The Lair, Rec, Constantine, Friday the 13th Part 2, and Cult of the Cobra Woman

Weekly Horror Bulletin Newsletter 214

We’ve got our usual lineup of four movies and a short film this week— This time, we’ll start out with “The Lair,” a newer creature feature. We’ll then watch the superb zombie film, “Rec” from 2007, “Constantine” from 2005, and “Friday the 13th Part 2” from way back in ’81.

As a bonus this week, we’ll look at a classic oldie:

*  “Cult of the Cobra” (1959)

Four years ago this week...

Four YEARS AGO this week, on episode 8, we looked at “Valentine” (2001) and “My Bloody Valentine” (2009). Listen to that old episode here: https://www.horrorguys.com/hg008/.

Discount News

We’ve got two announcements this week pertaining to our books:

1.  We have a new one, and it’s FREE! “The Horror Guys Guide to The Halloween Films” is available now, exclusively at our web store, https://brianschell.com/b/halloween. The price listed there is $1.99 USD, but if you use the coupon code HALLOWEEN, the eBook version is completely free. Enjoy! Note that it’s also available as a paperback via Lulu, but that one’s obviously not free.

2.  All our paperback books are now available from Lulu as well as on Amazon. Lulu just sent me a promo code to let you get 15% off any purchase. So yeah, order what you want and SAVE! Use the promo code FEBRUARY15 to get 15% off everything in your order from Lulu.

https://www.lulu.com/search?page=1&q=Brian+schell&pageSize=10&adultaudiencerating=00&sortBy=RELEVANCE

*  Or buy from Horror Guys Shop

Check out all our books!

The Horror Guys Guide to:

*  The Horror Films of Vincent Price

*  Universal Studios' Shock! Theater

*  Universal Studios' Son of Shock!

*  Hammer Horror Films

*  The Silent Age of Horror

*  The Horror Films of Roger Corman

*  The Horror Guys Guide to The Halloween Films (Free— see above for coupon code)

Creepy Fiction:

*  A Sextet of Strange Stagings: Six Surprising Scripts

*  Tales to Make You Shiver, Volumes 1 and 2

Here. We. Go!

Cult of the Cobra (1959)

*  Directed by Francis D. Lyon

*  Written by Jerry Davis, Cecil Maiden, Richard Collins

*  Stars Faith Domergue, Richard Long, Marshall Thompson

*  Run Time: 1 Hour, 22 Minutes

*  Trailer:

K4dg

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s a pretty simple story, but well done. There weren’t many surprises, just following along watching things unfold. It was entertaining but tame.

Synopsis

In Asia, 1945. A group of GIs take pictures of an Indian snake charmer, and the charmer tells how a snakebite from a cobra a slow, lingering, painful death is. One of the guys talks about Lamians, a cult that believes men and women can turn into snakes and vice-versa. “I’d give anything to see that,” says Paul, the sergeant. The snake charmer says that might be arranged. He says he’s Daru, a Lamian and a member of the cult of the cobra, and for enough money, he’ll take them to a meeting.

At eight O’clock, Daru shows up, and all six soldiers sneak into the temple. Daru warns that if they’re spotted, they’ll be killed. There’s a woman inside who can change into a snake.

The show begins. There’s a little dance between two warriors, and then a snaky woman writhes out of an urn. Nick, one of the soldiers, pulls out a camera with a huge flashbulb. The snake woman slithers around and dances with one of the men before simulated biting him. It’s a very stylized and well-done dance, but no actual snakes. Nick takes his picture, which starts a riot. Nick grabs the basket with the “snake” in it on the way out. The temple catches fire in the chaos and the high priest yells a curse as the men run out.

Five soldiers leave the temple, but where’s Nick? They find him on the side of the road, but they see a woman in black running away from his prone body. He’s alive, but he’s been bitten by a snake. The snake-pot is empty when they look.

Nick is taken to the hospital, where all the guys catch up on what’s happened. They leave, and the nurse leaves the window open just a crack. We get some “cobra-vision” as a snake sneak into Nick’s room while he sleeps.

The next morning, Paul is disappointed that Nick has died during the night. They all assumed the poison hadn’t been neutralized enough. The doctors talk to each other; Nick had been bitten a second time. How could that happen?

