Editorials
5 Favorite ‘Friday The 13th’ Characters!!!
Let’s face it, the Friday The 13th franchise isn’t exactly known for great writing, outstanding performances, thematic heft, arcs, or anything that would remotely constitute an olive branch to the non-horror fan. But that doesn’t mean the moves are without merit! I’m a nut for the franchise (which you can probably tell by my ranking of the franchise) and, even aside from the kills, there’s plenty to like!
Just because the series isn’t known for its great characters doesn’t mean that there’s not a handful of characters and performances that rise above the rest.
Head inside for my 5 Favorite Friday The 13th Characters!
TOMMY JARVIS (Corey Feldman, John Shepherd, Thom Mathews) – Parts 4-6
Tommy Jarvis wins placement here despite not even really being a character. His traits fluctuate so wildly from film to film that there’s no real defining set of characteristics. Corey Feldman plays him as a precocious special effects expert in The Final Chapter. John Shepherd portrays him as an oily mute in A New Beginning. Though I suppose there’s some consistency here. His version of the character still makes masks and sh*t and I wouldn’t be all that talkative either after the events of the 4th film. Meanwhile, Thom Mathews’ version of the character in Jason Lives (pictured above) is proactive and reasonably mentally healthy all things considered though he actually gives the best performance among the character’s three iterations. What Tommy Jarvis does add is a sense of narrative stability throughout parts 4-6. It’s kind of amazing that all it takes is a consistent name to form mid-franchise trilogy.
MEGAN GARRIS (Jennifer Cooke) – Part 6
In a series not known for strong characters on either side of the sexual divide, Jennifer Cooke does impressive work in her turn as Megan Garris, the rebellious Sheriff’s daughter in Jason Lives. Too often in the F13 films a female character is given “depth” by a single line of exposition. Not here. Cooke plays her as confident, bold, naive, smart, sexy and genuinely alive. In the real world it’s probably not such a powerhouse performance but, relative to this series, it deserves any accolades legally bestowable to such a film.
CREIGHTON DUKE (Steven Williams) – Jason Goes To Hell
Watch the video below and tell me he doesn’t belong on this list.
JIMMY MORTIMER (Crispin Glover – The Final Chapter
One of the only characters in the franchise with a semi-complete arc. He goes from a shy, goofy kid who’s worried about being a “dead f*ck” to a svelte party master who owns his awkwardness on the dance floor. Then he sleeps with one of the Doublemint Twins, a lady who indeed is able to confirm the validity of his sexual prowess.
CRAZY RALPH (Walt Gorney) – Parts 1-2
Such shameless minstrelsy can’t go without notice or praise! I often times wonder what it would have been like to see this series in order or even at the time of release. Had I been in the theater in 1980 I would have known I was in good, goofy hands as soon as he popped up proclaiming, “you’re doomed! You’re all doomed!”
What are your favorite F13 characters?
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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