Ask me a Question: Friday the 13th special

My final post for the last Friday the 13th of the year, I'll be sharing my thoughts and speculations on some of the frequently asked as well as the least thought of, questions in the Friday the 13th Franchise!

Now please take in mind that these are personal speculations and may or may not reflect canons. So let's begin with:

Q1. Why did the bodies Jason possessed in Jason Goes to Hell melts after he body jumps out of them?

A: Once his body was destroyed, he needs to possessed random bodies from time to time to keep him stable enough until he gets to a body that shares the same genetics as his own as Crieghton Duke once explained that the bodies Jason jumps into gets diseased. So it's possible that Jason's soul, now revealed to be either demonic or influenced by demonic forces, might be too strong or two evil to be contained by any body. It could also be probable that Jason's soul, being pure evil, might be spreading a form of sickness to the bodies that causes rapid decomposition, despite their ability to withstand massive damage to a certain level.

Q2. Who really won in Freddy vs Jason?

A: No matter which script this movie adapts from, each one of them had them both ending their brawl with a tie. But let's try and look at this fight through franchising and time lines.

The film is both a sequel for both Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and the last one made so far before both films are remade into fair re-entries. But if we're gonna look at this through time line, Freddy vs Jason takes place years before Jason X, so Jason continued to exist after he got revived. Freddy, on the other hand, never had another movie so it's possible that Jason won the brawl and Freddy is stuck someplace.

Q3: Did Jason really killed the dog from The Final Chapter?

A: This is really a tough one to answer. For one, it's clearly obvious that Trish and Tommy's mutt was pulled away, but the next scene had it running through a window and seemingly falling to its death. Jason was once claimed to will never harm small children and animals. He could had done it to those sleeping children in Jason Lives but all he did was stare at one girl who watches him back and left the rest alone. Same goes to that tiny dog from Jason's debut in Friday the 13th part 2 (though, that is still debatable). So I can't really give a definitive answer for this one, as I'm just as puzzled as you guys are.

Let's look at one fact here: Jason has to run up to a window and toss Gordon the dog out a window but then, if he did, how did he got back to the basement without going past Trish and Rob?

Could Gordon be the first dog to commit suicide? Dun dun dun!....

Q4: If Jason melted in Jason takes Manhattan, how did he got back in Jason goes to Hell?

A: Let's recall how crazy Jason Takes Manhattan was: It had Jason teleporting in ninja stealth, unexplained illusions, dogs somehow getting down from ladders and Jason turning into a little boy after the toxic wastes drains down!

It's possible that Jason survived the melting and gets washed back (or get up and walked) to Crystal Lake since New York doesn't really pay much attention to pulpy masked freaks and all that shit those two New york lovers saw was from the gas in that toxic sludge. You can even tell that he's been toxic-washed by his melted-fused mask in Jason goes to Hell.

So yeah, apparently, he can survive anything...I think.

Q5: Is Jason really gone for good in Jason X?

A: The ending of Jason X had Uber-Jason going through atmospheric re-entry and seemingly immobulated through Earth's atmosphere until all that remains was his mask. But let's see some sci-fi facts here:

Jason was studied here to be remarkably regenerative; his body can repair damaged or lost tissue cells more effectively than any ordinary human can, probably due to his supernatural state.  Now, Jason was remade as Uber-Jason using cell-repairing nano machines, or nanites, wherein, out of a malfunctioning computer, they used the surrounding metal to make up for most of Jason's lost limbs, organs and head. But given the fact that the Nanites apparently can only do this to someone with a high chance of being revived, it means that Jason was still alive even after he was shot headless. That being the case, then there's a good chance he can still recover from the impact.


Second point is that Uber-Jason's is technically a cyborg made from a powerful alloy that can withstand bullet shots, massive explosions and even the strong pressure of space. Despite we can clearly see pieces of him being torn off during his re-entry, being remade partly metallic gives him a high chance of surviving this. (just think of those NASA space probes that sometimes come back in almost one piece, what are the odds Jason can end up like that, too and use his regenerating abilities to fix himself?)


A debatable notion can also come from one of the movie's scripted endings, wherein a hand shot down from the water to pick up Jason's masks. This was never shot and no clear indication was given to whether the hand was Jason's or not, the probability is still half and half that Jason lives...again.

Ask me a Question: Is Hellraiser a Slasher?

A lot of times, when I lurk around the web, I come across one or two slasher fans who count Hellraiser as their fave slasher flick. At times I wonder, I've been a Hellraiser fan for years, way before I was obsessed with slashers, before I was obsessed with kaiju flicks, and even way way WAY before I was obsessed with  zombie flicks (before they all go "fast" on us), but I never saw it. Where's the stalking? The build? I see murders, but they're not structured. Has Leviathan played his evil tricks on me again?

So last December as of writing this, I did a Hellraiser marathon with my DVDs, along with some buddies, and started listing the deaths (and the number of pizza we ordered); and I started to see...influences. So is it really a slasher film in disguise? Has my belief been shattered?

