SPLATTERdrome

Release Date: May 1st, 1981

Director: Steve Miner & Sean S. Cunningham (additional scenes)

Screenwriter: Ron Kurz & Phil Scuderi

Genre: Horror

I'd like to start here by discussing the Jason timeline. Friday the 13th Part 2 suggests that the final scare in the previous film was merely a hallucination, a phantom of Alice's understandably shattered psyche. The story we're now given is that Jason never drowned as a child after all. He somehow survived and retreated into the surrounding woods rather than reveal himself to anyone. There he survived into adulthood and later witnessed the death of his mother, a sight which transformed him into an irredeemable menace. 

According to the official cannon Jason was born in 1946, making him eleven at the time of his presumed drowning and around thirty-two when his mother is killed at the end of the first film. When we finally see him in Part 2 he's nearing forty years-old and only now beginning to venture out into populated areas. Are we really to believe that a mongoloid child lived alone in the wilderness for over twenty years? How on earth would he be capable of fashioning tools and hunting when he couldn't even swim?

Having forgiven this logic-free plot turn I can happily report that Friday the 13th Part 2 is one of the best films in the series and improves on the original in almost every meaningful way. This is the point where the mythology of the series truly begins as the menacing Jason takes center stage. The acting performances are significantly improved and director Steve Miner does a much better job of making the camp feel claustrophobic and isolated. In Part 2 we have the benefit of knowing who the killer is early on so there's no time wasted wondering "whodunnit?". This allows us to sit back, laugh at all the rotten dialogue, and enjoy the suspense of each impending kill.

My main criticism is the implausibility of Ginny's child psychology scene near the end. It's probably necessary to illustrate Jason's perverse reverence for his mother but it's such an awkward and drawn out scene. The final jump scare is a stupid throwback to the original that I could do without as well. Other than those issues Part 2 is a franchise highlight reel and created a solid template that only a few other installments were wise enough to emulate.