The Friday the 13th Series

Yesterday was Friday the 13th, and I took the opportunity to maximise my school holidays by sitting down with a few beers to watch the entirety of the Friday the 13th slasher series. Well, the first eight films at least: I left out Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X, Freddy vs Jason and the execrable…

Attack of the 50 Ft Cheerleader (2012)

The modern trends of B-movie production are on full display in the “they-thought-of-the-title-and-went-from-there” flick Attack of the 50 Ft Cheerleader. It features a handful of D-list celebrities like Sean Young, Treat Williams and Ted Raimi in “starring roles” that were obviously filmed in a day; each is occasionally entertaining but primarily depressing. There’s the now-necessary…

Hatchet II (2011)

Story: Hatchet II retells and reconfigures Victor Crowley’s origin story, which seems fitting given the recasting of MaryBeth (the first film’s Final Girl) and the way its chief inspiration, the Friday the 13th series, would reinvent Jason Voorhees with each sequel. The main plotline is a double-edged revenge story (for MaryBeth and Victor) which is…

Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010)

“Human life was cheap. Film was cheap. It was a great place to make a picture.” Machete Maidens Unleashed! is Mark Hartley’s follow-up to his debut, Not Quite Hollywood, which was an oral history of Australian exploitation (“Ozploitation”) films. Similarly, Machete Maidens is an entertaining romp through B-movie history, now focusing on films made in…