Editorials
The 5 Best Episodes of “Friday the 13th: The Series”
Thanks to the Friday the 13th film franchise, a day steeped in unlucky superstition is now a horror fan holiday often spent binging all things Jason Voorhees. With twelve films, novels, documentaries, fan films, comic books, and video games, it’s easy to see why it’s become synonymous with the calendar day. It’s such a profitable franchise that news of potential sequels and TV series comes on the regular, never mind that perpetual roadblocks of legal rights that will take a massive, daunting untangling before any new entries come to pass. Until then, nearly every Friday the 13th tends to become a recycled marathon on cable.
There’s one aspect of the franchise that’s often overlooked, though, for having very little association with the films with no ties to Crystal Lake or Voorhees. Technically, it wasn’t meant to be tied to the franchise at all, then titled The 13th Hour. Executive producer and co-creator Frank Mancuso Jr., the producer behind six of the film series’ sequels, realized he could draw in audiences by changing the name to Friday the 13th: The Series. Even with no character ties, many of the actors and directors would crossover, with show’s star John D. LeMay starring in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, guest star John Shepherd portraying Tommy Jarvis in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, director Tommy McLoughlin (director of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives) helming multiple episodes, and even David Cronenberg dabbled in both the films and the series.
Also like its film franchise sibling, the series knew how to pile up a body count. The series’ premise allowed for it to go to some dark places; it revolved around an antique dealer who sold his soul to the devil and had to sell cursed antiques. He broke the pact and lost his life, and his niece and her cousin inherited the store. Knowing nothing of the curse, they sold off many of the antiques, and the series works as a sort of anthology as they track down each cursed item.
Running from 1987 to 1990, and spanning 72 episodes before sudden cancellation, Friday the 13th: The Series was the fun, often creepy and dark, predecessor to shows like The X-Files that would follow. If you’d like a change a pace this Friday the 13th, the series is worth the watch. Here are 5 fantastic episodes to start with:
The Inheritance
The best place to start, of course, is the pilot episode. It serves as the introduction to the major characters as well as the plot setup for the cursed antique hunting. We get to see how it all began, with Lewis Vendredi’s death and Micki and Ryan’s submersion into the world of cursed objects. But, it also functions well on its own, with this episode’s cursed antique being a creepy antique doll. That doll pretty much possesses the 8-year old child that now owns it. It’s a sort of horror cliché, the creepy doll and the subsequently creepy girl, but it’s done well. Even cooler is that the little girl was played by an 8-year old Sarah Polley (2004’s Dawn of the Dead).
Scarecrow
The 11th episode of the inaugural season had the gang tracking down an antique scarecrow. Being that scarecrows are inherently creepy, this episode ranks highly as a fan favorite. The gang heads out of state to a rural farm town to track down the scarecrow, which brings bountiful crops to its owner, but only after satiating its bloodlust by decapitating three victims. Directed by William Fruet, no stranger to slasher films, this episode plays out like a very spooky slasher. It also helps that the scarecrow resembles the masked Dr. Decker from Nightbreed.
Tails I Live, Heads You Die
The fourth episode of season 2 centers around the cursed Coin of Zioclese, an object that can bring someone back to life after killing another. A Satanic cult leader uses it to bring back powerful magicians, long dead, to summon Satan and rule the world. As one does. The underground lair beneath the cult leader’s taxidermy shop is somewhat creepy, but his use of the coin makes him powerful and deadly. There’s a few dead bodies that pile up in the episode, as well as a surprising reminder that working against Satan might lead to dire consequences.
Faith Healer
Before he would appear in Jason X long enough to get killed by Jason Voorhees, David Cronenberg directed one of the most interesting episodes of the TV series. The episode follows a discredited faith healer who stumbled upon the cursed object of the week, a glove that transfers the sickness or ailment from one person to another. This should come as no surprise to fans of Cronenberg’s work in horror; it’s an episode centered around gooey, gross body horror.
