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The Top 5 Friday the 13th Movies
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures
The Top 5 Friday the 13th Movies
I don’t know about any of you, but every January I check to see how many Friday the 13ths we are going to get in the new calendar year. Part of that is just curiosity. I just want to know how many we’re going to get in the new year (it’s similar to how I check and see what day Halloween and Christmas are going to land on. Easter, too). I also want to know how many Friday the 13ths we’re going to get so I can plan out my “official” Friday the 13th/Jason franchise nerd fandom celebrations. While it’s perfectly fine to watch and nerd out over a Friday the 13th/Jason movie at any point of the year, it just hits extra special when you watch a Friday the 13th/Jason movie on an actual Friday the 13th. It just does. And since we’re about to celebrate the first of two 2024 Friday the 13ths (or maybe we are celebrating it right now, depending on when this piece actually goes up on the site), I thought I would put something together for that first Friday the 13th of the year.
And what is that “something?” I decided to rank the Top 5 Friday the 13th movies. Out of the twelve official movies in the franchise, which ones do I think are the best of the best? This ranking appeared as part of an old Top 5 article years and years ago, but that article is long gone (it basically succumbed to the ravages of the internets). I looked at what I originally did and, while the movies in the top 5 didn’t change, the ranking of a few did change. And that’s what’s below, a revamped Top 5 from long ago. I also decided to include my ranking for the seven other movies in the franchise, but I just listed those. I decided not to elaborate on why those movies are where they are in my ranking, but I included them just so everyone could see where the others ranked.
And so, without any further what have you, what are the Top 5 Friday the 13th Movies according to me?
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5. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) – This is the first time in the franchise where a character attacks Jason via supernatural means. For that fact alone, A New Blood deserves to be in the top five. Tina is a typical disaffected teen type character, sure, but since she has telekinetic powers she’s a sort of bargain basement Carrie, and who better to take on the unstoppable zombie Jason than someone who can launch a car at him with her mind? A New Blood is also where we see Kane Hodder as Jason for the first time, which is truly a momentous occasion. To me, Hodder isn’t the best Jason (C.J. Graham will always be the best Jason), but he is easily the most influential of the people who put the mask on, at least in a pop culture sense. He played Jason four times, more than anyone else. That matters. And you also have to mention how director and special make up effects guru John Carl Buechler created the most popular Jason look in the franchise. Go on and try to find a Friday the 13th/Jason nerd that won’t go on for hours about how freaking awesome it is that you can see Jason’s goddamn spine in A New Blood. You won’t be able to. And that’s because, I mean, you can see Jason’s goddamn spine! That’s awesome!
4. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) – Outside of Jason X and Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell is probably the most divisive of the Friday the 13th/Jason movies because it attempts to explain what Jason is and it isn’t anything anyone suspected. According to Jason Goes to Hell, Jason is basically a demon worm thing when he isn’t in full on hockey mask dead body walking around mode. Again, who the hell ever thought that Jason was that while watching any of the previous movies? I’ve liked this movie ever since I saw it opening day in the theatre and am still amazed that it was allowed to be different from the previous Jason movies up until that point. There’s stalking and slashing, sure, but the movie also has body jumping, demons, and weird magic in it. None of that ever appeared before Jason Goes to Hell and it really hasn’t appeared since (Freddy vs. Jason has some of that in it but, let’s face it, that movie is all about seeing the monsters kick the crap out of each other). I think for that alone Jason Goes to Hell is a true blue horror classic. The Creighton Duke character is pretty awesome, too. If only someone could figure out how to make a side sequel/prequel/limited TV series featuring Duke. I think everyone in the world would dig that.
Check out my full explanation of why I think Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is awesome here.
