Friday the 13th was the biggest horror hit of 1980. The smart money was on either the much-anticipated Stanley Kubrick adaptation of The Shining or John Carpenter’s The Fog, his follow-up to the massively successful Halloween, for this honor rather than the low budget potboiler that was, by the admission of the filmmakers, a rip-off of that modern classic. But fortunes in Hollywood are rarely predictable and Friday the 13th ran away with the year’s box-office.

In those days, success leading to a sequel was not a foregone conclusion. After all, the killer had been beheaded at the end of the previous film. One suggested option was an anthology series with various horror scenarios playing out on the ill-fated date. But the money men wanted a film along the same lines as the original—with Jason as the killer. To several key players of the first film including director Sean S. Cunningham, writer Victor Miller, and special make-up effects maestro Tom Savini, this was a ridiculous notion. Jason Voorhees had drowned before the original film even began. How could he possibly be the killer? Leaps of logic were swept aside, however, and Jason made the villain of the sequel. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Friday the 13th Part 2 treads much of the same ground as the original, but there is much more reinvention happening than may at first appear. It is less a whodunnit with creative kills like most slashers of the period, including the first film, and more a solidification of what would become “the formula” for the subgenre going forward. But Part 2 also rises above that formula by being populated with dynamic and realistic characters including one of the all-time great final girls, planting the seeds of what would become an iconic killer, and having a far more refined filmmaking style than many of its peers.

The characters do fit into certain molds, a few of which appeared in the first film, but the ways they are written and acted make them unique. Some of the more distinctive characters in this film include the “rebels” Jeff (Bill Randolph) and Sandra (Marta Kober), who sneak off while the others are swimming to see “Camp Blood,” only to be caught by the local sheriff. Mark (Tom McBride) is a former athlete now confined to a wheelchair due to a motorcycle accident and Vickie (Lauren-Marie Taylor) is completely captivated by him. The joker, Ted (Stuart Charno), is a bit like Ned (Mark Nelson) in the first film but with his own unique energy and sense of humor. Paul (John Furey), the head of the camp counselor training program, and his girlfriend Ginny (Amy Steel) are a bit older but still willing to thumb their nose at authority. It is a vibrant cast of characters and they are all much more than fodder for the creative kill sequences. 

Of all these characters, Amy Steel as Ginny stands out as one of the truly memorable final girls in slasher history. She is far more mischievous than most that had come before or would come after when we first meet her. She has an air of life experience about her that is often not present in these characters. She is in a relationship with Paul, an older man, she is seen drinking at the bar and Paul makes comments about smoking weed, which he has likely shared with Ginny. She does not come across as “the virgin” like so many others do. She is at first understandably reactionary to Jason’s attacks, but soon becomes more aggressive and proactive. Ultimately, she is able to defeat Jason with her brains and wits by putting on his mother’s sweater and pretending to be Pamela Voorhees. Even the “male savior” trope that often occurs in slashers is subverted when Paul is nearly killed by Jason and Ginny saves him by striking Jason with a machete. 

Jason himself is quite different in this film than he is in any of the other films in the series. The “rules” for Jason had not yet been established so the character does things that he just wouldn’t do later on. He is much more of a trickster in this film. He lies in wait under a sheet for Vickie as she comes to check on Jeff and Sandra. He pretends to leave a cabin as Ginny hides under a cot, but instead climbs up on a chair in order to ambush her. He is also much more vulnerable here than he would be even starting in Part III. It’s hard to imagine Ted White or Kane Hodder’s Jason dropping like a rag doll after being kicked in the jimmies for example. Here, he is knocked out cold when Ginny hits him with a chair and cowers when she lunges toward him with a chainsaw. His makeshift house in the woods is another element unique to this film that wouldn’t be touched on again until the 2009 remake.

Perhaps what sets Friday the 13th Part 2 apart the most from many other slashers of the period is the skill that went into its filmmaking. It is simply a more suspenseful and skillfully made movie than the original. There is more attention to detail, better pacing and editing, and more knowledge of the filmic language of suspense established in the Hitchcock and giallo films that preceded it. It is filled with several unforgettable kills, some of them series highpoints. The brutal death of Mark with a machete to the face sending his wheelchair careening backward down a flight of stone steps is one of the most memorable in the franchise. The “shish-kabob” kill of Jeff and Sandra may have been considerably trimmed by the Motion Picture Association of America, but still packs quite a punch. There are certainly some shortcomings to the film, particularly a few bizarre plot elements. Ginny apparently pees her pants when she sees a rat, something that feels strange and out of character for her, which informs Jason of her presence. There are also several loose ends including the fates of Ted and Paul. And what’s up with that dog? But the filmmaking prowess of director Steve Miner overshadows these issues for the most part.

