Top five "Friday the 13th" films.

Hey, welcome back to Slash it, my name’s Jared and you're reading my top five favorite “Friday the 13th” movies. “Friday the 13th” is one of those films and franchises that are at the top of the food chain when it comes to iconic horror. Since the original, the franchise that is “Friday the 13th” spawned 11 sequels and the infamous Jason. As you can assume, some of these movies are better than others. Which of those movies are the best, however, is one of the biggest controversies in the fanbase. While I’m not telling you that my choices are the best, my top five list is simply my favorite films. They’re the ones I find the most interesting or entertaining. This might be controversial, but leave your favorite Friday the 13th films in the comments below.

There will be spoilers for the entire “Friday the 13th” franchise.

NUMBER FIVE.

Many people think that the original “Friday the 13th” should be on the top of the list simply because it’s the original. For me and many people I know, “Friday the 13th” only barely makes it onto the list. Credit where credit is due, this movie does have some very iconic kills. Quite potentially the best kill of that entire movie, and potentially the most iconic of the series is Kevin Bacon's death scene. The killer, who is hiding underneath the bunk bed, stabs Kevin's character directly up through the neck. His blood starts to spurt out of his neck. Other than that, most of the kills are forgettable or completely basic in terms of what happens. Most people get stabbed off-screen or we can barely tell they were killed. There is more that I can critique this movie on than I can the opposite. Firstly, most of the kills are either incredibly slowed down due to the MPAA. They had to cut frames out of most of the kills to make sure they kept their R rating. Because they didn’t know what the franchise was at this point, they leaned very heavily into the “whodunnit”. To be fair, it’s not a good whodunnit considering the fact that Ms. Vorhees was never even seen during the entire course of the film. If my memory serves me correctly she is only mentioned once maybe twice during the film. The audience has no idea that Ms. Vorhees was even a possible contender for being the murderer until it’s confirmed that she is. One of the reasons I set this film so high is because of the ending scene with Alice on the boat. The whole scene feels dreamlike which brings the question at the end of the movie, is this scene actually a dream or not. Ultimately it ends up not being a dream with the return of Jason in almost every sequel after (except “A New Beginning”). The original “Friday the 13th” while it spawned some of my favorite horror movies, it is not as good as the sequels that followed.

NUMBER FOUR

Part six “Jason lives” is the direct successor to what many people count as the worst Friday film. With part five “A New Beginning” not including Jason, the writers wanted to figure out how to bring him back. That’s how we are introduced to what I and many people call zombie Jason. An older Tommy Jarvis tried to make sure Jason was dead by stabbing him in the chest with a piece of fencing. After he did that, lightning struck the rod and woke Jason up from the grave. I love this movie specifically because it’s not as formulaic as some of the sequels are. They try to make Jason have a different feeling than the other parts in this film. Another great point in this movie is that it extends the lore of what happened with Tommy Jarvis in part four where he “kills” Jason at the end. He goes insane and eventually breaks out of the mental institution he was in to go on the hunt for Jason again. I think another great thing about this movie is that it brings a certain humor to the film. For example in a kill early on in the movie, Jason shoves someone's face into a tree. When his corpse peels off the tree, there is a smiley face embedded in the tree. Those kinds of things are what in my mind, set these things apart from every other entry in the series. The final part of why I love this film is the very ending where Jason gets chained underwater and his eye opens up. While part six is not the best film ever, it’s still incredibly well done and very entertaining.

NUMBER THREE

This might be one of the picks that are controversial. While I’m certain that this movie isn’t the lowest on many lists, “Freddy V Jason” gets a lot of hate for no reason. While that’s not true I can see why this movie gets such a bad rep. The characters are repetitive and basic, the dialogue is quite a cliche at parts, and the CGI did not pass the test of time. However, the greatness of this movie does shine through with some of my favorite kills of the series. The kill where Jason stabs the kid in the bed over and over again and proceeds to slam the bed shut, basically folding the dude in half, has to be one of my favorite kills in the franchise. Another reason why I love this movie is that, while I don’t love the remake of the original, the grittiness and scariness of Jason is something that I really love. With “Freddy V Jason” Jason is the perfect mixture between being truly terrifying, and his roots back in crystal lake. I think the way the plot goes in this film is the best story they could have made for this inevitable match-up. Making Freddy basically powerless brings a reason to include Jason, however, I don’t completely understand why they end up fighting each other. While “Freddy V Jason” is in no way the perfect film, it does stand up as being one of the slasher films, that if you can suspend your disbelief, you will love.

NUMBER TWO

In these next two parts, I had a super hard time trying to choose where they go. Ultimately I chose “Friday the 13th The Final Chapter” to go in this spot. This movie was, as the title suggests, intended to be the last that featured Jason. This movie also includes a very young Corey Feldman who plays a young Tommy Jarvis. Tommy Jarvis is obsessed with masks, because of this, he was able to defeat Jason. At the end of the film, Tommy eventually defeats Jason by shaving his hair and creating a sort of makeup mask on himself. This was made to reflect a younger version of Jason and confuse him, Which ended up working. Tommy was then able to get the jump on Jason and “kill” him. I also love this movie because the kills in this film seem to be some of the most genuine out of the entire series. I think the best and most emotional kill is Jasons. When Jason gets stabbed repeatedly in the head, the machete gets lodged in his skull and he falls to the floor and Jason's face slides down the machete. Basically cutting his face straight up through the middle. He awkwardly slides down the machete and he dies. I just love the way this movie tries to set up a movie where Jarvis becomes the embodiment of Jason. I would have loved those movies, but sadly we got “A New Beginning” instead.

NUMBER ONE

This may possibly be the least controversial number one pick for this list. My favorite Friday the 13th movie is part three. This movie to me is the perfect encapsulation of the Friday movies. The way this movie feels and incorporates a lot of the things that had become cliche and makes them perfected. This movie is also the one that sparked the third movie being in 3D. With part three, there are a ton of cheesy 3D shots. On the contrary one of my favorite kills of the entire movie is actually the kill where Jason shoots a crossbow directly into the camera, killing this girl. There are a ton of shots where the 3D is overused, to me, it makes the movie very fun. There’s a lot of action that doesn’t even include Jason. There’s a whole biker gang who is after some of the camp counselors. I’m purposefully not spoiling a lot of the kills and what happens because I went into the movie blind and I want you to too.

That’s all for this list. Thank you for reading, I appreciate everyone who reads these. It means quite literally everything to me. Well with that, Remember, treat every day like it’s Halloween