The Friday the 13th-athon commences! (26/08/2024)
Oh boy, it's my favourite time of the year!
You may have already noticed this, but there's a Friday the 13th next month, or in just a little over two weeks!
Those of you who know me personally, will probably already know that I'm a huge fan of the
Friday the 13th movie series, and every time there's a Friday the 13th on the calendar, I watch
a marathon of the whoooole series, watching one movie every day, ending with the last movie on the 13th.
And I know what you're probably thinking, "But JD, there are only 12 Friday movies and there's still 18 days until the next Friday the 13th, why are you starting the marathon already?".
Well, I'm glad you asked, curious reader. You see, for a few years now, I've also been including the
Nightmare on Elm Street movies in this marathon, to connect them with Freddy vs Jason.
I've been doing this for quite a few years now, can't remember exactly when I started, but it must've been in 2015 or so.
It's important to note that this isn't always a yearly event, as there can be up to three Friday the 13ths in a single year! Yeah!
You can actually see that was the case in 2015, which may have been the reason I began the marathon on that year (if I actually did).
Although we will unfortunately have to wait until 2026 for the next triple Friday the 13th marathon, this year actually features
it twice! Once in September, and again in December.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, check out September's calendar below!
The calendar
This year I'll actually be watching the movies with my mom for a change, as I usually watch them alone.
Not sure if she's gonna like them all, she has seen most of them but there are a few ones she doesn't even know exist... like
Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X, so I dunno how she'll react.
But I'm sure it will be fun!
| Monday 26th | Tuesday 27th | Wednesday 28th | Thursday 29th | Friday 30th | Saturday 31th | Sunday 1st |
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| Monday 2nd | Tuesday 3rd | Wednesday 4th | Thursday 5th | Friday 6th | Saturday 7th | Sunday 8th |
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| Monday 9th | Tuesday 10th | Wednesday 11th | Thursday 12th | Friday 13th | Saturday 14th | |
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Will you join me in this marathon?
Stay tuned for a ranking of all the movies in the schedule, and little one-paragraph reviews of them!
Have fun!
Ranking
| A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) |
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This is it, the worst movie in the worst marathon. I honestly cannot comprehend how you can be given 35 million dollars to make a movie, and you end up making such an awful piece of shit. There isn't a single redeeming quality about this film, everything about it is awful. Its characters are bland and insufferable, with dialogue and acting that makes me want to set myself on fire, the visual style is awful, generic and boring, the music sucks, the CGI is disgusting, and Freddy? Holy shit, it's not even worth talking about it. And the new plot is also really stupid. This movie is the final proof that everything that Michael Bay touches, turns to shit. Diharrea, even. |
| Friday the 13th (2009) |
| This one is pure garbage. Everything about it sucks, the characters are fucking insufferable, the music is boring, Jason is a fucking disgrace, visually it's boring and generic, it's just bad... everything about it is bad. Okay, not everything, some of the kills are nice, and the lake looks good, I guess. But everything else? Fuck this movie, hell, it's closer to a softcore porno than it is to a Friday the 13th movie. I genuinely don't understand how people can like it. |
| Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday |
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This movie sucks, it sucks really hard. I've tried all my life really hard to like it, but man, it's just awful. This movie takes the (admittedly flawed) timeline of the previous 8 movies, shoves them up its
asshole and then spits it back up its mouth, with its creator claiming that it was already bad from the beginning and that he actually made it better by trying to explain things. Ugh, this is the guy who you can blame for people thinking Jason really did drown in the lake and somehow grew from a child to an adult after the first movie. Anyways... the story of the movie sucks, Jason's design is pretty cool but he's barely in the fucking movie, the characters are okay I guess, nothing amazing, but they do the job. The music is good, again being made by Harry Manfredini, the kills are cool... reading this, you might think "oh hey, this doesn't sound so bad", but trust me, if you watch the movie you'll understand why it's so shit. It's just that I don't want to go into detail here or spoil the plot... but I dare you, go watch it after having watched the previous films. And to top it all off, by the way, it's really fucking boring. I can have fun rewatching other bad films in this franchise because they're fun, this one just isn't. |
| A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge |
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Oh man, this movie blows hard! Okay, okay, it's not the worst movie I've ever seen. Hell, it's not even the worst movie in this ranking! (Right now, it is, but you just wait until we get to the later movies...), but I hardly find myself enjoying it. I like the surreal sort-of feeling that the movie has, it really feels like you're in a weird abstract nightmare that doesn't make much sense, but I feel like the writing, dialogue and most charactes are pretty awful, and Freddy is specially bad in this one. The music is also really boring and repetitive. There just isn't much to salvage here... |
| Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan |
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This is a very unique entry in the franchise. Unfortunately, as much as I'd like to say that I love it and it's really fun... it just isn't. Although, I do love it, it's just that it isn't very good... The plot is kind of a mess, most if not all of his characters are a borefest and not likeable at all (hell, the only one I actually kind of like is the one that's supposed to be the asshole character!), Jason does some really weird shit and doesn't really follow his character very well (why does he even get in the cruise ship and leave Crystal Lake?), some of the kills are kind of lame, our protagonist is dull as shit, and of course, the elephant in the room, only the last couple of minutes of the movie actually take place in New York. But, is it worth it to sit through more than an hour of a complete, boring slogfest just to see Jason in the Big Apple for a few seconds? Yes, certainly. |
| Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood |
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This movie is difficult to rate, because in one hand, it has one of the best final girls in the series, Tina, and the best Jason in the series, but on the other hand... it's just not very good. My main problem with this movie is how seemingly all of the effort was put into Jason's design, because everything else is very lacking. The plot is rather simple, the characters are just kindda there and tend to be very unlikeable, the music is mostly recycled and what isn't recycled isn't great, the cameras they used seem to be very cheap, the kills are unfortunately heavily censored... Still, it's worth watching it just for the showdown between Tina and Jason, and Jason's awesome design and performance by Kane Hodder! |
| Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare |
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Unlike The Dream Child, I can totally understand why most people hate this movie. It really is bad. But, it's kind of my guilty pleasure! I think it's a lot of fun, and I like its atmosphere. Sadly,
the sets aren't as creative and elaborate as those seen in the previous movie, but everything is still pretty surreal and dream-like. However, this movie fails with its plot and fails horribly at following the rules of the previous movies, and doesn't even bother explaining how Freddy came back. Plus, its protagonists are really lack-luster, I feel like the secondary characters are a lot better. Robert Englund is still great as Freddy, and while he has a lot of fun movies in this movie, he also delves deep into the characters' traumas, this time dealing with some really serious shit... I don't know, the movie has huge issues, but also some really good aspects, so I can't really hate it. |
| Freddy vs. Jason |
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Although I've given this one a rather low ranking, it's only because it's kindda difficult to rank it among all the other great films in these two franchises. I love Freddy vs Jason, and pretty much always have since I saw it the very first time. Sure, it's a rather flawed film, it's plot isn't particularly great, they kindda fucked up the connection to the previous movies of both franchises, the slow motion scenes look like shit, the music is pretty generic, Jason is not that great and should've been played by Kane Hodder... but still, this is a really fun movie and pretty much a dream come true. It's not perfect, but man, I'm just grateful it was ever made at all, and with Robert Englund, with his last proper appearance as Freddy... oh, man. |
| Friday the 13th Part III |
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Oddly enough, this marathon I decided to place this one below Part 2, when usually it's one of my favourite movies in the franchise. I guess that's the thing with these marathons! Still, I think it's a very good and fun entry, and Jason is quite awesome in this one. Plus, the final showdown between him and Chris is really good. It's just that the cozy atmosphere from the first two movies isn't as prevalent here, but the characters and kills make up for it! |
| A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master |
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This entry in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise suffers from similar problems to the 7th movie in the Friday the 13th franchise, it's simply not interesting enough and a rather simplistic and
forgettable entry in the series. I think its main problem is the plot, the writing and some of the performances of its characters. It's pretty bland overall, it doesn't make much of an effort to make up an excuse for Freddy's comeback, doesn't follow the rules of the franchise very well, and killing off certain characters was not a very good idea. However, Freddy is pretty fun to watch in this film, it does have some good characters (some better than others) and our final girl, Alice, is really memorable and awesome and reeeeally hot! I specially like the final fight against Freddy, and the music is really good. Plus, it has a very cool and surreal atmosphere and some really creative kills and scenes. You know, maybe I was being too harsh with it. This is a good film, it just takes a while to get to the good stuff, specially coming off the great Dream Warriors. |
| Wes Craven's New Nightmare |