The Prophecies (Part 1 and 2)
Season 3 begins with a two-parter, written and directed by Tom McLoughlin. The cursed object isn’t one that originated from Vendredi’s shop, but still functions the same. It’s one of the Books of Lucifer, and prophecies written in it come to fruition. Naturally, a disciple of Satan plans to use it to bring the Antichrist into the world. An action-packed two episodes that revolve around Satanists and demonic possession brings about one of the boldest send-offs for a major character ever to take place in television. Spoiler alert: Lead character Ryan (John D. LeMay) makes his final appearance of the series in Part 2, having become a homicidal servant of Satan.
Found footage movies rely on immersion and a particular kind of suspension of disbelief in order to scare viewers, so it stands to reason that playing along with the “kayfabe” of it all is necessary for these movies to be effective. However, despite being something of a purist when it comes to in-universe recordings, I’ve come to accept that traditional productions can benefit from the occasional injection of found footage thrills.
For instance, Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation makes genius use of the analog gimmick in order to trap us in the titular rooms alongside our main characters before effortlessly switching back to a more cinematic language. In honor of these dynamic films that manage to combine the best of both worlds, today I’d like to share six other hybrid horror movies that successfully incorporate found footage into their scares!
For the purposes of this list, “hybrid” horror movies are defined as any flick that shifts between diegetic recordings and traditional filming techniques for a significant amount of time (or at least for pivotal scenes).
As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own hybrid favorites if you think a particularly freaky one was missed.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. The Last Broadcast (1998)
Internet critics may have overstated the influence that Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler’s The Last Broadcast had on The Blair Witch Project, but the found footage subgenre still owes a huge debt to this underrated piece of avant-garde filmmaking. However, while the movie sets itself up as a documentary about the disappearance of a group of cryptid-hunters attempting to track down the Jersey Devil, things take a darker and much more grounded turn towards the final act.
I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say that the jarring shift in perspective actually helps to sell the idea that everything we’ve seen before the finale was an attempt at using filmmaking to manipulate the public perception of a “real” incident.
Not bad for a movie with a $900 budget!
4. Cam (2018)
When you consider just how much the internet affects our daily lives, it’s strange that we don’t see Screenlife elements pop up in more movies these days. For instance, Isa Mazzei & Daniel Goldhaber’s highly underrated Cam only works as a freaky parable about online sex-work because it masterfully balances Madeline Brewer’s intimate moments with highly immersive segments within cyberspace.
While one might argue that the entire film could have been produced as a Screenlife experience, the hybrid approach allows the filmmakers to explore our main character’s life beyond the screens – with the duality of modern human existence actually becoming a recurring theme in the story.
3. Banshee Chapter (2013)
Most of H.P. Lovecraft’s popular stories were told in the epistolary format (where the text is presented as an in-universe compilation of letters or personal notes), so it makes sense that a spiritually faithful adaptation of his work would incorporate elements from the modern-day equivalent to epistolary fiction – found footage!
That’s why Blair Erickson’s Banshee Chapter is such an effective scare-fest, as this hybrid adaptation of From Beyond -retold through a conspiratorial lens as it references MK-Ultra and even secretive numbers stations- immerses viewers in a mind-bending tapestry of Cosmic Horror that blurs the line between fiction and reality.
2. The Deep House (2019)
The underwater setting does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s The Deep House, with the film being especially uncomfortable if you’re already scared of tight spaces and being deprived of oxygen. However, even the universally unsettling elements of the flick only work because the POV often shifts into claustrophobic footage courtesy of our main characters’ GoPro cameras.
Telling the story of a couple of YouTubers who encounter a haunted house at the bottom of an artificial lake while vacationing in France, The Deep House’s first-person exploration sequences contain some of the film’s scariest moments. In fact, I’d argue that the movie didn’t even need ghosts, as becoming trapped in the titular House already sounds like a fate worse than death.
1. Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
My personal favorite instance of filmmakers successfully managing to combine traditional cinematography with POV filmmaking, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, is proof that the two formats can co-exist if the right story comes along.
After all, what better way to conclude a mockumentary all about reality getting increasingly more cinematic than by ditching the found footage gimmick altogether during the finale? Not only does this shift in presentation work on a conceptual level, but it also elevates Behind The Mask into a proper Slasher, which is probably why we’re so excited for that long-overdue sequel!
You must be logged in to post a comment.