I was watching an interesting documentary the other day that got me thinking that I really don’t get it anymore. It was His Name Was Jason, a look at the long lived Friday the 13th franchise. Being a teenager in the eighties, I of course watched them all on cable when in high school, and then in the theaters in college. Was it for tense suspense scenes or interesting characters? Not really. Back then I watched the films for two reasons, to see what outrageously gory death scenes they would think of this time, and more importantly, somebody going topless. As the nineties progressed my interest in gory effects has faded (have never seen a Saw movie and don’t plan on seeing one in the future), and as for gratuitous topless scenes, though still enjoyable, I can’t bring myself to sit though a film I have no interest in just to see a quick flash of nudity. Must be something about being forty….and the internet (Wonder if Al Gore ever saw that coming when he “invented” the Web?).
Anyway, I have seen all of the films up through Freddy v. Jason, it’s the completist in me. So I was curious about the back stage origins of the series. It was interesting seeing interviews with producers, directors, make up effects artists, actors, and celebrity fans talking about the different films, what they enjoyed and didn’t. And like a Friday the 13th movie there was a death scene from one of the films every ten minutes and gratuitous nude scenes sprinkled throughout.
But then everyone started really getting into this topic that pulled me out of the film and left me scratching my head for the rest of the interviews, feeling like a true outsider. Everyone started going on and on about the subtle emotional nuances of the different actors who have portrayed Jason, one Jason portrayor comparing him to Frankenstein (though not specified, I assumed he meant Karloff’s interpretation).
Now no offense to Kane Hodder and the other actors who have slipped on the hockey mask, but I don’t think I ever saw Jason as a real character in the films, he was just the mechanism used to kill the characters in the film, an object as animated as the machete he usually carried. All the talk about his psychological motivations ranging from abuse, abandonment and being ostiscized by society as a child had me wondering if I was missing something obvious right in front of me.
I never thought of the films as having depth of meaning or characterization. They were just summer popcorn fare. A quick ninety minutes of mindless action, you sat down, turned your mind off and just enjoyed the make up effects and brief nudity. I guess that is the difference between beng a casual viewer intead of a die hard fan.
