the MPAA's guidelines regarding male nudity simply in the best line of the commentary: “You can show pickle, but you can’t show angry pickle.” That's awesome!
Despite the film being a horrible installment of the franchise, watching the film with commentary is literally quite enjoyable. It gave me a new found appreciation for the film. So I graded it with two grades.
Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on August 13, 1993 and made $15.9 million at the Box Office ($9.7 million opening weekend)
-One of five Friday films to open on Friday the 13th
Adam Marcus (Director)
John D. Lemay (Steve): Friday the 13th the series
Kari Keegan (Jessica): Mind Games (2003)
Steven Williams (Creighton Duke): Blues Brothers (1980), Dr. Detroit (1983), Missing in Action 2 (1985), House (1986)
Steven Culp (Robert): J.A.G. & Desperate Housewives T.V. series
Erin Gray (Diana): Six Pack (1982), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Rusty Schwimmer (Joey B): Sleepwalkers (1992), Candyman, Twister (1996), Perfect Storm (2000)
Richard Grant (Coroner): Rocky 5 (1990), The Big Lebrowski (1998), Nutty Professor 2 (2000), Special Unit 2 & General Hospital T.V. series
Billy Green Bush (Sheriff Landis): Critters
Trailer:
The film starts with a female pulling up into Camp Crystal Lake in a car late at night. She parks at a cabin and proceeds in as if she if going to stay there. She preparing for bed and is taking a late night shower as the power suddenly goes off. Uh oh. She gets out of the shower and goes to investigate. She stumbles through the dark house and eventually bumps into our beloved Jason.Jason then chases her through the woods into a meadow opening where F.B.I. agents appear out of the bushes, heavily armed with weapons and then spotlights hone in on Jason. Oh no, it's a trap! The agents proceed to take target practice on Jason and one even shoots a rocket launcher at him, blowing him up into thousands of pieces. They all cheer in victory. Jason's dead. And then off in the distance overseeing this showdown, a mysterious black guy mutters, "I don't think so." The next shot is Jason's heart beating on the ground and then goes silent.
TIME OUT! Are you f*ckin' kidding me? New Line Cinema spends millions to get the rights to this franchise, and the first thing they do is blow him up? Really? That's how you continue the franchise under your label? I'm already pissed about the film not being able to be called Friday the 13th Part 9, and instead given some crappy He's Dead title. But after years, I understand that the title issues was all legal right battles between New Line and Paramount.
Another thing, I usually go to see these movies partly to see how they figure out on how to resurrect him from the grave. What clever idea they have and the last movie's fool hearted death. It's called a little continuity. Last time I remembered, Jason had just melted down into goo from the dreaded New York City toxic waste that flowed through it's sewer system at the stroke of midnight every night. And now he just appears all fine and dandy back at Crystal Lake. WTF? This was a key element for me going to these movies. They producers just sweep it underneath the rug like nothing happened. Arrgh!
Back to the movie...Jason's puzzle piece corpse is sent to Ohio to the governments top coroner facility. While undergoing an autopsy on his body, the coroner becomes possessed by evil and devours Jason’s heart. An evil snake-like creature transfers from the heart and into the coroner, transforming him into a “host” of the Jason spirit. Or Zombie Jason. The rest of film plays out with Jason body jumping into other “host” bodies (because the bodies “wear-out” and decay).
The mysterious black dude, Creighton Duke, shows up in town and tells them that Jason's coming back home and he's not dead. He also has a proposition for the local diner's waitress, Diana.
Diana turns out to be Jason's lost sister and the only way for Jason to fully come back to life is to jump into a host body of a blood line Voohrees descendant. Translation: Jason has to jump back into a family member's body to become Jason again. Right. Diana also has a daughter and granddaughter living near by. Creighton Duke, meanwhile, the secret on how to finally kill Jason. Good for him.
Villain:
It's Jason Voohrees...sort of. More like Zombie Jason who only appears when he passes a mirror. Kind of like a reverse vampire thing. The only intriguing aspect of this, is that sometimes we never know who is caring the "evil snake" of Jason. Oooh, suspense!
Outside of the initial sequence and end sequence…oops, I might have blown the ending…Jason appears only as the “body host” and when they pass a mirror. Then we get a quick glimpse at Jason. Lame. I want Jason! I don't go to these movies to see the Holy Ghost of Jason! I felt totally ripped off in this film.
Cast:
The film presented an older cast compared to other Friday films. Erin Gray, the hot chick in Buck Rogers (pictured left), played the role of Jason’s sister, Diana. Even at an older stage in her life, she looks hot. M.I.L.F.! John D. Lemay plays the lead character Steve. An interesting thing about Lemay is that he starred in the Friday the 13th T.V. series, which had nothing to do with Jason. Steven Williams who played the lead Illinois Highway Patrol man in Blues Brothers movie, took on the role of Creighton Duke, the notorious bounty hunter.
Creighton Duke...I loved his character. Bounty hunters are too cool. Other famous bounty hunters include: Boba Fett from Star Wars, Reno Raines from Renegade (pictured left) and Dogg the Bounty Hunter. Creighton also had a couple of cool quotes like…“she ain’t had a piece of the Duke yet.”... but I had some issues and problems with Duke’s sense of morale and good character.Okay, this was Part 9 in the series and so far I've counted an estimate 80-83 deaths in the series, not counting the sh*t in Part 5. And all of a sudden this Creighton Duke character shows up proclaiming that he is the only one who knows how to kill Jason. What the hell? Where was this character in Part 4? He decides to finally show up 50 or so deaths later. What was he waiting for…the 100 death? He shows up a couple movies late don’t cha think?
