When people discuss sequels better than the original, this one isn't even mentioned. Sure its not a great film by any stretch of the means, but in many ways its superior to the first film, and it adds a great deal to the series. What I like best about the movie is that Miner devotes his time and energy to making a movie that has some scary elements, and is really quite creepy. Sure the original was made with the same purpose in mind, but here its somewhat amplified in many ways.
For instance, Jason actually makes an appearance here, and he's very creepy. Instead of having the hockey mask though, Jason instead sports a bag on his head-and strangely enough I find that more frightening than the hockey mask. If only because in Part II Jason is a myth and a legend, wandering around in the woods like a ghostly presence, haunting every step. The counselors who foolishly decide to set up shop too close to Crystal Lake only invite their doom, because well this is domain of Jason. Enter it and you end up dead on the business end of some sharp objects.
Man is the last chunk of this film pretty high on the tension and the jump scares, with the final fight being long and rather drawn out, and featuring the rather lovely heroine being chased by, and forced to, fight Jason. What gets revealed is kind of freaky and sort of awesome, and the film has one of the most effective and scary jump scares near the conclusion. I saw it coming because of a Friday the 13th thread on Rotten Tomatoes, but I'll be damned if it didn't cause me to go kind of numb anyways. I'm not a huge fan of gore and slasher flicks, but I rather enjoyed this one and the first film, which I saw last Halloween. 83
Scare Level (out of 10): 7.5
Honestly there's not much to this film here. While yes it does feature Jason finally donning the famous hockey mask and thus fully becoming the badass super serial killer that everyone knows, that's only one of the two reasons to even see this. The other is the rather inventive and cool deaths, although that means that the film makers put more into the violence than story or characters. That's not a good thing.
Really the characters in this movie suck. At least the ones in the first and second ranged from decent to somewhat likable. I really didn't gave a damn about anyone here, and thus any sort of tension that could have emerged really faded quickly. The main heroine is also not really smart, although I guess she's really cute. She defeats Jason by per dumb luck, really. Although there is a decently creepy flashback scene that works.
What's somewhat amusing is that this movie was made in 3D. So you really needed the glasses to find any of that remotely cool, and besides I find 3D to be rather lame. Quite a bummer that this film isn't as entertaining as the first film or as creepy as the third movie. I do look forward to the fourth film though, as I've heard good things. One last thing though: the film tries to copy the effective twists of the first two films, and fails. Miserably. 56
Scare Level: 3.5
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