3. Freddy vs. Jason (2003) – This movie was the one that fans of both the Friday the 13th franchise and the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise wanted to see so badly. Jason up against Freddy. Freddy up against Jason. The how and why was sort of irrelevant, at least at first. We all just wanted to see the machete battle the razor glove and the modern horror icons beat the crap out of one another. Of course, the actual story did matter, and the one they eventually came up with worked (basically, Freddy uses Jason to get people to be scared of him again). I’m not sure if it was the absolute best story option, but then, hey, as long as it happened and it made a kind of sense I would be okay with it. And, yes, I ended up being very okay with it. The final battle between Jason and Freddy is pretty damn epic. We don’t get a “proper” ending, where we find out who, definitively, won the big fight, but then we were probably supposed to have several sequels by now and that’s why we really didn’t get a definitive ending. We should have had at least one sequel by now, but due to endless greed and even more greed on top of that, we still only have one Freddy vs. Jason and will likely only ever get the one. Is that disappointing? Definitely. But, in the end, the fact that we got Jason and Freddy to fight even once is pretty amazing, and Freddy vs. Jason will always be a classic because of that.
2. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) – I didn’t really care for this Jason flick when I first saw it. Initially, I thought the movie was nothing but a big scam as it clearly wasn’t the final anything and Jason was so not dead. And while I would watch it as part of a random Friday the 13th franchise marathon on cable, it wasn’t one of my favorites. I would rather watch one of the other ones. But then I purchased the special edition DVD with both the director Joseph Zito commentary track and the Adam Green/Joe Lynch fan commentary track on it and actually watched the movie in all of its full on R rated glory and it was pretty damn good. The movie was scarier than I remembered it, and Ted White’s Jason was a rampaging behemoth. He was also a fucking asshole, killing fat hippies, weirdo morgue guys, Crispin Glover, and he went after poor Corey Feldman’s Tommy Jarvis. He was just a kid, man! And the ending, while, again, not the end of the franchise, was brutal as hell. Jason’s head sliding down that machete is still insanely gruesome and brutal. What a great way for special makeup effects god Tom Savini to get to “kill his monster.”
And I just want to say this. I know that the movie’s proper title is Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, but there’s nothing wrong with people referring to the movie as either Part 4 or Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter. Calling it Part IV: The Final Chapter does sound silly, but then so does calling Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning instead of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. It’s known as both, and The Final Chapter should be able to be known as both Part IV: The Final Chapter and just The Final Chapter. There are far more important completely pointless things to argue about within the Friday the 13th/Jason fandom.
1.Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) – Also known as Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI, this is the first Jason movie that I paid attention to. The movie was a big deal on pay-per-view back in the day, and the “He’s Back! The Man Behind the Mask” video featuring Alice Cooper was on MTV all of the time. The Jason in this movie was the Jason. By the time I actually saw the full movie I was transfixed by C.J. Graham’s performance. He was a shark, looking for someone to kill. And then when he was in full kill mode he would pause, just for a second, and then go for it. That pause still gives me the chills to this day. On top of all of that, the movie is chock full of humor, the kind of humor that hadn’t been seen in slasher movies in any major way back when Jason Lives! came out. I still dig the jokes. The movie’s cast is also phenomenal, headed up by the great Thom Mathews and Jennifer Cooke. And goddamn Ron Paillo is in it. Horshack! And future A-list TV star Tony Goldwyn makes his feature film debut as the guy who tries to scare Jason with the weakest looking handgun in movie history (was that even a proper gun? Was it actually a starter’s pistol? And, hell, even if it was a real gun, how the hell was it supposed to stop Jason or a guy that looked like Jason?). I love this movie through and through. When I need my Friday the 13th fix, this is the one I’m going to make an effort to watch again and again. It’s just so damn good.
Oh, and Jason decapitates three people at the same time with a machete. That’s beyond awesome (it’s also the second best kill in the franchise. That kind of thing really does matter).
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And now, the other movies in the franchise ranked without comment:
12. Friday the 13th (1980)
11. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
10. Friday the 13th Part 3D (1982)
9. Friday the 13th (2009)
8.Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985)
7. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
(check out my full explanation of why I think Jason Takes Manhattan is awesome here)
6. Jason X (2002)
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