Hello dungeon crawlers, Slick Dungeon here! Well, it’s Friday the 13th once again and you know what that means! Yep, it means I will complain yet again that there are only 12 Friday the 13th movies. Give us one more! Not a reboot or a remake. How about a battle royale between Jason and all the final girls and boys? Alas, that’s probably not going to happen. But if you’re itching for even more Friday the 13th content there is the television series. It has… almost nothing to do with the movies. I reviewed the first season here. Friday the 13th the Series Season 2 continues the story of the first season while still allowing an anthology format. There are worse things you could watch. And better.
This not a show I highly recommend. It’s fun if you experienced it when it was out and if you are old enough to remember that, it’s a nice blast of nostalgia. But if you’ve never seen it, I recommend watching other, better horror shows first. One I can recommend is Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiousities. That one is a true anthology and there are some brilliant episodes in that one.
However, there are still some great practical effects here, a decent dose of gore (for a television show from the 1980s), and enough of a plot to keep the viewer interested. It can feel a bit repetitive as each episode is our team of Jack, Ryan and Micki hunting down a cursed artifact from the cursed store they inherited. It does allow us to meet new characters each episode and the premise changes. Some are more creative than others.
In this season there is a Phantom of the Opera knockoff episode, a pocket watch that can stop time, and a cursed key chain that will allow a racer to win races but at a cost. There’s even a strange radio that grants wishes… as long as you are willing to allow someone to die. And of course, in the background Uncle Lewis is still trying to come back to life and spread his evil throughout the world. The on again off again flirtation of Ryan and Micki also continues. Ryan seems to date a new girl every other episode but he gets super mad any time Micki has an interest in someone else. Plus they are cousins, by marriage they will have you know, so it gets complicated. And the heart of the show remains Jack who is sort of a Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer figure. He gets into the action a bit more than Giles tended to though.
If you have run out of other Friday the 13th material to watch on this Friday the 13th, well my first recommendation is to re-watch any of the movies. But if that has you bored, watch the fantastic documentary Crystal Lake Memories. If you have seen that and are still bored, then yeah go ahead and watch Friday the 13th the Series. It’s mildly enjoyable and it’s got some fun moments. Just don’t expect anything too amazing.
Watch out for black cats crossing your path today!
Superstitiously yours,
Slick Dungeon
