Editorials
5 Things We Want Added to “Friday the 13th: The Game”
We may not be getting a new Friday the 13th movie this year or anytime soon – if EVER, depending on how those pressing legal issues play out – but I’m suddenly not all that sad about that in the wake of the long-awaited Friday the 13th: The Game finally being unleashed just a few weeks back.
Honestly, it’s more of a treat than a handful of new movies would probably be.
I spent nearly the entirety of last weekend playing with friends on Playstation 4, and now that I’ve logged more hours that I should probably admit, I feel pretty comfortable saying that Friday the 13th: The Game has wildly exceeded even the high expectations I had built up for it over the years. To finally be able to play as Jason Voorhees, stalking camp counselors around the iconic locales from the films, is nothing short of a lifelong fantasy come true, and I’ve found it maybe, even more, fun to play as counselors fighting for survival while the masked maniac hunts me down.
Clearly made by hardcore fans, the attention to even the tiniest details is jaw-dropping (Jason, for example, can only run when you’re playing as a version of him that ran in the movies), and I just can’t possibly say enough good things about how lovingly the franchise was brought into the gaming world for its first video game since that goofy NES abomination from the ’80s. Say what you want about the gameplay issues that plagued the first week or so of release, but those are all being worked out so rapidly that the game is literally getting smoother by the day.
Speaking of which, Friday the 13th: The Game is sure to evolve in the weeks, months and maybe even years to come, getting bigger and better with DLC content that will very likely make what we’ve got now seem like it wasn’t much to be so overjoyed about. But what specifically would we like to see added to the game in the future? I’ve got 5 big requests, most of which I’m willing to bet will eventually come to fruition…
1) STORY MODE
From what we’ve heard, a single-player mode is soon coming to Friday the 13th: The Game, which will be nice because we’ll no longer have to wait on friends and/or strangers when wanting to plop down on the couch to play – even simple bots would go a long way in making private multi-player matches a whole lot more fun, while also cutting down wait times for public games. Going one step further, I’d love for a full-on story mode to be added to the game (which for now has a very simple “survive or kill” set-up), allowing you to recreate key moments from the Friday the 13th films as you play.
How cool would it be, for example, to play a mini-game that sees you chain Jason to the bottom of Crystal Lake as Tommy Jarvis? Or how about one that makes you chase Jason down to the Higgins Haven barn and stick an axe in his head, ala the final act of Part 3? There are countless memorable moments from the films to pull from (as seen above, you can already recreate the epic sleeping bag kill!), and it would be so much fun playing an active part in those moments, with cut-scenes bringing them to life when set tasks are successfully completed.
Story mode, from what I understand, is indeed a future priority.
2) MANHATTAN
Aside from story mode, my #1 request for Friday the 13th: The Game is a Manhattan map… for obvious reasons. One of the downsides of the game right now is that there are only three maps to choose from – Crystal Lake, Packanack Lodge and Higgins Haven – which can get a little bit repetitive. In order to spice things up going forward, a map that lets you roam around Manhattan would be huge – not to mention, it would finally scratch the itch that Jason Takes Manhattan left us with so many years ago.
We may not ever see the Jason Takes Manhattan film we truly wanted back in 1989 but being able to PLAY that movie would be a massive apology that would finally right one of horror’s all-time saddest wrongs. It kinda needs to happen, don’t you think?!
3) UBER JASON
At the time of writing this article, Friday the 13th: The Game allows to play as seven different versions of Jason – Part 2, Part 3, Jason Lives, The New Blood, Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell and, if you were able to snag it during the pre-order phase, Tom Savini’s brand new “Hell Jason.” We can only assume that the other Jasons will eventually be added as playable characters (NES, perhaps?!), but the one we want most is Uber Jason, of course from the futuristic Jason X.
The addition of Uber Jason has been rumored for quite some time now – Uber-Jason was, it’s worth noting, one of the most-requested skins in a poll held on the game’s website – and I just can’t help but think how much fun it’d be to see that bizarre version of Jason in Earthbound locales like Crystal Lake and Higgins Havens.
Of course, a Jason X map would also be awesome…
4) MORE MOVIE CHARACTERS
Other than Jason, the only character from the Friday the 13th films in the game is Tommy Jarvis, voiced by Thom Mathews and based on the character’s appearance in Jason Lives – you can play as Tommy, though he can’t be chosen from the character selection screen. All of the other characters are generic archetypes ripped from the slasher handbook, but my hope is that other fan-favorite characters from the movies will soon be added to the mix.
Personal requests? Alice from Part 1, Ginny from Part 2, Shelly from Part 3, Demon from A New Beginning, and Tina from The New Blood. Tina could come equipped with special powers that rival Jason’s, which would make playing as her extra fun – the existing characters in the game right now have no special powers, while Jason, true to the films, has special skills that allow him to detect where counselors are on the map and even teleport from location to location with the press of a button… he seemed to do much the same thing in the movies, after all!
5) CREATE-A-CHARACTER
Even if every Jason and all of our favorite movie characters are available in Friday the 13th: The Game, it would still be extra special if we could create our own characters to bring into the mix. Most games of this sort have create-a-character modes, which in the case of this particular game would allow us to live out a dream we probably all share: actually being in a Friday the 13th movie!
Personally speaking, the character of Kenny Riedell (above) already looks enough like me that playing as him feels like I’m playing as, well, myself, but how cool would it be if we could actually custom-make video game versions of ourselves to do battle with Jason? Certainly not a necessity, but a fun addition that would keep the game feeling fresh and exciting for a long time to come.
What would YOU like to see added to Friday the 13th: The Game?
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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