Editorials
The Craziest Thing You’ve Probably Never Noticed About ‘Friday the 13th Part 2’
Did you revisit Friday the 13th Part 2 this past Friday the 13th? We bet you didn’t notice this.
Before cutting ahead to several years after the events of the original classic, 1981 sequel Friday the 13th Part 2 first provides us with a little insight into what Alice Hardy’s life is like in the immediate wake of her being forced to decapitate the vengeful Mrs. Voorhees. In the film’s opening sequence, which is set just a couple months after Pamela’s murder spree, Jason breaks into a still-traumatized Alice’s apartment and makes quick work of her, first reminding her of what she did to his mother (not that she could ever forget) and then sticking an ice pick into her temple. Just like that, the first film’s final girl uneventfully takes her final breath.
Five years later, a new group of counselors arrive at Crystal Lake, and as we learn courtesy of a campfire story told by Paul Holt, Alice Hardy had mysteriously vanished two months after surviving her hellish ordeal on that fateful Friday the 13th. Of course, we know what the police do not – Alice’s isn’t “missing” so much as she is dead – but Paul’s spooky tale does indicate that Alice’s body was never found. In other words, Jason didn’t just kill her and leave her corpse in her apartment, but rather he must’ve disposed of it in some way. So what the hell did he do with it?
If you’re paying VERY close attention, the film goes on to subtly answer that question.
Towards the end of Friday the 13th Part 2, Ginny Field stumbles into Jason’s dilapidated shack out in the woods, and there she discovers that the masked maniac has kept his mom’s severed head all these years. Furthermore, he has used his mother’s head as the centerpiece of a tribute to her, and you may have spotted that a couple freshly-killed bodies surround the altar – namely, the corpses of Terry and the cop who had found Jason’s shack earlier in the film. But there’s another dead body that’s positioned front and center, and it’s clear that the victim has been dead a whole lot longer than the others.
The camera doesn’t linger on it for more than a couple seconds, but if you freeze frame at just the right moment, you’ll see that the corpse at the base of Mrs. Voorhees’ altar has something sticking out of its head. Embedded into the weathered and worn skull is what certainly appears to be an ice pick, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s sticking out of the exact spot where Alice Hardy was stabbed years prior.
Yes, five years after murdering her, Jason is still in possession of Alice’s corpse, and in a bizarre tribute to his mother, he has made it a part of the very same altar that proudly displays Pamela’s head. Putting yourself in Jason’s mindset for just a minute, it actually makes perfect sense, with Pamela’s killer being offered up to her in the afterlife. It’s still unclear how far Jason traveled to track down and kill Alice, and the thought of him hitching a ride on the Greyhound is nothing if not a humorous one, but there’s something sweet about him getting revenge and then presenting his kill to his mommy, isn’t there?
I’m kidding. It’s totally sick and creepy.
Did you ever notice this?!
Editorials
When Jason Voorhees and Arsenio Hall Delivered the Best Horror Movie Marketing of All Time [TV Terrors]
For this month’s installment of “TV Terrors” we revisit one of the most iconic bits of horror movie marketing of all time: when Jason Voorhees took “The Arsenio Hall Show“!
The first time I ever saw the teaser for Jason Takes Manhattan was on the weekend of July 5, 1989. My dad had taken my little brother and I to see Weekend at Bernie’s, and while we were sitting through the trailers, Jason Voorhees suddenly popped up. It was that famed teaser that everyone remembers with Jason looking out onto the cityscape, promising a Friday the 13th sequel wherein Jason would quite literally slice and dice his way through New York City.
Although my parents strictly forbade us from watching Friday the 13th films at the time, I was utterly enamored with Jason Voorhees at just six years old. The teaser didn’t scare me, but it excited me, and ended up being the most entertaining moment of the night. I honestly don’t remember much about Weekend at Bernie’s. Go figure.
When Paramount began promoting the big move from Crystal Lake to the streets of New York City back in 1989, it was a massive event that amounted to a whole lot of hype. And along with the hype, some really entertaining promotional opportunities. Among them was probably one of the most famous and iconic crossovers of all time as Jason Voorhees appeared, in the rotten flesh, on Arsenio Hall’s late night talk show. “The Arsenio Hall Show” was a huge show in its heyday that dared to try to take the late night mantle from the likes of Carson and Letterman, The show was unique, edgy, often controversial, and sometimes bizarre. Among the guests on that night’s episode on July 28, there was Bo Derek and Ursula Andress–and a promised interview with Jason Voorhees. Needless to say, the show delivered on that wild promise.
Actor/stuntman Kane Hodder came out onto the stage in full Jason Voorhees costume, holding an axe in his hand. What made the appearance even better was that Hodder stuck to character from beginning to end, never once reducing Jason to a comedic prop or goofy novelty. Despite the fact that Jason had considerably lost a lot of his mystique by this point in time, Hodder, a classic showman, never once broke character. He silently deadpanned his way through the entire appearance, with Hall doing his best to try and get Hodder to crack. He never did.
According to Kane Hodder in his interview with YouTube channel Astronomicon, Arsenio Hall was very much afraid of Jason Voorhees, and so much of the anxiety he presented on camera was genuine. Hodder even confessed to grabbing him by the neck backstage at the end of the show, remaining in character even when the cameras weren’t rolling.
My parents broke their rule and allowed us to stay up a little later that night to see Jason on television, and we were bouncing off the walls from sheer excitement and went to bed with big grins on our faces. It was a spot that only Arsenio Hall was capable of, inadvertently lending even bigger credibility to not only Kane Hodder’s often underrated acting prowess, but the sheer skill that it took to scare an audience without saying a single word.
In hindsight, Arsenio Hall was so far ahead of his time. He just seemed to know how to have fun and not take his show too seriously, allowing for a moment that became forever captured as one of the most iconic, and memorable, moments in horror movie history.
Where Can I Watch It? The interview is thankfully not hard to find at all. You can watch it on most video streaming websites including (and especially) on YouTube. It has also been featured on numerous horror documentaries and retrospectives for decades. Watch below!
Dev Patel’s ‘Monkey Man’ Is Now Available to Watch at Home!
‘Infested’ Review – One of the Best Spiders Attack Horror Movies in Years
Limited Edition ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ Monster High Doll Releasing This Week!
‘The King Tide’: An Island Town Rots with Moral Decay in Canadian Folk Horror Fable [Review]
Rated “R” ‘The Little Mermaid’ Horror Movie Coming Soon; Watch the Trailer
You must be logged in to post a comment.