Director: Steve Miner
Year: 1981
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Reopening a summer camp to train counselors, a group of teens out in the woods finds a local legend about a deranged serial killer to be true when someone begins killing them one-by-one and must get out of the camp alive.
Review:
This turned out to be one of the greatest of the sequels and is one of the best in the franchise. What really works here for this one is the rather fun and simple back-story here, giving this a great set-up that's really worthwhile in generating a fine slasher epic. The fact that the introduction to the campers here at first which isn't a rather bland, boring set-up that's actually rather fun instead is a big part of that, and when mixed with the effectively eerie stories about the legacy of the area and it's grizzly history in just the right doses this here is incredibly fun.
Once the main slashing section starts off, there's a lot more fun here as the film gets in some outstanding chasing and stalking sequences, from the sheriff running through the woods towards the abandoned camp after the shadowy figure, encountering the couple searching in the woods and then to the highlight offerings of the slaughter against the campers where this one piles on a series of incredibly brutal, clever kills that are real show-stopping moments with the most noteworthy a machete slammed into a paraplegic's face and forced to roll down three flights of stairs backward as such, though on the whole the deaths are truly fun and thrilling.
Likewise, the few notable acting roles are incredibly well-done. Amy Steel emerges as one of the finest final girls in the scene as Ginny, who's a strong, resource and above-all intelligent person in her charming role. Given brains as well as her beauty with how she concocts an effective plan in the finale to stop Jason, her calm and level-headed rationale makes for perhaps the most memorable character in the series after Jason. John Furey as head counselor Paul is somewhat of a blank slate against Ginny, with his by-the-book routine and one-note scolding that tends to erupt whenever he's around others. However, Warrington Gillette is one of the finest Jason's in the franchise, athletic and imposing while effectively conveying the emotional output required in the gripping finale. The rest of the cast is the usual disposable cannon fodder for the killer.
There's little to appease, though, of the rather exciting and thrilling final chase here which is one of the best and most thrilling chases in the entire genre as there's so much action spread throughout the scene as the chase rages through camp, out into the woods, throughout the cabins and finally back to the old campsite in a lengthy, scary sequence that gets quite fun not only for the surprisingly smart battle tactics use to try to escape while in the woods but also for the sequence of events in the cabin at the end where the psychology utilized to hold that whole scene together is a clever, unique and totally original idea that's wonderfully played off here. These here hold this one up quite well as there's not a whole lot of flaws.
The biggest issue here is the rather lengthy and wholly unnecessarily long intro here, which takes up fifteen minutes of time not only offering a recount of the previous film's finale but also with her rambling about the apartment and it could really use a trim to make it less lengthy. Along with the repetition of plot elements from the first film, it's all that's really wrong here as there's much more to like.
Overview: *****/5
One of the all-time best entries in the genre and easily one of the series as well, this is highly enjoyable as being one of the all-time greatest entries overall. See this one immediately if you're even remotely concerned about the genre or the franchise as a whole, while those who aren't even slightly into this one should give it a chance.
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