Friday the 13th: The Series

[Fausto]

I am writing this article, and stand by my review, despite what others may say.

If you were to mention Friday the 13th to any horror fan, it is generally assumed you are referring to the films. If you were to bring up the television series, horror purists will say it sucked. Why, you ask? because it had nothing to do with Jason Vorhees. The problem with this is that these fans are making the assumption that, because it uses the name but only tenuously connected (but still connected, I'll explain in a minute) to the films, it can't be any good. However, if you look at it as a TV series in its own right, its actually pretty damn good.

Antique store owner Louis Verendi made a Faustian deal with Satan in return for worldly power and knowledge. As part of the deal, all the objects in his shop became cursed, each item rewarding its owner in return for evil behavior. Some time later, Louis dies, and his two benign but naieve cousins Mickey and Ryan inherit the shop. Not wanting to be burdened with running the store, they mark everything down and have a closing sale.  But Jack Marshak, an old friend of Louis, returns and lets the new owners in on the big secret. The trio become charged with tracking down each item listed in the store manifest and lock it away to prevent it from causing evil. Here are a few of the items, along with how they worked:

Gold Compact-Flash it in a man's eyes, and he will fall desparately in love with you, until you are forced to kill him.

Mulcher-Wood goes in, woodchips come out. Bodies go in, money comes out.

Cupid of Malek-Makes a woman fall desparately in love with you...until you have sex with her. Then she dies.

World War 2 Kamakaze jacket-spill blood on the jacket, and it makes its wearer invisible.

Vita the Doll-Victorian doll that speaks in a sweet voice, and gives a child the power to strike back at those who torment her.

Druid Fertility Charm-Grows into a tree when buried in the ground. Grants fertility and ensures twin births. Oh, and the tree gets to eat the father.

Baby Crib-If you drown 7 people in water, it will cure your baby's fatal disease.

Quilt of Hathor-Allows the user to enter the dreams of others and kill them, not unlike Freddy Kruger.

Dog Collar-Strangle enough women with it, and your dog will become a woman.

Three Monkeys Statues-Tests the honor of your family. If they pass, great. But if they fail...

Fountain Pen-Turns a struggling writer into the writer of great murder mysteries. Unfortunately, the murders occur in real life as they are written down.

Book of Lucifer-Forget Anton Lavey, this book's the real deal, written by the man downstairs. If all the prophecies come true, the devil rises to earth.

Coin of Ziocles-Heads, you bring a corpse to life. Tails, someone dies.

So I went a little overboard on the examples. I don't care. First of all, you can't compare the show to the movie, thats like comparing apples and oranges. The stories are great, the characters are believable, and the effects are pretty good (especially for an early 90's TV show). Sadly, this review is being done mostly from memory-despite various internet petitions that are circulating, the show has not yet been released on DVD, and unless they decide to start showing reruns on scifi again, I don't see it coming back anytime soon. On the other hand, it lasted three seasons and had pretty high ratings in its day (until John D. Lemay left, and then it kinda went downhill), so there may still be hope. FUN FACT: According to imdb, not to mention most of the other sites I checked out, the last object listed in Louis Verendi's manifest was the hockey mask belonging to Jason Vorhees. This would have been the subject of the series finale, had it ever gotten to air, and provided the missing connection to the movies. It might have also provided some insight into how Jason first came back from the dead.

NOTE: Since this revew was written, I have heard conflicting reports about the existance of other "missing" episodes, including the last episode, in which Jason is said to have appeared. Some claim the episodes were shot and unaired, some claim to have seen the Jason episode themselves (this may be confused with John D. Lemay's appearance as a new and unrelated character in Jason goes to Hell), and some claim they are a myth. If anyone could help shed light on this, that would be greatly appreciated.

[sideorderofninjas]

Even using the Friday the 13th name, the series was more connected to the movies than Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. 

For a syndicated horror anthology series, it is surprising to have lasted 3 years.   

One episode, I remember had David Cronenberg as a faith healer with a pair of cursed gloves that let him sure people by transferring the illness to someone else...

I've heard the same rumor about the hockey mask being the last item.  Had the final episode even aired once, more people would have remembered it. 