Not really, the whole franchise isn't as stalky and slashy as some people sees it. There's a few titles that have gone to this style but let me break it down to you all, film by film. (puts on smart glasses and pulls out a half-eaten apple)

Frank was the real monster in Hellraiser,
not the Cenobites

The very first Hellraiser film is certainly a hybrid. The fact that Julia and Frank, with all their murderous intentions, are the main antagonists here, the cenobites were more like wild animals who were just summoned there because our lead "heroine" accidentally solves the box (out of curiosity) and bargained with them. The film's structure follows a certain pattern commonly found in slasher flicks: a past event haunts the present, a killer returns (in this case, Frank returns and created a killer out of Julia), and the sprees start. The second half is where the whole supernatural concept took over, nearly discarding the structure immediately to give way to a more "epic" surrounding, Hell itself and the dogmas that its creatures follow, which is that no one escapes Leviathan and anyone who did must be taken back. The final product is indeed a half and half work, one part supernatural splatter film, and one part slasher flick; so far the film has its ways on being a slasher, but the fan's focus on the cenobites is a little more influential than the producers expected.

A Journey to Hell? Not slasher!

The second film, Hellbound,  was more epic in nature; now the leads have entered hell and the mythology of the film focuses more on the cenobites, their God Leviathan and their domain. That being said, it makes way to another killer, Dr. Channard, who was suddenly granted hellish powers as a cenobite by Leviathan himself, overpowering the spiritually weakened cenobites from the first. He has the making of a slasher killer, with weapons-attached tentacles slicing victims in pure slasher-like glory, but some the film's main emphasis was more on Julia. Note that during the climax, out of the six possible evil beings to survive, only Julia was shown without fatalities. The four cenobites was murdered by their new recruit, who in turn was accidentally killed by Leviathan when he undergoes transfiguration; Clive Barker's main idea here was to shape Julia into one of the many female slasher killers, hence the cenobite's physical forms being killed off and Julia's still trapped in hell.

Messy, but no, the structure's completely gone.

Unfortunately, Pinhead's popularity was more overwhelming than Julia's, thus leading to the second epic entry, Hell on Earth. Here, Pinhead becomes the main baddie and lost the belief of order since that part of his soul was taken away upon his physical death. The film took a more grand nature, dishing slasher film inspired killings and basically just placing them in a supernatural trapping. But the structure is completely gone. Pinhead's take on world domination was more of a super-villain thing and none of this is befits the slasher taste. It was in here that the series began to wander off to a more epic settings, taken to ridiculous heights in the next flick, Bloodline.

Bloodline has its moments of slasher tropes; the first generation flashback certainly proved this, but when it moved to the second generation flashback, the murders were few, only a couple to satisfy some urges from Pinhead's new pet, Chatterbeast, as the whole emphasis of it was more on Pinhead's attempt to bring Hell on Earth (again). The "present" story of the film, taking place in the future, had the slasher structure. Stalk and kill, one by one murders, committed by Pinhead's new cronies all before they were banished to Oblivion and what might have been the end of the whole franchise.

It took 300 years or something just for them to do the killings.

After this, the franchise goes low into video, featuring a wide variety of mythos and structures from pure slasher film to murder mystery.

Inferno and it's mindfucks.

Inferno was more of a psychological thriller, a neo-noir of sorts where a man tries to solve some unexplained murders committed by a figure called "The Engineer". The cenobites hardly appears here in this entry. In fact, starting from this movie, the cenobites weren't as big a focus as before and they nearly appear only in minutes just like the first film. The sixth entry, and by far one of my favorites, known as Hellseeker took a neo-giallo style of story telling, marks the return of Kirsty but really involves more of her husband coping from his wife's sudden disappearance and solving the mystery of what might had caused it. All the while, he suffers visions of monstrous nature and wakes up finding, one by one, his acquaintances being murdered. Personally, it's a decent entry and does the slasher friendly sub-genre with much thought and imagination, if it wasn't for the low-budget.

Hellseeker also does mindfucks, only more bearable and it works.

I don't even know what to call Deader, but it sure took a hint
to where this franchise is going.

The next film, Deader, which is by far the second worse, took psychological to a more extreme measure, almost surreal. It's definitely noir, but the plot's too convulsed for enjoyment and in the end, the low-budget of the film shines all through out. This strikes of low-budgetary continues with it's laziest and by far the most mediocre entry, Hellworld, which is the first and the only film in the series to tackle the slasher structure by heart. While it still has the psychological nature, the cenobites no longer just stand behind and summon weapons to sic at their victims, but they instead work by hand and murders their targets with much savagery as any slasher would. Sadly, this also marks the franchise's deprivation of idea and the film literally just killed the series' credibility as resulting film is pretty basic and uninspired. Revelation marks the return of the series, but it hardly even matters. Doug Bradley's gone, the new guy's an amateur by comparison and the plot hardly even made a dent as it only redo what we already seen and know.

Hellworld? or Hellslashers?

Yikes. Dimensions, end it now. Please!