Paul talks about the high priest’s curse and Nick’s death. The whole gang gets on a plane to go back home to the states.

Paul and Julia talk about their engagement, and they go to tell Tom and Rico about it at the bowling alley. She’s going out of town for a couple weeks for a show she’s in. Everyone acts civilly, but it’s clear that there’s a lot of strong emotions at play.

That night, Tom hears a woman screaming in the apartment across the hall. He rushes over to help, but everything is alright. We see the woman eyeing him ominously. She’s Lisa, and she offers him a cup of coffee. She just moved in this afternoon, and she needs friends; Tom is happy to oblige. She’s new to the city, so he’ll show her around.

The next day, Tom and Lisa go out and check out the big city. After that, they stop by and Paul gets to meet Lisa, but his little dog doesn’t like her. Tom wants to see her again; Lisa says she has an appointment tomorrow night. After they say goodnight, Lisa sneaks out and goes to Rico’s bowling alley. He closes up, gets in the car, and finds a giant cobra in the back seat! He crashes the car and dies.

At Rico’s funeral, the now-four survivors decide to get together for the weekend. Paul notices that the funeral horse doesn’t like Lisa. At the party, Lisa takes a special interest in Carl, so Tom gets jealous and starts a fight.

Julia returns, which distracts Paul from the whole affair. He wants her to talk to Tom; he’s afraid of Lisa for some reason. He tells her about the snake cult and the curse.

Tom finds Lisa’s gloves in his apartment and goes to return it to find that she’s not home. Lisa is out prowling for Carl. He’s more than eager to let her into his apartment. He doesn’t last long. She goes home and finds Tom waiting for her. She talks about losing her faith– could she be falling in love with Tom?

Julia has dinner with Tom and Paul, and they talk about Lisa. They get a call from the police about Carl’s death, and Julia brings up the curse story. Julia starts reading “The History of Cults.” Lisa and Julia finally meet, and Julia tells her the story about what happened to Paul in Asia.

Tom and Paul go to the police station about Carl. Paul tells the story about the curse again. Paul thinks Lisa may be “acting as the agent of the curse,” which really angers Tom.

That night, Pete comes to Lisa’s apartment to accuse her of killing Carl. She says she has an alibi in her passport. We see her shadow as she turns into a cobra and kills Pete.

Lisa professes her love to Tom, who still believes she’s innocent. They kiss, which is her first time ever. The police inspector has Rico and Carl autopsied and finds that they both had snake venom in their system. Paul’s theory doesn’t sound so crazy now.

Meanwhile, Paul finds Pete’s body. Tom and Lisa go to see Julia’s show at the theater. Paul calls Tom and tells him about Pete, but Lisa overhears.

Julia finds a cobra in her dressing room as Tom bursts in. Tom grabs a hat rack and throws the snake out the window. Paul and the inspector find a dead snake in the road that turns into Lisa– she’s dead.

Tom walks off, he’s single again.

Commentary

So much brownface in the temple! As with most shape-changer movies, Lisa’s clothes come and go as the plot requires.

The acting is fine, as is the cinematography and music, but the story is extremely by-the-book and straightforward. We know everything that’s going to happen as soon as Lisa shows up. It’s a silly premise that we’ve seen before, but it was well done and still fairly entertaining.

The Lair (2022)

*  Directed by Neil Marshall

*  Written by Charlotte Kirk, Neil Marshall

*  Stars Charlotte Kirk, Jonathan Howard, Jamie Bamber

*  Run Time: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes

*  Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This one is a little hit and miss, with a strong lead capable of surviving some brutal action. There’s some creepiness and tension. The military aspects and procedures and accents had some issues that tended to take us out of the moment. It’s more entertaining than not, but it’s not stellar.

Synopsis

In April 2017, the USAF deployed a MOAB bomb, the largest non-nuclear weapon in its arsenal. Official reports state the bomb was used to destroy a key insurgent stronghold in the area. Unofficially, something else may have happened. This is the story of what really happened… Credits roll.

