Fantasmo the 13th

Some time ago in the early days of this venerable, historic, eponymous blog, I posted an item on the upcoming January Fantasmo. I'm sorry to say this turned out to be fairly false, as the upcoming installment will not be a requiem for the Friday the 13th before it is befouled by Michael Bay and his minions, but instead a nightlong wallow in humorous Austrailian zombie carnage. Even better, right? Yes, but some of us needed this, a fond farewell to Jason and his honest string of dependably mediocre slashers before they are supplanted by the misanthropic ugliness of Bay-sanctioned muckupery.

Have no fear, horror fans. On February 6, a mere week before the shady remake whose only redeeming aspect is its release date, Fantasmo will take us on a whirlwind journey through the resonant original trilogy. These three films tell the archetypical story of Jason's mom killing several teens, then Jason doing the same later, then Jason doing it again the next day and stealing a hockey mask (yeah, it took him 3 movies to work out his look).

Did you ever see a the best history show ever, Connections? James Burke would illustrate how several series of discrete events, ideas, and advancements would converge to make possible historical scientific revolutions. Well consider this series of connections: In the year 1983, several film franchises were hitting their second sequel. Springing with a novel, entertaining idea out of the late '70s, these movies were by now entirely devoid of new ideas or a compelling reason to continue their respective sagas. A mere few years earlier, however, one of the best titles the world had ever seen, Comin' at Ya!, re-invigorated a hoary cliche and intoduced new technology making cheap, poorly made 3-D possible. Hence, audiences of 1983 were treated to titles such as Amityville 3-D and Jaws 3-D.

Which brings us back around to Fantasmo. The big Friday the 13th night has been delayed to take advantage of some new DVD releases set to take advantage of the new movie release. Not only will the uncut version of the first Friday (which, ironically, has a lot more cutting in it) screen, but the third movie, which as a film is totally irrelevant, other than that hockey mask thing, will play in 3 Middling Dimensions! So lets take a walk back to 1983, when eyeballs and yo-yos both popped out of the screen at you!