In February, I reviewed the DVD release of Part 2, so much of this review is going to be similar to that review because hey, it’s nearly the same release. Obviously the differences will be noted. With that said, let’s get to it.
The Film
Friday the 13th was created in response to the box office success of Halloween, and the intent of the producers and directors of what became Friday the 13th was to literally copy the success of Halloween and hope for the best. Obviously, the film did turn out to be a success for Paramount, and many sequels have since been released. A year after the original, Director Steve Miner took over the series and released the aptly titled Friday the 13th – Part 2.
Going along with the previous idea of “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” Part 2 is very similar to Part 1: a bunch of young adults decide to go to Camp Crystal Lake (aka Camp Blood) despite the violent history and warnings they receive. Just as with the first pack of teens from the first movie, they’re all violently murdered, except for a sole survivor, one by one. The major difference between Part 1 and Part 2 is that Jason is the killer now instead of his mother, who was murdered by Alice at the end of the first film.
Part 2 begins with Jason sneaking into Alice’s apartment and avenging the death of his mother. That score settled, Jason awaits at Crystal Lake for a new batch of idiots to show up and he once again gives them a night from hell and manages to kill all but one. Jason uses his stealth and brutal tactics to take out each camp goer one-by-one in the course of this brief eighty-six minute film. In the end, one escapes, the police arrive the next day, Jason still lives, and the credits roll.
Now On Blu-ray
Friday the 13th Part 2 on Blu-ray looks pretty good, although this isn’t Paramount’s best effort by a long shot. I’ve recently seen other ‘older’ films transferred to Blu-ray from Paramount that received a much more thorough treatment (the Star Trek films for example). However, the blu-ray still does look significantly better than the DVD release, although it does suffer from some heavy grain at times. If you can get past the bouts of grain, I think this ole 1981 feature will do pretty well to please most consumers. Truthfully, I don’t know that fans of this fairly cheesy horror flick are going to care all that much about the image quality anyway.
Now as far as audio, I thought that the dialogue seemed kind of quiet but the other sounds and especially Manfredini’s music all sounded great. The extras on this BD release are the same as the DVD release, except they’re in HD:
-Inside “Crystal Lake Memories” HD – An eleven minute piece with a one-on-one interview of the author of the book Crystal Lake Memories. This was an interesting feature that provided some great production stills and lots of history on both the book and the films.
-Friday’s Legacy: Horror Conventions HD – Footage from a recent Scarefest convention including brief interviews with some of the attendees and a few members of the original Friday the 13th (Part 1) film. This feature is just seven minutes.
-Lost Tales From Camp Blood: Part 2 HD – A nine minute, recent production piece that once again features a couple in the Crystal Lake area that gets attacked and killed by a character that is supposed to be Jason. Pretty cheesy.
-Jason Forever HD – A nice thirty minute extra that includes a Q&A session from Fangoria 2004 with the actors who played Jason from Parts 1, 2, 6, and 7.
-Original Trailer HD – As bad as the Part 1 trailer, but nice to have it included for completeness sake.
That’s a wrap…