Two days later, there are jets flying over Afghanistan, and Captain Kate Sinclair notices a missile launch beneath them. The two pilots are forced to eject. Her wingman is shot by insurgents, but Kate kills some of the baddies before they get her.

Kate sees the guys who shot down the plane pursuing her across the desert, so she ducks into an abandoned Soviet mine to hide. With the men closing in behind her, she climbs down a ladder into a deep abyss.

At the bottom of the shaft, she starts exploring the Soviet tunnels using her glow-stick. Kate finds a long-dead scientist in his lab. One of the Afghans finds a light switch and turns it on. There’s a firefight, and the lab gets shot up pretty badly, including those big tanks with bodies inside. What could happen?

Kate gets away by crawling through the drains. One of the Afghans remains behind and examines the creatures from the tubes. One of them isn’t dead, but soon the Afghan is. Very quickly, Kate’s the only one left alive. She climbs up and out of the bunker and sees that the monster has done the same, but she slams and locks the doors.

Kate’s soon picked up by some allied soldiers. She insists that they can’t stay here but makes no effort to explain to the others. When she does finally say what happened, Major Finch doesn’t believe a word of her story– but he calls military intelligence to report it.

Sergeant Hook tells the story of the group’s past: they’re all losers and misfits. Kabir Rahimi, a captured insurgent, was there at the bunker as well, and he corroborates Kate’s story. Hook and some of the soldiers start listening. Meanwhile, down below, more of the creatures break out of their cells. When they bust the doors open.

Sergeant Oswald of the SAS arrives, and he expects trouble and plans to hang around. The monsters attack after nightfall. Between the night vision and the machine guns, several dozen alert soldiers can’t hit anything. Or maybe they do– these things don’t die easily.

One of the creatures attacks Kate— with his two long tongues. Rahini chops it to pieces with his sword. Major Finch kills one with his baseball bat, but guns don’t seem to do much. Everyone who’s still alive hides in a metal storage unit with the door locked behind them.

Rahini tells them all about a story about a fallen star before the Soviets came. Then the Soviets came up with these super-soldier monsters that eat their prey. After losing 46 villagers, it all suddenly stopped.

They all go outside in the morning, and all the bodies are missing. They do find one of the monster’s bodies. The doctor thinks sunlight burns it like a vampire. The doctor opens it up with a chainsaw and crowbar– they are tough! On the inside, they have human organs.

Major Finch wakes up and explains that military intelligence knew all about the site for decades. The Soviets found a way to integrate foreign DNA into a human host. Foreign as in aliens. The aliens found a crashed alien spaceship– that’s the reason why the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in the first place. Suddenly, the creature who was being operated upon jumps up. After a close-quarters fight, Finch sacrifices himself by charging the creature with a grenade in hand.

The half-dozen or so surviving soldiers and Rahini head toward the bunker to destroy the place. Hook falls into the pit. The whole gang goes down a defective elevator to rescue him. They get the call that Intelligence is coming in about twenty minutes to blow the whole site up with a bomb.

Kate and the soldiers go down into the lab and throw a switch which activates a portal to another world. Up above, more insurgents attack the lone soldier who is guarding the entrance.

In a way far too ridiculous to explain, the guy outside drives the Hummer into the pit, which then falls on the monsters and kills a bunch of them. Kate and Hook, the only survivors, zip up the elevator cable just in time to kill the insurgents.

Just then, the bomber flies over with one minute to spare. They drive away as fast as they can when the bomb goes off…

Commentary

Jamie Bamber sounds like a British Hillbilly. He needed a better voice coach for this part, as did most of the other actors. How long would a known kleptomaniac last in the Army, anyway? I doubt the military would have much patience for that sort of thing.

None of the soldiers act like soldiers, Captain Kate especially. The creatures are men in rubber suits with occasional special effects when their tongues shoot out. Not bad, but not especially impressive either.

This was the same director who did “The Descent and there are some similarities– a strong female lead who wanders around in the dark tunnels and fights monsters. That much was decent, but pretty much everything above ground was fairly abysmal.

