By Fred Topel | Image property of respective holders
His Name is Jason
Timed for the DVD and Blu Ray re-releases and the new remake in theaters, His Name Was Jason is a great retrospective on the entire Friday the 13th franchise. With 12 films to cover, they make sure not to go overboard and keep things on track for a solid 90 minute documentary.
His Name is Jason
It’s a good balance of filmmaker and cast anecdotes and scholarly analysis from horror experts. And I know these guys. They can go on and on about every detail of Friday so to pull out the sound bites and stick to the point is a triumph of narrative editing.
The documentary explains how the series evolved and what makes it a phenomenon. Each topic gets about five minutes of analysis, so it pinpoints how they tried things with the story, how the trademark music came about, highlights some kills and more. All the commentators are enthusiastic, and it’s nice to see those hot boobie girls became real cougars.
I’Of course there are some potentially significant themes that get skimmed over. It seems like Adrienne King would have spoken more about her stalker. But that could be a legal NDA too. Also, who really needs the in-depth look at when fandom goes too far? They touch on nitpicky fan questions and that crappy TV series at least. The Tom Savini interstitials are lame and that kid from Part V thinks he’s Tracy Morgan, but it does what it needs to do. It’s the VH1 I Love the ‘80s of movie retrospectives.
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