His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th

"His Name Was Jason" is a recount of all of the "Friday the 13th" movies with some of the actors, directors, writers, and producers. It's a gory walk down memory lane. You get to learn some trivia such as when Kane Hodder became Jason Voorhees, when Jason donned the hockey mask, and the fact his name was going to be Josh. Mostly, it's many of the various participants giving their take on Jason, the franchise, and what it all meant.

Free on YouTube.

Now that I've watched every Friday 13th movie I can confidently say that though they are certainly entertaining and undoubtedly genre defining they really aren't for the most part that good.

This documentary does not really follow the movies per say, its more about Jason himself and bounces around across his 12 outings at random through interviews with both cast, creators and celebrity fans.

Sadly for a documentary it really isn't very enlightening, it recycles information you'll already know if you've seen the films and the interviews are surprisingly tame.

A few revelations came up regarding difficulties in production and censorship issues but outside of that I was very unimpressed.

Kudos to Tom Savini for playing host but truth be told the whole thing felt extremely rushed. How do you make a documentary about such an iconic household name that spanned 12 movies in one 90 minutes documentary?

For Friday 13th fans I'd say this is a logical watch, for everyone else I'd pass.

The Good:

Tom Savini hosts

A few interesting tit bits

The Bad:

Feels like an advert for the 2009 remake

Comes across as rushed

Very little new content

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The twins from part 4 are even dumber in real life than they were in the movie

If you grew up watching these films, you will be pleasantly surprised to see many faces you probably won't recognize, all characters from each film. Love him or hate him, Jason became THE face for horror slashers. Such a great piece of work bringing everyone back together to celebrate Mr. Voorhees life...or um death. Tons of extras, even $5 bucks off the remake which comes out next week. This documentary will sit beside each Friday film, proudly. Don't worry about cheap edited shots or school room interviews. Nothing is edited here, you see most of the deaths again from every film. Don't worry about this being nothing but a rehash of the films as a cheap way to fill minutes. You get interviews with every Jason actor, the victims, they go back to certain sets and key locations. This documentary is pieced together very well, and will be something to watch over and again just like all your favorites. I imagine this being a staple on the Sci-fi channel every Halloween for the next 10+ years easily.

I was about to enjoy this documentary at least as much as I loved the 20 minutes bonus featurette on the first DVD edition of "Friday the 13th" Part 1. Alas, even if it has some irresistible elements (Tom Savini tremendous hosting, all the cast and crew reunited, occasional nice info...) I began to get quite irritated by some pretty obvious flaws half way through:

what is it all about this horrible and distracting heavy metal score endlessly spoiling the viewer's pleasure? It sounded as if I had an inconsiderate neighbor having his stereo playing out loud just to p*** me off.

At times, I could also get fed up with the bloody effects systematically interrupting the interviewee just when he or she was about to tell us something interesting.

Will anyone tell me what guideline exactly the editor used to do his work? It is as if the interviews had been put together pretty much at random, for all I could understand.

Finally, the last 10 minutes outrageously promoting the so called remake recently released (which I didn't much like by the way, but that's another story!) was the last straw.

And I ended up almost hating what I was bound to love in the first place. So paradoxically, I put 5/10 because the good elements just couldn't be overlooked. But, please Mr Farrands, try to be a little more modest next time. YOU'RE NOT the interesting part of the show, the SUBJECT IS. Be a little more at the service of it, not the contrary. When you get that, try and make another documentary.

In 1980, a little film called 'Friday the 13th' was released and it changed the horror genre forever. Now, thirty years later, director Daniel Garrands has gathered some of the most important members of the 'Friday the 13th' crew. . . and some random people (like the dude from 'Psych' (?)). . . to discuss the series as it is, was, and will be.

Approaching a documentary like this and giving it a review is difficult. The main reason is because, well, it's just not all THAT informative. The majority of the film is made up of the opinions of cast & crew & random useless people. The main plus of the film, as with many of his horror films, is Tom Savini. As the host, he commands the typical creepiness with the mixed-in humour well. He's a good relief when the sloppy editing and occasionally trite discussions get to be too much. . . luckily, that doesn't happen a whole lot. Technically, the documentary does look a little cheap. I liked that Savini's scenes take place at the Universal Studios Horror Nights set for Jason, and the effects they used during his scenes were quite fun. However, the other Powerpoint-ish effects used for title cards and name tags were a little low-grade. As said previously, there really isn't that much information that a fan of the series won't know. This lack of information really puts the documentary in a weird purgatory. . . there's not enough information to make it informative for the casual viewer and there's not enough new stuff for a hardcore fan (like myself). I would've liked to see some more behind-the-scenes segments showing the productions of the various films, or maybe revisit more sets (they did once) to show us how the places are now. It was nice, however, to see a gathering of the old stars and crew, but the most entertaining parts with them weren't shown until the credits when they were all repeating their most famous lines and having fun. Also, it seemed that the majority of them were treading lightly as to not insult anyone (though I did like when one person comments on 'Jason Goes to Hell' as his not having a clue what the plot was (because, really, who the hell did?)). Overall, the documentary is entertaining and a good watch for both casual viewers and hardcore ones, but there's not enough for either group to make it great. Is it worth the $14 that it's currently listed at? Not the movie itself, but the features might be worth a look.

Final verdict: 7/10.

-AP3-