Rec (2007)

*  Directed by Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza

*  Written by Jaume Balagueró, Luiso Berdejo, Paco Plaza

*  Stars Manuela Velasco, Ferran Terraza, Jorge-Yama Serrano

*  Run Time: 1 Hour, 18 Minutes

*  Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This starts out calm and normal and goes into an adrenaline rush that barely lets up until the movie ends. It’s a fast-moving found footage that’s really well done. It was almost hard to keep up and read the subtitles at the same time at some points.

Synopsis

TV reporter Angela records her show from the fire station. She’s going to accompany the firefighters on their nightly work. She interviews some firemen, and it’s all pretty boring and mundane with not anything really happening.

Finally, they get a call, and Angela and her cameraman, Pablo, get to go along. Jose, Alex, and Manu are in the firetruck with them. The call said that there’s someone trapped in a building, and the neighbors heard screams. The firemen have to get into a locked apartment, where an old woman is said to have fallen.

They get inside, and the old woman is standing at the end of the hallway. As the men approach, they see the woman jumping around, screaming. As the building superintendent tries to remove the cameraman, the old woman bites his face and neck.

The firemen carry the injured man downstairs, but someone outside won’t allow anyone to leave– the gate is locked. The health authorities have decided to seal off the buildings for health concern reasons. Loads of cops have blocked off the street.

BOOM! Suddenly, one of the firefighters falls down the stairway shaft and is severely injured– he’s been bitten as well. There is much screaming, and the camera goes off.

Some time passes, and Angela and Pablo go upstairs alone to investigate. A hysterical, angry woman runs toward the camera, and the police shoot her. Manu and Alex find a back door, but it’s sealed off as well. Everyone’s cell phones stop working, and they are all told that they’re under forced quarantine. The building is soon covered in plastic.

Angela interviews several of the people trapped in the building. Guillem is a medical intern, and he works on the two injured men, but he’s no doctor. Then there’s an old couple who called in the woman’s screams in the first place. One woman is making plans to sue. An old man blames the Chinese people that live in the building. One little girl is sick and misses her dog, who is at the vet. We get to know some of the characters a bit, which is good.

Finally, the health inspector arrives in a self-contained suit. Pablo climbs up and peeks through a window and sees that they have handcuffed the injured men to their beds. The injured policemen attack the inspector and Guillem. The inspector’s suit prevents him from getting bitten, but Guillem goes berserk.

The health inspector says that they got a call yesterday from a vet. A sick dog went berserk and had to be put down. Jennifer, the sick little girl, attacks her mother. It was her dog. They chase the girl upstairs, and then they notice that the old woman from before is gone. The young policeman gets bitten, and things get more out of control at that point.

Some of the zombies start eating people, and Angela freaks out. The old man knows of a way out in the basement workshop, and he tells the others about it.

Before long, it’s just Angela, Pablo, and Manu, and Manu doesn’t last much longer. Pablo and Angela run upstairs to the disused penthouse as all the zombies pursue them upstairs. They find all kinds of weird stuff in there, both religious and scientific. There’s a big poster about “Possession” and many articles all about one specific possessed girl.

Then Angela finds an audio tape that explains everything. The man there was trying to find a vaccine against Possession, but it mutated and acted like the flu. The girl he was treating is uncurable and beyond all hope, and he mentions locking her up. Pablo finds someone scary in the attic, but then his light breaks.

Pablo turns on the camera’s night vision, and things only go downhill from there.

Commentary

It starts off very slow and mundane with the firemen’s daily lives, but it gets crazy pretty quickly. Things just keep escalating. There’s a lot of frantic screaming and fast-talking in Spanish, and it’s all very hectic in this found-footage film.

Surprisingly, they explain the whole thing at the end, which we didn’t expect from a zombie movie. The creature effects and gore are well done, but the way things accelerate relentlessly is probably the best feature of the film.

Short Film: Death and the Winemaker (2023)

*  Directed by Victor Jaquier

*  Written by Victor Jaquier

*  Stars Kacey Mottet Klein, Virginia Meisterhans, Jean-Claude Dreyfus

*  Run Time: 16:57

*  Trailer:

Synopsis

A young girl cries as her mother dies and asks if this is the fault of the winemaker. The old doctor tells the girl about the winemaker. We get a flashback…

Peter the winemaker works in the fields and he and Mathilde are an item. He goes to her father to ask for her hand, and the old man is skeptical at first, but the wine is so good that it’s hard to resist. Still, the old man says that if the wine is that good, then he should give a bottle to the Pope, thinking he’ll be killed on the trip to Rome and not come back.