How does this man sleep at night? He has no regard for human life, or he would’ve shown up three or four sequels earlier. Think of the lives he could have save. And on top of it, he offers to kill him for $500,000. Mercenary! But I like it.
His character is a nice concept, but the writers could have altered his background a little bit. They could have written something like he was in jail for years, or researching on how to kill Jason. But instead he shows up late for the party holding the secrets on how to kill Jason and then pulls out a “here’s the sacred dagger that could do it” out of his boot. What!? Where the hell did that come from? Give me more background info!!! Where the f*ck did the knife come from? Maybe it’s in the fuckin’ novelization!
SFX/Gore:
Despite many of the other flaws in the movie, it came through in slicin' up people! How 'bout a number reflective of Michael Jordan's jersey. No. Not that number 45 crap. But it would have been cool, but the other one...23. Sweet. Yeah, most of them were over kills in the film, just bodies to pad the stats.
The special effects were borderline here. Right before the CGI era blow up, we were treated to probably the last of the cheesy special effects. Like the glowing light beacons at the end, what was that? Pink Floyd live at Crystal Lake? Another thing to my disliking is the over use of gore in the unrated version. I love gore and all, but I've said before, the more doesn't make the merrier. Do it right, give it taste.
TNA:
For the TNA portion of the grade, we have six hot chicks (Shark Factor), three sets of twin fun bags, two shower scenes, and a sex act in a camping tent. I'm all for that! But somehow it felt a little out of place or forced. I thought that they could have done more with those stats.
T.Gun's Take:
Frankly it was a bad sequel...period. There were a lot of background holes in the film. If you're going to introduce some new ideas, then take a little effort to explain some things. Not even "the plot can be explained in a news paper clipping or police report". So many questions. Outside of him coming back to life from toxic waste and hiking back to Crystal Lake, we have the origin of the dagger, why it can kill him, and Jason had surviving family members after all these years.
Speaking of family members, I liked that the film gave us a little insight on his family tree, even if it did feel "forced" and unbelievable. In the beginning we learn from a cheesy America's Most Wanted T.V. show report that his father's name was Elias. Wow. Is that true? Was that the name the novelization of Part 6 gave us? And a sister? It's not like Obi-Wan droppin' the sister bomb in the Return of the Jedi. That was like the third movie (at the time) of the series. This is like the 9th movie. She just all of a sudden appears here. Also there's a Voohree's house in town now?
Hidden in the film are little Easter Eggs. Well not too hidden, but they are there. The directors used many nostalgic props on the set during filming. The play ground jungle gym at the end during the final show down is the same used on Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. The crate in the basement of the Voohree's house is the same crate used in Stephen King's 1982 Creepshow movie. And finally one last prop of note. The Necronomicon from the Evil Dead franchise is laying on the coffee table in the Voohree's living room. Army of Darkness was filming in the lot next door during production. They were happy to lend the Book of the Dead to the Friday set. Oh yeah, or course there's Freddy's glove at the end. But that one is obvious.Through out the years I always pondered on how to kill Jason. For years, I thought that you needed to shoot Jason to kill him. I don’t know why I believed that. Maybe that was the dumb little kid in me. My love for guns at the time might have played into it. Back when I was young, the gun was the most powerful weapon. Just look at Rambo, Red Dawn, Missing in Action, and all of those other action packed movies. I never said that I was a smart child.
In Part 4, Jason broke the rifle in Rob's tent. Ha! Proof that Jason was scared of guns. My theory grew, Jason was afraid of getting shot so he broke the rifle. Bingo! I'm smart after all. Then in Part 6, the cop shot him several times as he approached him. Finally! I was right. But even at the time, I knew that Jason wasn't dead, and he lived. Crap. Throw that theory out the window. So my next theories on how to kill Jason were to:
A. Cut off his head
B. Blow him up
Well Part 9 took care of plan B, and he still lived. Son of a bitch. Okay, plan A is still alive. No it's not. By blowing him up, his head did get lopped off. Noooo! I can't win.
And then Creighton Duke steps in with his mumble jumble garbage. “A Voohrees can only die by a hand of a Voohrees.” And then he pulls out a “special dagger”. BULL SHIT! BULL SHIT! BULL SHIT! That can't be the way. Eventually we learned that it wasn't...he he...Jason X and FvsJ. Screw it. There's no way to kill him. I've just accepted that.
The movie itself I hated for years. I loved the Jason character. I felt that they took him out of the movie a little too much by making him Zombie Body Jumping Jason. It screwed with me for year to come. Years later I re-watched the film on DVD with the Director’s commentary on (unrated version), and learned their intentions to the film.
The commentary was hilarious. The two guys were fuckin’ awesome even though they couldn't make a good movie. They explained on the studio wanted something fresh and new. And get him out of the mask. Why!? Damn studios.
They also explained that they had “formulas” to abide by. The first formula: “Seven minutes of fresh breast or seven minutes of violent death.” Basically to keep the viewers happy they had to show nudity or death within every seven minutes. Genius!
They also talked about M.I.L.F., as in Erin Gray, and MPAA rating bull shit. As far as nudity goes, they broke down the MPAA's guidelines regarding male nudity simply in the best line of the commentary: “You can show pickle, but you can’t show angry pickle.” That's awesome!Despite the film being a horrible installment of the franchise, watching the film with commentary is literally quite enjoyable. It gave me a new found appreciation for the film. So I graded it with two grades.
Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on August 13, 1993 and made $15.9 million at the Box Office ($9.7 million opening weekend)
-One of five Friday films to open on Friday the 13th
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