Five years after the events at Camp Crystal Lake, a new group of counsellors arrive at a nearby camp, unaware that the legend of Jason Voorhees is about to become very real.
Directed by Steve Miner in his feature directorial debut, Friday the 13th Part 2 has some of the tropes synonymous with 80s horror: the opening recap, nightmare and flashback sequences, the isolated camp, warnings from the locals and, of course, a steadily increasing body count.
There are also some welcome returning faces. Adrienne King briefly returns as Alice Hardy, while Walt Gorney is back as Crazy Ralph, still warning anyone who will listen to stay away. Betsy Palmer also makes a brief but effective return as Mrs Voorhees.
Jason is hidden beneath a rough sack rather than the hockey mask that would become synonymous with the character from partway through Part 3. It is a pity the mask was still one film away, although there is something genuinely creepy about this primitive, almost feral version of Jason, played by Warrington Gillette.
The kills are memorable: Alice is stabbed in the temple with an ice pick; Crazy Ralph is garrotted with barbed wire; Deputy Winslow takes the claw of a hammer to the back of the head; Scott has his throat cut while hanging upside down in a rope trap; Terry is killed off-screen; Mark is struck in the face with a machete before his wheelchair crashes down the stairs; Jeff and Sandra are impaled together with a spear in bed; and Vickie is stabbed in the stomach. That makes nine confirmed deaths.
The ginger-haired Ted, played by Stuart Charno, provides some of the film’s comic relief and survives, last seen drunk at the local bar. John Furey’s Paul is a solid lead alongside Amy Steel’s Ginny, although his unexplained disappearance is one of the film’s stranger loose ends.
Kirsten Baker’s Terry, introduced in her Minnie Mouse T-shirt and denim shorts, is certainly memorable, particularly during the film’s gratuitous skinny-dipping sequence. But it is Amy Steel who really holds the film together. Her Ginny is intelligent, grounded and studying psychology, while her drinking, chess playing and ability to understand Jason give her a personality beyond the usual Final Girl. Steel’s performance brings a convincing humanity to the character, making her final confrontation with Jason particularly effective as she uses his relationship with his mother against him.
However, the slow-motion jump scare that follows, with Jason (without the head-sack) crashing through the window, and the subsequent close-up of Mrs Voorhees’s decomposed head slightly robs the preceding climax of its impact.
Miner’s direction is excellent, especially in the way he builds anticipation before the kills and repeatedly uses shadows, darkness and carefully timed jump scares. He understands that sometimes what you don’t see can be as effective as what you do.
It looks great, too. Peter Stein’s cinematography gives the film crisp warm feel for the first half hour or so, then a cold, atmospheric quality when the scares begin, while Harry Manfredini’s music remains the essential glue, turning the woods, cabins and empty spaces into places of genuine unease.
Overall, Friday the 13th Part 2 may essentially be repeating the formula, but Steve Miner understands exactly what made the original work and knows when to let the atmosphere do the heavy lifting. It establishes Jason as the franchise’s central monster while giving us one of the series’ strongest Final Girls in Amy Steel.
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