Friday The 13th: Ranking Every Movie From Worst To Best
4. Friday The 13th Part II
Our first film with the grown up Jason after his cameo at the end of the first. This was the first of the franchise to be directed by series favourite Steve Miner (who has gone on to have a directing career taking in Halloween H20, Forever Young and Lake Placid). In taking the film in this new direction, they unfortunately lost make-up maestro Tom Savini who thought the idea of a grown-up Jason (who died in the 1950's) too ridiculous. It is a good entry in the series though and, obviously, worked in the long-term.
Two months after the events of the original film, Alice is still coming to terms with events at Crystal Lake before she opens her fridge and finds the decapitated head of Mrs Vorhees and receives an ice-pick to the skull. From there, we jump forward five years where Paul Holt is trying to re-open the camp (will they never learn?). Obviously, people start going missing and eventually we see Jason, burlap sack and all, as he kills one after another (including the infamous wheelchair machete kill). Finally, Amy Steel's Ginny tricks Jason into thinking she's his mother and takes him down. Well, before he jumps through a window at the end to attack her in a reprise from the shock ending from the original.
There are plenty of good characters here and also, arguably, the best Final Girl in Amy Steel who seems to genuinely want to know about Jason and, because of that, knows how to trick him. Also, the picking off of the group is well maintained by Miner as he paces the second half well, even leaving some characters still alive including Stuart Charno's Ted who we'll assume got drunk and fell asleep in the diner where they left him. The 'folklore' of the films is expanded here too with Mrs Vorhees still a primary force. Obviously, we need to forget about the fact that in the space of two months Jason became a grown-up but it's not the biggest leap we've had to make with this series (I take you back to the black worm of Jason's soul in Jason Goes To Hell).