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The Hunt is On in ‘Friday the 13th: The Game’
After enduring a decades-long hiatus from the world of video games, it warms the cockles of my heart seeing Jason lumber about in the Friday the 13th: The Game world premier, in which our silent hero wastes nary a second of his nearly five minutes of screen time getting to work prematurely ending the hopes and dreams of a few stray teens with whatever’s within reach. This is early alpha footage, meaning it’s unfinished — so some jankiness is to be expected — but it’s enough to give us an idea of the game that Illfonic hopes to deliver when it’s finished this fall.
Until then, let’s enjoy watching this exceptionally talented troglodyte use the tools of his chosen trade to express himself on the canvas he made from a teen’s lifeless body.
I can’t be alone in thinking the highlight of this video comes very early on, when Pamela tells Jason to punch the teens who don’t belong here. That’s lame enough to drive me to kill, and I only had to hear it once. When you consider how Jason has to listen to that all the time, it suddenly makes sense that he would be so uniquely skilled at dispensing death like a sociopath doing simple math, with cold calculations based on his immediate surroundings. To him, a screaming stranger’s face plus the nearest hard surface is the equation Jason has to use in order to grant himself a few precious moments of mental freedom from the demands of his overbearing mother.
Are we the real villains here? Jason’s origin story involved a gaggle of sexed up bullies whose actions led to his drowning in Crystal Lake, the primary setting for the upcoming asymmetrical multiplayer horror game, where Jason is again outnumbered, only this time he’s more than capable of defending himself against his seven would-be enemies.
I guess we’ll find out when Friday the 13th: The Game releases this fall for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Update: She said punish, not punch. Got it.
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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