If we've all learned one thing through our existence, it is that life can truly, simply, and cruelly be unfair. You lose out on that big promotion you wanted. You proclaim your love to another to find out that that love is not returned. You get your chance to make the big play to win the championship, and you slip and fall.
Or, you get skewered by a fire poker at a summer camp.
When you start looking at people who have been dealt a shitty, unfair hand, no one has a better claim to being upset than the camp counselors and locals who have populated Camp Crystal Lake (yes, the residents of Haddonfield, Elm Street, and a certain portion of Texas may disagree, but the numbers speak for themselves. Crystal Lake delivers the bad luck in MUCH higher numbers). And yes, over the course of twelve films (including pairing films and reboots) there have been MANY people who deserved to be on the wrong end of a spear gun or weed whacker, there have a been a small distinct group of people who were either seriously "in the wrong place at the wrong time," or were just plain done wrong by lazy plotting and misunderstood characterization.
Until today.
We've been inundated over the past two decades with reality show after reality show. There's no end in sight; people just eat them up. Some are dating shows; some are cooking programs. And no reality trope has shown to be as time-tested and steadily popular as the put a group of people together and let them survive the elements to win a big cash prize. You've got your "SURVIVOR," your "AMAZING RACE," and your "BIG BROTHER." Now, I am proud to bring you the newest, and most revolutionary of all of these reality "survival" shows.
Survival from the business end of a fish-scaling knife. Eating bugs and tribal councils ain't got jack shit on: 
Yup. We're gonna take a bunch of people and dump them at Camp Crystal Lake. Last one surviving wins.... well, hell.... survival. So straightforward and simple. Make alliances or go lone wolf. Try to run or hunker down in a cabin with handmade weapons. We don't care; it's up to the contestant to figure it out. The stuff practically writes itself.
But how do we find contestants? It can't possibly be easy to get people to VOLUNTEER to head to a camp where over a hundred people have been killed over the course of a dozen movies (and yes, damnit, I know there is Camp Forest Green and the trip to Alice's house to put a knife in her ear and the trip to the hospital when Jason was dead but wasn't really dead and the graveyard and Elm Street and outer space and I guess what I'm saying is shut the fuck up and let me finish.) So, after much hand-wringing, we decided on our favorite method of casting.
Give previous victims a second chance.
We decided to scroll through every minute of every FRIDAY THE 13TH movie (a lot of carnage, to say the least) and find the ten characters who most deserved a second lease on life. We determined the winners based on a very specific set of criteria (haha, no... we definitely just thought of some people who we liked and would like to see again if we had the chance. You seriously fell for the criteria line? What a maroon.)
OKAY, SOME BASIC CRITERIA. FOR REAL.
We did have a couple of things we used to determine our final list. These are not only subjective choices, but they led us to a series of picks that were even more subjective.
1. LIKABILITY -- Was the character fun to have around? Did you enjoy their company, and if they were near you, would you be happy, or would you want to ram a ball-peen hammer through their nasal cavity?
2. FAIR/UNFAIR -- Did the character honestly deserve to die? Were they an honorable person that got screwed? Were they killed too soon? Did a screenwriter botch their shit up in a terrible fashion?
3. PLOT ADVANCEMENT -- If this character was allowed to go on living, would it change the plot line of the films in any way? Would the FRIDAY THE 13TH series possibly end up different because of THIS person's survival?
4. MISCELLANEOUS -- We gave ourselves the option to add points to any character's final score based on any reason we wanted. NOTE: One original criteria that we did nix was looks. We were going to have special compensation for those who showed their boobs, but we decided against it at the last second. Stay tuned for our inside look at CHAINED HEAT in a future post to see how long our purity lasts.
After drawing up our list, we ended up with eighteen names for ten spots. Of course, we just could have made eighteen spots, but we aren't that bright. So we had to whittle the list down to reach our original goal. This would also mean that some of the films (at least two) would have no representation whatsoever. And that's fine, because some of these casts suuuuuuuuuuuucked.
HONORABLE MENTION
(Not her. She sucks.)
JULIUS - FRIDAY THE 13TH 8 - JASON TAKES MANHATTAN
The man does nothing of note until this, which is the high point of the entire film. Goes mano a mano, toe to toe, with the champ and does a serviceable job... until his head ends up in a dumpster. Nice try, Julius. Maybe next time.
DIANA - JASON GOES TO HELL
Noble character that dies too early, even though she does it heroically. Points for being played by Erin Gray, who was one of my childhood crushes on BUCK ROGERS.
MADDY - FRIDAY THE 13TH 7 - THE NEW BLOOD
Maddy makes the HM list because 1) peer pressure isn't a good reason for Jason to attack (she gets killed for trying makeup?) and 2) I had to put SOMEONE from this crappy sequel on the list. I came THISCLOSE to putting Terry Kiser's doctor here instead.
LINDERMAN - FREDDY VS JASON
He plays the noble nerd very.... um, nobly. Gets points for doing the noble sacrifice death. Only misses the list because he gets a lot of screen time in FREDDY and might not have much more to offer our show.
JENNA - FRIDAY THE 13TH REMAKE
Great switcheroo in this one. Jenna looks like the Final Girl, acts like the Final Girl, appears to be everything that the Final Girl should be and then OOPSIE! Well done character only misses out due to also having a ton of screen time in the film. A close call here, though.
CORT - JASON LIVES
Of all of the immature wise-asses that the series has brought to us, Cort seems to be the one that you might most be able to tolerate hanging around. His nature walk with the young boy campers is a hoot, and he rocks an RV like no other. JASON LIVES also has the most likable cast overall and is well-represented here to be sure.
VICKI - JASON GOES TO HELL
I can't believe we are putting up TWO from the ninth film in this series, which ranks wayyy down the list in terms of overall quality. However, when you employ professional competent actors and actresses in the parts, good things CAN happen, and having ex-sitcom child star Allison Smith in a key "noble hero" role doesn't hurt one bit.
SHELLY - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3
Oh, this one was tough. Really it was. He's annoying as hell at times, but let's be honest... Shelly is nothing more than the kind, mild-mannered movie nerd trying to fit in with the "cool crowd." If you are reading this article, you have probably acted or felt like Shelly at some point. Also, actor Larry Zerner (who is now a lawyer) has been a great ambassador for both the FRIDAY series and horror movies in general on Twitter and other social media. So close, but Shelly's annoying-ness makes him miss the list by the absolute closest of margins.
Okay, that's who ALMOST made the cut. We'll be back on Wednesday with the Magic Gang, the Top of the Class, The Final Ten. We shall not be persuaded on our choices (and we have some doozies and wild surprises!) but between now and Wednesday night, feel free to disagree with our Honorable Mention or to give us your own FRIDAY series characters who are deserving of a second chance. We won't substitute yours in to our list, but if you guess any of ours right, we will give you credit on Wednesday.
Until then--
No comments:
Post a Comment