So what did I learn from all this? The franchise is obviously for a wide arrays of horror fans whether what genre they love the most, they can't go wrong with a Hellraiser movie or at least the first four. It certainly has it's stalk and slash moments, but judging from its nature, it's more of a supernatural splatter flick all in all. The first Hellraiser might as well be the only entry to tackle the genre and did it right, but as for the rest, it's something I would like to call slasher-friendly films, something messy and red, something any slasher fans would enjoy shamelessly outside their fave horror sub-genre.

So there you have it! Til' next time, mates, as I tackle more of horror cinema's hidden and long debated questions!

Ask me a Question: Is Patrick Bateman Really Dead?

For long, we slasher fans, or any horror fans out there, may know and accept that the charismatic, serial slasher yuppie Patrick Bateman is dead. Killed off in a snap of a finger at the hands of a little brat who would later grow up to be an FBI agent moonlighting as a serial killer.

By then, many of us are likely devastated by the results of what would later follow. Hell, that little bitch couldn't hold the flame to what the real American Psycho had done. Hell, she's not even hot! (Gemma Ward is Hot. Pamela Springsteen is Hot. Amber Heard is hot. Her? Not...just annoying) Everything that the first worked up, reduced to standard, stereotyped slasher that offers very little and done a lot of things done before. (Way better before...)

But the more I starts to dwell in the fact that Bateman is dead, the more I begin to have an epiphany, a revelation of sorts. So I beg to question: Is Bateman really dead?

The Thousand Yard stare...

Look at it this way, at the first movie, Bateman hold many aliases such as Paul Allen and Marcus Halberstram, all of it he hated since he claims that the people who call him those names always mistook him for another person. Soon enough, he murdered the real Paul Allen, hacking his face with an axe while dancing to Huey Lewis' Hip to be Square. After disposing the body, he was left unsuspected of a crime by pretty much everybody as he simply claims that Paul left for London. Later in the film, his psychosis starts to break down to a small-time massacre, shooting number of innocent citizens, an action of which he described in full detail (along with many other killings) to a lawyer over the phone.

The next morning, he met up with his lawyer, who claims it was a joke and mistook Patrick for someone named Davis. Patrick breaks down further, trying to convince the massacre was real, but his lawyer claims to had seen Paul Allen in London and has talked to him. In addition to this, his personal assistant saw a number of detailed drawings of every murder and taboo he committed.

"TRY GETTING THAT RESERVATION IN DORSIA NOW YOU
STUPID, FUCKING, BASTARD!"

Now, if we're going to put the book's context into this, where the later chapters seems to be more and more delusional, we could assume that it was all in his head and Bateman didn't commit any of the crimes. Not to mention the number of times he had been mistaken for other people. If this is the case, then what are the odds that Patrick Bateman being the real "Patrick  Bateman"? What if Christian Bale's character is actually just modeling himself to a REAL serial killer, who goes by the name "Patrick Bateman" and just fantasized himself committing these murders and taboos? I mean Christian Bale's character talked a lot about serial killers like Ed Gein and Charles Manson, what are the odds that Bateman, the real Bateman is a separate entity? Who's just as real and fatal as Bale's character.

For all we know, he's psychologically imbalanced and is a ticking-time bomb himself, it would be a matter of time before he starts committing his own brand of murders. All the while, we have another case; In 2002, we have the sequel to this film, smaller in budget and in imagination, about one Rachael Newman attending a university for Behavioral Science, aiming to be an assistant to a beloved professor who she looks up to. Well, it was all peachy-peach until she starts watering down the competition, not to mention unearthing a scandal. She had her own brand of murder and mayhem at the end, but she's actually made infamous for many fans by one act of sin...SHE KILLED BATEMAN! THAT BITCH!

Okay, okay, personal issues aside, We get to see how the sin was committed: Rachael was very young when her babysitter brought home a date, unknown to her was really Patrick Bateman. Just as Bateman began to eviscerate his new victim, Rachael escapes and sticked an ice pick into her captor's head. He dead. Rachael lives and soon all hell broke loose.

Now, we could all assume that, due to budget restrains, the sequel hired another face to play as Bateman, who now wears a mask as he commits his crime, but we could also look at it this way: this is the real Patrick Bateman. The real serial killer. the face Christian Bale's character idolizes so much. If this is the case, then Bateman, the real Bateman, is killed by a brat. Bale's character, Bateman's number one fan, is still alive and probably devastated by this fact and would go into further psychosis which would lead to a full blown serial killing, all the while Rachel got away with it and is now an FBI agent.

That, or the old story: Bale's character is really Bateman and he finally worked up the guts to commit murders one day, plastic surgeries his face into a different one to avoid suspicion and, after so long, made his first mistake and bit the big one at the hands of a six year old.

Then again, this is just a theory. It's up to the fans of the first, and if any, of the second, to conclude whether this notion is probable or improbable.

So there you have it! Til' next time, mates as I tackle more of horror cinema's hidden and long debated questions!