The trip to Rome does, in fact, go badly. Peter falls to his death. However, it seems that even Death likes good wine…

Commentary

The animated style is excellent. The music is fantastic, and the voice acting is perfect. The idea of trapping Death has been done many times before, but the animation here really makes it worthwhile— there are many scenes that couldn’t be done using live-action.

Constantine (2005)

*  Directed by Francis Lawrence

*  Written by Kevin Brodbin, Garth Ennis, Jamie Delano

*  Stars Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBeouf

*  Run Time: 2 Hours, 1 Minute

*  Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This is based on comics, but it’s not necessary to have read them to enjoy the movie. It moves fast, with a lot of characters and a lot going on. We don’t know exactly what’s going on or why, it’s a bit of a mystery that Constantine is trying to solve. There’s lots of angel and demon action and possession and magic, which gives it the horror element.

Synopsis

In Mexico, a guy finds an old Nazi flag with the tip of a spear wrapped up inside it. He’s immediately hit by a car out of nowhere, but that doesn’t even slow him down. Credits roll.

In Los Angeles, a woman finds her daughter crawling on her ceiling. Father Hennessy calls in John Constantine when he can’t handle the problem himself. Constantine then does a full exorcism on the girl using a mirror. It works well, but it’s all terribly dramatic. Afterward, he finds a drawing of the spear in the women's room. Chas, his taxi driver friend, is obnoxious.

Angela Dodson goes to confession; she’s a cop who killed someone. Angela has a dream that she jumps off the roof of the hospital, through a glass ceiling, and into a pool.

Constantine has lung cancer. Of all the things he’s seen, that’s gonna kill him?

Angela is called in to examine Isabel’s dead body– the dream of jumping off the roof was real, but it was Angela’s twin sister who did it.

The Mexican with the spear crosses the border into the US, and dozens of cows die as he walks past them.

Constantine and Angela both go to the church at the same time. Angela wants to see Father Garret to do a funeral for Isabel - he’s against it because it was suicide, but Angela says it wasn’t. Constantine is actually there to see Gabriel and questions her about the strange demon he just encountered as well as about the cancer and why he’s destined for Hell.

Angela watches security footage of Isabel’s death, and she whispers, “Constantine” before jumping– but only once on the tape.

Meanwhile, Constantine is attacked by “Vermin Man,” a cloud of insects that says he should have minded his own business. The bugs are squished by a passing truck. Constantine goes to see Papa Midnight, but his sidekick Chas can’t get in.

Everyone in Midnight’s place has glowing eyes. Constantine and Midnight talk about demons and rules. Constantine wants to use “the chair.” Balthazar is there, and he doesn’t much care for John Constantine.

Angela comes to see Constantine. She knows he’s an occult specialist and thinks he may be able to help prove that her sister’s death wasn’t a suicide. He’s not interested in helping, but then he sees something strange following her and goes along. He tells her about the contest between God and Satan over seeing who can get the most souls. She thinks that people are evil enough on their own.

Suddenly, the two of them are surrounded by flying demons, but Constantine makes them all explode. “I don’t think they were after me,” John says. They go to Angela’s place and John looks into the eyes of her cat. He’s transported to Hell, a burning wasteland and ruined cities and nastiness. He encounters Isabel there.

Father Hennessy goes to the city morgue and finds Isabel’s body there. He touches her body to get a “reading” from her, and it really freaks him out. Balthazar comes in and Hennessy dies under his power. Elsewhere, Constantine explains his powers and origin to Angela.

Angela gets called to examine Hennessy’s body, and Constantine goes along. Beeman calls John and tells some of what’s going on, but he’s killed by bugs before he can say it all.

Angela admits that she has seen the magical stuff like her sister did, and she wants to go see Hell too. John near drowns her in the bathtub (staring at a cat looked easier). The bathtub explodes, and she has already been there and seen it. She shows him evidence that Balthazar was the one who killed Beeman.

