Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

What do you get when you take a horrible movie that did well at the box
office and proceed to make a sequel with minimal resources devoted to
the new flick? Well, in the case of Friday the 13th Part 2, you get a
movie that is even worse than the awful original. This is also the case
with the Friday the 13th series as a whole: one pathetic excuse for a
motion picture after another.

The basic setup for Friday the 13th Part 2 makes zero sense. Camp
Crystal Lake has been shut down due to the events depicted in the
original movie. However, a new camp has just been constructed right by
the old camp. Why bother building a new camp when the old one would do
just as well? In the first flick, the mad dog killer was Mrs. Voorhees
who was still grief stricken because she believed that her son Jason had
died at the camp. In Friday the 13th Part 2, the killer is Jason who
witnessed the death of his mother in the first film. Of course, Jason
wants revenge for that death and is bith willing and able to kill
indiscriminately to feel that his vengeance has been fulfilled. Also,
Jason had been living in the woods as a hermit since the near drowning
incident that had caused his mom to go stir crazy in the first place.
With the construction of the new summer camp, Jason’s secret hideout is
now threatened with the possiblity of discovery and Jason will kill like
crazy to prevent the outside world from learning of his secret living
quarters and the contents inside the shack.

Naturally, Jason’s first target is Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) who
beheaded Jason’s slasher/mother. He does not even wait for the new camp
to be constructed before stabbing Alice by an ice pick in the temple and
causing her to disappear about two months after the events in the first
Friday the 13th. Of course, the producers ask us to believe that after
this ghastly slaying, Jason can now keep his murderous proclivities
under wrap for another four years and ten months until the new camp is
constructed.

Other than the identity of the insane slasher, Friday the 13th Part 2,
is for all intents and purposes a rehash of the first flick. Once again,
just about all the camp counselors are just a bunch of moronic perverts.
Once again, Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) makes his fearsome prophecies that
nobody heeds about how the new camp will become “Camp Blood.” Once
again, there is only one counselor who has brains and is able to beat
off the attacker, except her name in this flick is Ginny Field (Amy
Steel).

Of course, as so with all the other post-Friday the 13th slasher flicks,
the movie ends with the lone survivor apparently killing the mad
slasher. Of course, if the slasher film is profitable, then there will
be a sequel or so in which it is revealed that the killer really did not
die. This pathetic excuse for a major motion picture did make a bundle,
so Jason got to live on in numerous sequels.

This review should suffice for any of the later Friday the 13th sequels
since there is, for all practical purposes, zero variety amongst them.