[Yaddo 42]

I was never a huge fan of the show, mostly watched since it aired in late night slots around the movies and other syndicated stuff like Soul Train. I grew to like it more during the SciFi reruns, had more appreciation for the series independent of the movies series (non/semi)connection.

I guy I knew in highschool who was a fan was convinced the two cousin characters were hot for each other, and was waiting for the "special" episode where "they do it". He was serious.

[Famous Mortimer]

You make a good defence of it, but your explanation for the last episode doesn't really hold water. So Jason, after murdering his sister (wearing a clown mask) and escaping from the asylum years later, drives to this shop and buys a hockey mask before popping to Haddonfield to murder a few teens there?

I'm sorry, I probably thought about it more than the scriptwriters did. It's not a bad idea for a series, for sure, I just don't get the link to the films.

[Joe]

Famous Mortimer................. thats michael myers 

[clockworkcanary]

Jason was a hillbilly mongoloid who obtained his hockey mask from the loser in Friday 3 in 3D.  Interesting way to connect it to the show, but I still think they used the name soley for marketing purposes, even if one show had better writing than the entire film series :)  But, more power to 'em.  I used to watch this.  I distinctly remember the Cupid episode.

[Joe]

agreed clockworkcanary

[odinn7]

I used to watch the show and found it entertaining...of course I was hot for the red headed Mickey...

[BTM]

Druid Fertility Charm-Grows into a tree when buried in the ground. Grants fertility and ensures twin births. Oh, and the tree gets to eat the father.

Whoa, I missed that ep.  Wonder if it was a first season...

Yeah, I thought the series was pretty good myself.  I especially liked the often ironic way the villians would find themselves the victims of the very items they were using on others. 

The show did start get a little reptitive by the third season though.  I think one of the things that may have bothered a lot of fans is how Ryan (Ryan was Mickey's cousin, Johnny's the guy who took is place is Season 3) was turned into a child in the last ep of the second season.  I'm guessing they did because the guy who plays Ryan (John D. LeMay) wanted to leave the show and they didn't want to kill the character off, so they thought this would be a happy ending for him.

You probably know this, but another (off-screen) connection was Frank Mancuso Jr., one of the writer, was a producer on several of the Friday the 13th films.

And yeah, it should get a DVD release. 

[Bill C.]

Ah, Friday the 13th: The Series.  I'm not a horror fan in general (and I'm here?), but damn I loved this show.  It had a decent hook--completely unrelated to the movies in tone, sure, but very well done for the time.  It had a modestly good cast, even allowing for that odd vibe I sometimes got from Ryan and Micki--and, yes, Robey was raw sex appeal even with big hair; I won't deny that helped out quite a bit.

Ultimately, though: while it certainly had its cheesier moments combined with its better ones, this show totally had me with one episode: Mesmer's Bauble.  Sure, it was one of the highest-profile episodes--this was the one with Vanity basically playing herself--but it was a remarkably dark and interesting story with one hell of a twist ending.

[BeyondTheGrave]

I remember watching the series with my grandmother (She was a Scfi-fi/Horror fan) vaguely because I was still very young. Remeber the store and a couple of charaters but no epsiodes.

[JaseSF]

I liked the series and definitely feel it superior to the FRIDAY THE 13TH films. Certainly one of Canada's best TV efforts.

[Torgo]

I thought that this series was pretty good overall. Haven't seen an episode of it in YEARS however.

I remember one episode I think that has a big scene set at a lighthouse in which a man got an axe in the back of the head (though it was shown from the front since it was on TV).

Anyone know which episode this might have been? I can't remember any more than that.

[Dave]

For a blog post that never quite came together, I googled Robey, the red-haired woman from that show and found this site: http://www.louiserobey.com/
It's a pretty good site, with actual interesting info about how she became a duchess for awhile, and stuff like that. There's this video of her singing that "One Night In Bangcock" song that just about made me crap my damn pants.

http://gaycelebritycrap.blogspot.com

http://davemunger.blogspot.com

I'm Dave Munger from the olden days, BTW.

[Andrew]

Dave, you provided fair warning, but that "One Night in Bangkok" video probably deserves a big warning text above it.  Wow, I thought my head was going to explode.  Of course, it doesn't help that I just finished watching "Killer Tongue."