John confronts Balthazar, and they fight. John uses holy brass knuckles on the demon’s face. Balthazar spills the beans about the spear; “Whatever killed the son of God will begin the son of the devil.” Angela knows all about the Spear of Destiny. After they leave, Balthazar’s boss, we don’t see who that is, comes in and finishes him off. Somethinggrabs Angela, and John can’t keep up.

John goes back to Midnight’s place and demands help. John sits in “The Chair,” which used to electrocute people at Sing-Sing. Midnight electrocutes John, which gives him a vision of the man with the spear. He, and an army of half-demons are about to take over the hospital where Isabel died.

Angela wakes up in the hospital pool where Isabel died. John, Midnight, and Chas head for the same place. Chas blesses the water in the cistern. John finds the whole room full of demons, so he sets off the sprinklers which drenches them in holy water to make their outer skin dissolve. That makes them more killable, which is done messily.

Down in the pool, something invisible drowns Angela again, sending her back to Hell, where she faces some demons. One gets inside her. John finds her body and does an exorcism to bring her back with Chas’s help. Chas gets beat up really badly and dies.

John gets angry and forces the boss to reveal with his force of will. It’s Gabriel who was pulling the strings. She admits that she’s been behind all of it; she’s jealous of humanity and downright insane. She attacks John, and John prays for help, which doesn’t come.

Gabriel works on Angela, using her to birth Satan’s son. Meanwhile, John does a blood ritual of his own, slitting his wrists.

…And then Satan shows up to collect him personally. He’s a sleazy man with tar on his feet. Satan is really eager to get John back home to play with. When John tells him about Gabriel and his son about to come into the world in the next room, he is not amused. Gabriel says she’ll smite him in the name of God, but her fist stops before she can strike. Satan snickers that it looks like someone doesn’t have her back anymore. Satan sends his son back to Hell and blasts Gabriel.

Satan reluctantly admits he owes John a boon. John doesn’t ask to be saved; he wants Isabel to be released to heaven. Satan complies. Then John starts to ascend to Heaven, but Satan prevents him from going, plunging his hands into John’s chest to yank out the cancer. He can’t drag him to Hell, but he can condemn him to live again. It’s not exactly a reward - by putting him back in life, Satan thinks he’ll get another chance at John later.

Then they find Gabriel, wings burned away, who is now human. She wants to die and tries to goad John into killing her for revenge. But John won’t play that game - he’s got a clean slate again. He punches her instead, telling her that’s pain - get used to it.

Commentary

There’s a lot going on here. A lot of characters, a lot of backstory, and a lot of lore that isn’t explicitly explained. This comes from the comics, of course, but it’s not really necessary to be especially familiar with the characters.

If you’re into the angels and demons’ side of supernatural horror, this is a fun one. Satan is especially good here. Still, it’s all very rushed, moving from scene to scene really quickly. This would make an excellent miniseries.

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

*  Directed by Steve Miner

*  Written by Ron Kurz, Victor Miller, Sean S. Cunningham

*  Stars Betsy Palmer, Amy Steel, John Furey, Adrienne King

*  Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes

*  Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s another fun summer for the young people at the camp by the lake. Jason is still becoming Jason here, more human seeming and not super powered yet. Overall, it’s a good slasher romp that moves briskly.

Synopsis

We see the footsteps and hear the “Chee-chee-chee-ha-ha-ha” sound as a man stalks outside Alice’s house. Alice is inside, dreaming of the ending of the previous film, where Mrs. Voorhees explains everything that happened in 1957 and 1958 and why she murdered all those counselors five years ago. Alice wakes up, and it’s probably not the first time she’s had nightmares about all that.

The phone rings and no one is there, so she locks her door what, just now? The kitchen window is open, which leads us to a feline jump scare. She opens the fridge and finds Mrs. Voorhees’s head inside. Someone sticks Alice in the head with an icepick. Credits roll.

A young couple comes to the town of Crystal Lake, and Crazy Ralph immediately warns them that they’re all doomed once again– is that his job in town? Down the street, someone tows away their truck as they talk on the phone. It’s just a prank. Ted got his truck buddy Max to make them run to his place.