The film was another rousing success with audiences and was once again savaged by critics. Still, the box office is what mattered most to Paramount and another sequel was made. The series was riding high until the major fan backlash against Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning in 1985. Though it has been widely reappraised in recent years, the film was absolutely hated by Friday fans at the time and for many years after. Producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. was given the dictum to get the franchise back on track. No more ambulance drivers pretending to be Jason, no Tommy Jarvis becomes Jason; only the real Jason Voorhees could be the killer. The question became how to do it. The character had been irredeemably killed in The Final Chapter two years earlier and, in the universe of the films, had been rotting in a grave for well over a decade. The job of resurrecting Jason went to rocker, writer, and director of the film One Dark Night (1982), Tom McLoughlin. 

A huge fan of classic Universal and Hammer films, McLoughlin’s solution was simple, bring him back with lightning like Frankenstein. He also wanted to take the film in a different direction than any of the previous Friday films by infusing it with more humor. Mancuso approved with the one stipulation that he not make fun of Jason. The fact that Jason Lives does not take itself too seriously while never poking fun at Jason is one of its greatest strengths. It was “meta” ten years before Scream, with its characters aware of horror films and the various tropes of slashers. “I’ve seen enough horror movies to know any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly,” quips Lizbeth (Nancy McLoughlin) as she sees Jason holding a spear standing outside her car. The character of Martin (Bob Larkin), the cemetery caretaker, is a stand-in for the many critics and naysayers that had savaged the franchise over the years when he breaks the fourth wall and says, “some folks sure got a strange idea of entertainment.” Sprinkled throughout the film are references to various horror directors and actors as well as nods toward the gothic films that McLoughlin loved so much.

Like Part 2, the film takes care to make its characters likable and memorable even when they have little screen time. Like Ginny before her, Megan Garris (whose last name was borrowed from McLoughlin’s friend and fellow horror director Mick), played by Jennifer Cooke, is a very different kind of final girl. She is also mischievous and something of a rebel when it comes to authority, even if her father is the local sheriff. She is smart, has her wits about her, and is more proactive than reactionary. It would be quite a stretch to ever call her a “damsel in distress.” 

The other lead character, Tommy Jarvis (Thom Matthews) also breaks molds for the series. Though ostensibly the same character in all three films of the “Tommy Jarvis trilogy,” he is quite different from film to film, and not just because he is played by a different actor in each. Tommy is the precocious “monster kid” in The Final Chapter, a troubled teen on the verge of a psychotic break in A New Beginning, and a cross between ’80s action hero and Professor Van Helsing in Jason Lives. Though he is the cause of bringing Jason back to life at the beginning of the film, Tommy is determined to destroy the killer once and for all. His method of final dispatch is somewhat weak when compared to other entries in the franchise, but it did leave the doors open for further returns of Jason, which seems to be what the studio wanted.

This is also the first film with “zombie Jason.” Though he had been strong and imposing before, here he is downright superhuman. In the first kill of the film, he rips out a heart with his bare hands. He later pulls off an arm with ease, shoves a girl’s face through the wall of an RV, and folds Sheriff Garris in half—backwards. Even Ted White’s vicious Jason of The Final Chapter didn’t have that kind of strength. This version of Jason would carry forward throughout the rest of the series. When Kane Hodder took on the mantle of Jason for The New Blood, he maintained the superhuman qualities that were introduced into the character in Jason Lives. 

Another great addition to Jason Lives is its soundtrack. Along with another iconic score from maestro for the series up to that point Harry Manfredini, the film also includes several heavy metal tracks. Today, it seems obvious that Heavy Metal and horror go together like peanut butter and dark chocolate, but it had not often been used in mainstream horror films before Jason Lives. McLoughlin called on an old friend, Alice Cooper, to supply some songs for the soundtrack. Cooper handed over several including a song for the closing credits, “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask).” It didn’t take long for metal to become a regular staple of horror soundtracks.

Because of its ability to poke fun at itself and the slasher tropes along the way as well as the slick, polished quality of the writing, acting, and filmmaking, Jason Lives even received a few positive notices from critics. This was a first for a series that had up until then received unprecedented levels of hatred and vitriol from the critical establishment. Unfortunately, the film was not a great success in its theatrical run, perhaps a carry over from the negative reception to A New Beginning. Despite that, it found its audience on video and cable. It quickly gained fans and esteem, and now often tops lists of favorite entries in the franchise.

Both Part 2 and Jason Lives stand as unique entries in the Friday the 13th series. They also have quite a bit in common. Both reinvented Jason, both explored new territory for slasher films, and both are very skillfully made. Neither are mere repetitions of what came before. Though both give audiences what they expect from a Friday the 13th film, they also blazed new trails in the much-trodden subgenre. For me personally, these two, along with The Final Chapter, are easily the best films in what is a remarkably consistent franchise. These just happen to stand a bit taller. Both films feel a bit like sitting around a campfire and telling stories about a legendary killer that “haunts these very woods.” There is a sense of folklore and fun along with the scares and gore. As Friday the 13th Part 2 and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives celebrate their 40th and 35th anniversaries respectively, it is clear why they remain not only defining films of a landmark franchise, but defining films in all of horror.