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It's getting kindda hard to rank all of these movies! But I think this spot works for this one. It's a great film, with a really good plot, great characters, great music... it's all very creative. It's not flawless, however. I'm not too fond of its design of "Freddy", and I think the movie drags on too long. It could've been a 90 minute movie, there's a bit of filler here... but still, it's an awesome film that I think everyone should watch. Great spin on the series, and kind of a precursor to Scream with it being a "meta" movie or whatever they're called. It works very well. But, really, the final act is the best part of it, everything leading up to it just isn't as good. |
| Friday the 13th Part 2 |
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A very nice follow-up to the first movie, one that you could probably watch as a double-feature. Unfortunately, its main shortcoming is actually that it's too similar to its predecesor, but of course,
if like me, you enjoyed the cozy aspect of the first movie, you'll also like this one. Still, the kills, characters and environments are generally weaker, so for me it just isn't as good as the first movie. |
| Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter |
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You know, usually I find myself ranking this film lower, but in this marathon I really enjoyed my time with it. I still think it misses the mark on a lot of things, the editing is sloppy, the pacing
isn't the best, and in some aspects Jason isn't as good as in the previous films. One thing that really bothers me is how he just spawns weapons out of nowhere, whereas in the other movies you usually see
him picking them up from somewhere. Still, the whole ending sequence with Trish trying to get away from him and him running like hell after her is just great, plus it has some really memorable characters. Great film! |
| A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child |
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I will never understand why this movie gets so much hate. I think it's great! They did a really good job with this movie, continuing the plot of the previous one, developing its (surviving) characters,
finding an actually reasonable and cool way of bringing Freddy back, actually keeping his powers consistent (he doesn't get to kill that many people in this movie, and he's rather weak, due to the events
of the previous films!), the movie's characters are all great, fairly well developed and deep, and the soundtrack, ambience and visuals are amazing. Everything feels like a really surreal nightmare... great stuff. If you've been avoiding this movie due to the critics, I seriously recommend it. |
| Friday the 13th |
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This movie really is a classic. I always love coming back to it, mainly because of it's enjoyable cast, its environments and its general feeling and cozyness. Unfortunately, it does get a little boring near the end, before the final showdown, but nothing that can stop me from loving this one. |
| A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors |
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I guess after the kindda really awful sequel to Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven decided he had to set things right. And man, did he do just that! This is a very well made and fun sequel, probably the peak of the series after the first movie. Hell, sometimes I like it even better than the first one, just not this time :) The only bad thing about it, is that its sequel kindda sucks... |
| A Nightmare on Elm Street |
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As much as I'm a Friday the 13th fan before a Nightmare on Elm Street fan, I simply can't deny that the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie is fantastic and much better than... well, all of the classic
Friday the 13th movies! Heresy! This movie is just a lot of fun and very well made; Freddy's first appearance is fantastic, the atmosphere of this movie is great and so are its characters. If there's one thing I don't like about it, it's the ending! |
| Friday the 13th: A New Beginning |
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If there's one thing that's better than the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie, it has to be this movie, one of my favourites in the Friday the 13th franchise! For some reason, this tends to be considered one of the black sheep of the franchise. I, however, think it's a great culmination of everything that made the first four movies great. It has a lovely and memorable cast, awesome music, awesome kills, some really nice settings... there really isn't that much wrong with this movie, safe for an improvable script! |
| Jason X |
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Speaking of controversial... I don't think there are many people on Earth that would rank Jason X this high on the list, and hell, I consider it to be one of my favourite movies of all time. But hey, maybe on Earth 2! I honestly believe anyone who doesn't like Jason X is a really boring person. It's a hell of a fun time, I love the music, the setting, Jason, the characters, the kills don't look too gorey, but they are at least kindda creative... it's just a great time overall. And... come on, Jason in space. I honestly believe this movie is a must watch for any Friday the 13th fan, or any horror fan... or hell, anyone who considers themselves a fan of movies in general. Don't listen to the haters. |
| Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives |
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And here it is, my favourite Friday the 13th film! And one of my favourite movies of all time, really! This one is just great all around. It's a lot of fun, its version of Jason is great, its characters are lovely... This incarnation of Tommy Jarvis is great, he's a very good protagonist. And one special mention to the soundtrack, I smile every time they play the dies irae motif! Definitely a 10/10 movie. |
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