Friday the 13th: Part 2

Picking up five years after the original film, Friday the 13th: Part 2 follows a whole new group of camp counselors as they arrive at Crystal Lake and are subsequently murdered by Warrington Gillette’s Jason. Though it opens with a series of fairly needless flashbacks, Friday the 13th: Part 2 quickly segues into a surprisingly suspenseful pre-credits sequence detailing the doomed exploits of Friday the 13th survivor Alice (Adrienne King). Once that’s out of the way, however, the movie establishes itself as an all-too-typical slasher whose problems are compounded by an incongruously deliberate pace – with the less-than-engrossing atmosphere highlighting the narrative’s absence of compelling characters. Filmmaker Steve Miner admittedly does a nice job of infusing the proceedings with bursts of agreeable style, and there are a handful of appreciatively brutal kill sequences sprinkled throughout the 87 minute running time. But the final stretch, which predictably involves a tedious pursuit through overly dark environs, ensures that Friday the 13th: Part 2 ends on a decidedly underwhelming note, with the film ultimately right in line with its passable yet far-from-memorable predecessor.

** out of ****