I personally thought Carpenter's idea was brilliant but of course horror fans were known for being asses back then.
I'd love to see someone come up with a series centered around Halloween and feature a different type of story each year. It would be much better than finding stupid ways to bring Jigsaw back each year.
Well I think it would've worked better if Halloween III were a better movie. As it stands, it's got some scary atmosphere, some good Carpenter'esque shocks, and his great electronic score, but some serious lapses in logic, that even for a horror film are bad.
And they did try to go Jason-less in Part V with a cliffhanger implying that in VI, Tommy will take up the reins instead of just being a red herring. Obviously, it didn't fly and with the help of a lightening bolt, things were back to normal.
FRIDAY 5 certainly didn't work with the diehards, at least not when I saw it in the theater on its premiere. Fans wanted the Real Deal, and they got it next year with JASON LIVES -- the best in the series, IMO.
Are you talking about when HALLOWEEN III opened? I'm not sure if you are, but back in the day it was more accepted that Michael Myers wasn't in it. At least from my memory, the fans knew HALLOWEEN 2 was the end of Myers, and they understood that #3 was its own thing. It was only in later years when fanboys tried to catch up with the whole series on video that they were like "yo, dude, where's Michael in Part 3?"
HALLOWEEN 3, to me, is the most underrated horror film of the decade. Fangoria voters back in the day certainly didn't agree as I'm pretty sure they called it the worst of the year because of the lack of Myers. Must have been a situation where they KNEW he wasn't in it but went to see it anyways so that they could complain that he wasn't in it.
As for F13 5, sorry but this film is pure classic trash. It's like a bad, home made porn movie and I just love the sleazy atmosphere that comes off like a bad European movie or one of those bad softcore porns that would come on Cinemax around four in the morning.
I'll grant you that I can enjoy FRIDAY 5 today, but it wasn't the case for me when it premiered. I think it works for me now because, in retrospect, it still retains that early vintag e"F13 movie" feel, especially when compared to parts 8,9, and 10.
Joe, did you and the crowd get pissed at the end when it was revealed Jason wasn't the killer or did you know going in? Or, did you guys just figure out while watching it?
If my memory isn't dying, my father rented me this one and part 6 at the same time and I don't recall catching up on the ending but then again I was probably just 8 or so (if that).
Since there was no internet then, and not really much in the way of spilling the beans, we didn't know what to expect going in --- we just knew the ending of THE FINAL CHAPTER, so we took it from there, probably thinking it was going to be Tommy. So then as the movie went on, there were doubts, and red herrings... so it played like a mystery (is it Tommy? Is it "This Guy"? Is it "That Guy"?) There were even moments I recall thinking they were trying to give us TWO killers, since they seemed to be in two places at once, I thought --and that one of them in the end would turn out to be the real Jason, back from the grave. But speaking for myself, as soon as I saw the face of the "the real killer", I pretty much figured it was going to be him -- but I couldn't always be positive, which was a good thing , I guess... But everyone kind of groaned about it. We just wanted Jason back, and obviously Paramount got that.