The three young people drive down the road and find a chunk of tree blocking the way. She goes wandering in the woods while the menfolk move the log. She finds an old sign, “Camp Crystal Lake,” and Ted says they call it “Camp Blood” around here. Someone in the woods watches them. He follows them to the new camp, where all the new counselors are half undressed.

Terry, Vicky, Mark, and a whole bunch of generic others get introduced to the other new counselors at the “Packanack Lake Resort Counselor Training Center.” Ginny arrives late, and leader Paul chews her out about it; we see that they’re a couple too.

That night, around the campfire, Paul tells the others about Jason, who is supposed to be surviving in the wilderness, now full grown, living off wild animals. He’s become a local legend. He tells how Alice, the only survivor, went missing, and how Jason still stalks them all waiting for more revenge. “Five long years he’s been dormant,” Paul warns. He says it all creepy-like as a campfire tale, and then Ted jumps out of the woods and scares everyone. “Enough of that, Camp Crystal Lake is off-limits,” Paul insists.

As Ginny and Paul make out in her cabin, we see the footsteps of someone outside. It’s not who you think– it’s Crazy Ralph. Someone kills Crazy Ralph, who should have heeded his own warnings.

The next morning, Terry’s little dog Muffin goes missing. Jeff and his girlfriend Sandra decide to walk over to Camp Blood just so they can say they were there. They climb over the “No trespassing” sign, but we can see they’re already being followed. They find a mutilated dog, it must be Muffin, and they assume it was a wild animal that did it. Then they get a jump scare from a cop, who brings them right back to Paul.

The cop warns Paul that things have been quiet for five years, and that he thinks the new camp is just too close to the old one. As he leaves the camp, the cop spots someone suspicious crossing the road and pursues him on foot to a crazy little shack. That goes poorly for him.

That evening, some of the counselors go to town for a break, leaving most of the named characters behind. Terry goes looking for Muffin but decides to go skinny-dipping instead. She gets out and finds that Scott has stolen her shirt. She chases him into the woods, and he steps into an animal trap and hangs helplessly upside-down. While she looks for something to cut him down with, someone else cuts throat. Terry finds him, screams, and dies too.

Back in town, Ginny sympathizes with poor Jason, living in the woods all these years without his mother, but Ted and Paul insist that he’s just a legend.

In the camp, Mark says that he’s in a wheelchair because of a motorcycle accident. Soon after, he gets a machete in the head and rolls down the stairs to the woods. Inside the cabin, Jeff and Sandra are killed as well. Vickie comes in and finds the bodies along with the killer, who wears a burlap sack over his head; he kills her with a knife.

Paul and Ginny head back to camp, and it’s storming now. They don’t find anyone there, which is strange. Then Ginny finds the bed covered in blood, but there are no bodies. The hooded killer jumps on Paul, and Ginny runs to hide in the bathroom. That doesn’t work out, so she hides in the kitchen and finds Ralph’s body.

Ginny climbs out a window and runs for her old car which won’t start. There’s a bit of hide-and-seek between the two until she ends up in the old shed, where she finds Mrs. Voorhees’s severed head. Ginny puts on Mrs. Voorhees’s sweater and pretends to be her. She raises the machete just as Jason notices the head on the table behind her. Paul comes in out of nowhere and fights with Jason some more.

Ginny gets the machete and hacks Jason good, who falls over, probably dead. Paul wants her to leave, but she pulls his mask off. They are revolted by what they see, although we don’t see it. Paul then carries the injured Ginny back to their cabin.

There’s a sound at the door. Has Jason returned already? No! It’s Muffin the dog, who isn’t dead. Suddenly Jason jumps out and grabs Ginny, and we get a look at his face finally.

The next morning, they load Ginny into the back of an ambulance and take her away. We cut back to the desiccated head in Jason’s cabin…

Commentary

The killer wears a one-eyed burlap sack for a hood, not the later-iconic hockey mask. He also seems much more “human” and limited than in later films. They were still at least trying to be somewhat realistic in this one. We don’t know for sure that the killer is actually Jason until Ginny finds the head, but then we know it really is him.

This is actually pretty good. There’s not a lot of twists here, but it set the stage for everything that would happen in the next fifty sequels.

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