Creepy Saturdays - Friday the 13th

The Creepy Crypt Saturdays at the Rollberg Kino are on their best way to be my favorite thing in the world. What am I talking about? The Yorck Kino cinema group has a bunch of special showings, like sneak previews, classics, MonGays and one of them is the Creepy Crypt where you can watch a horror movie every Saturday night at the Rollberg Kinos. There is a second horror movie night, Bis(s) zum Abspann which started as a vampire series, but expanded its focus to creatures of the night in general, this takes place once a month in the Odeon in Schöneberg. Whether you want to see an old classic on the big screen or discover the latest pictures, the movies of Creepy Crypt have a wide range, it's a healthy mix of old and new which never gets boring. You can also make a wish, just write them a mail or listen to their podcast in which they discuss the movies we watched.

This past weekend they did something neat and organized a Friday the 13th mini marathon in which they showcased the first four movies of this franchise whose popularity has remained unfazed for more than 40 years. I can't remember from the top of my head how many installments there are, but add the crossovers like Freddy vs. Jason, it should be well above...ten films? (It's twelve, I just checked.) Over time, Jason has evolved from a neglected kid with a disability to some ripped, kick-ass, undead superhero slasher whose consistent dying and coming back has become some kind of running gag in horror circles.

I've once read about a theory which tried to explain Jason Vorhees' popularity among horror audiences with him essentially standing for the outsider, the nerd, the ugly boy with a bodily deformation killing all the jock type, gorgeous, young people running around summer camps having sex.

Beside being weirdly puritanical in its core, a slasher from the 80s era will always carry a problematic weight on its back, be it the association with school shootings/killings in its home country USA or the treatment of women as sexy airheads who deserve to be killed. On the flip side slashers also spawned fun and interesting pop culture phenomena such as the quasi-feminist last girl surviving, the sympathies switching between the slasher and the final girl and the group dynamics reflecting on the body count - "who will be killed first?" which has been considerably altered during the last decade. There's lots of books written on the subject too, notably Carol Clover's in-depth study on specifically gender roles in slashers, Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film which every horror fan should read. 

So what's the secret of Jason specifically, a character who keeps on dying and coming back stronger than before, so much so that he could easily pass as a WWF wrestler nowadays though he was this scrawny kid tipping off boats?

I do agree that his outlier status lends him sympathies, and, as explained in the second installment, he was just a little boy in the original movie, who witnessed his mother being killed by these people he now hates and in his mind basically avenges her with each killing. Given his background, he shouldn't even be able to understand what death is and he's so far away from any idea of sex that I doubt he understands the concept, let alone intentionally going after people mating. Which of course doesn't justify him killing, it goes without saying, but from the point of view of a movie goer, a fan, what's your alternative? Michael Myers kills without reason or explanation, he's just pure evil without cause - not very flattering. Freddy Krueger is a child molester - nope! Chucky is a doll. Leatherface a hillbilly who still lives with his family. Sexually ambiguous slashers like Angela from Sleepaway Camp or the black slasher Candyman sadly and unfortunately didn't matter enough to be rooted for but this is another side of slashers which has been revolutionized especially in the last decade or two. So I guess, that leaves us with lone wolf Jason who is after revenge, right?

Last night, I only watched the first two movies of the franchise. I know the first movie (Friday the Thirteenth, 1980, dir. Sean S. Cunningham) very well. It is a good movie in terms of establishing concepts and characters like Crystal Lake, Mrs. Vorhees, Jason, the townsfolk etc. I'm not sure I had ever watched the second part (1981, dir. Steve Miner) before, so I was surprised by how much more I enjoyed it compared to its predecessor. The heaviness, the unintentionally funny chase and fight scenes gave way to a much lighter approach, with close up shots of screaming girls almost conveying something akin to humor, playful spoofing of cheesy jokes and painful stereotypes... I was completely immersed in this picture; the final girl Ginnie was quite clever, the jokes were nice, the chemistry between the actors, which felt wooden and forced in the first part, was natural and flowed and I really like Jason's attire, I have to admit. I don't know at what point he starts to wear a hockey mask to hide his face, but a simple pillow case/sack merely tied at the neck part and one eye hole is just as unsettling.

On a last note, I loved how the audience reacted to the movies! Laughing at the right places, cheering when the chainsaw made its entrance, shutting up while suspense scenes... I don't mean to be a gate keeper, but it is something else to watch a movie with horror fans, a much better experience.

I cut the movies short in order to go to Otherland and watch the "4FDZ - Vier für die Zukunft - unser SF-Abend mit Aiki Mira, Theresa Hannig, Jens Lubbadeh und Nils Westerboer" event and have a beer. It was super interesting although I couldn't hear much due to bad acoustics, and somehow my head and heart stayed in that little room at the Rollberg. They announced that there will probably be a kind of summer camp at the Rollberg, haha, I can't wait to see that. Until then, I know I will make use of my Sunday to watch the two movies I missed last night and I'm sure I'll enjoy them.