When I reviewed the first Friday the 13th film, Fogs asked when I would “turn” and start rooting for Jason to kill the teenagers. I put the over/under at #3, and that seems so far to have been a pretty good bet. Because while it hasn’t quite happened yet, Friday the 13th Part 2 certainly doesn’t go out of its way to generate sympathy for the young adults who make their way to Crystal Lake. In this case, it’s actually the other side of the lake — the actual Camp Crystal Lake is closed — but it’s still a camp on the same lake, and the same basic plot unfolds.
The film actually opens with a flashback, of surviving girl Alice (Adrienne King) from the first film reliving the events of that day in a nightmare. This sequence takes about ten minutes and feels like it takes about thirty, as it is (obviously) familiar and mostly redundant. Everything about it could have been left out and simply included in the narration given in the head counselor’s story at the camp. Even the present-day part of it winds up feeling predictable and redundant. Continue reading
