It’s
the eternal questions we ask ourselves – why are we here? What is our purpose? Why
am I not watching Friday The 13th: The Series, an underrated
treasure and unfairly forgotten television classic? You are out of excuses not to
befriend Micki, Jack, and Ryan, so I’ve listed just a few of the reasons you
should watch one of the most creative, fun, insane, and overlooked
shows ever to hit the airwaves.
It’s free on
Amazon Prime.
That’s right, if you are an Amazon Prime subscriber, all three seasons are
complete and totally free. If you aren’t, you can easily buy all three seasons
for around $15 each. That’s less than a dollar an episode to see what happens with all of the cursed antiques that Uncle Lewis sold. You know those
cornrows you were going to have put in your hair this weekend? Spend your money
on these DVDs instead. You’ll be happier and won’t look like Juliette Lewis at
the 1992 Oscars.
Ryan’s sweaters. Ryan Dallion
was a champion of men’s cardigans, only rivaled by the great Mr. Rogers. From
his nautical-themed anchor sweater in “The Pirates Promise” to the
yellow-and-black front, skating-scene back in “Scarecrow” (at least that’s what
it looked like to me, although it also looked like Santa or the leg lamp from “A
Christmas Story”), Ryan wore his sweaters loud and proud. There was no time to
have Tim Gunn question his fashion choices, he had to stop evil and stay warm
in those Canadian winters!
Nostalgia. Ever long for a
simpler time, when Mom-and-Pop video stores were open and you listened to
Debbie Gibson’s “Electric Youth” cassette on your Sony walkman? Micki, Ryan,
and Jack had to look things up – in books! – to find out information. There was
no Google to light their path. All the detective work they did, researching and
locating the cursed antiques, was done without cell phones, GPS, iPods,
Instagram, Facebook, the pony express, MapQuest, or whatever new-fangled
contraptions we have at our disposal today. It was a different time, before we
gave trophies to everyone just for participating; when the world’s most famous
robot wasn’t Wall-E but Vicki from “Small Wonder.”
There are some
terrifying episodes.
Because of its syndicated nature and late-night airing, the show flew under the
radar of the censors for awhile, resulting in a more than a few
nightmare-inducing episodes. The titular monster in “Scarecrow” is ghastly and horrifying.
The talking-and-stalking Veda doll of “The Inheritance” will make you throw away
your Betsy Wetsy collection. The apiary in “The Sweetest Sting” is nowhere
you’d want to be captured. The ghoulish Negleys in “The Long Road Home” own the
creepiest farmhouse this side of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. These are just
some of the examples of the horrible baddies and boogeymen that Micki, Ryan,
and Jack had to face. Jessica Fletcher never had to battle a scythe-wielding
scarecrow in “Murder, She Wrote” to solve a mystery, although I suspect Angela
Lansbury could secretly be a ninja assassin quite capable of smacking a scarecrow
down.
Each episode
(and antique) has its own backstory. Whereas the running theme of the show
was the retrieval of the cursed antiques, there were very few rules for each --
don’t get them wet, don’t feed them after midnight, and don’t expose them to
bright lights. No, wait, that’s the Gremlins. Either way, the antiques were
only bound by the rules that they were evil and could not be physically
destroyed. But each individual curse and story was unique. Sometimes the person
it belonged to was already evil; other times, they were taken over by it,
perhaps to gain something they wanted. The villains weren’t always cold-blooded
and unsympathetic, like Rachel in “Crippled Inside” or Leslie in “What a Mother
Wouldn’t Do”. Some curses were very specific to the user, while others could
easily change hands and it wouldn’t matter. But the writers took the time to craft
thoughtful backstories to what those curses were and how they affected their
owner.
It’s ahead of
its time. Do
you enjoy mystery, suspense, gore, characters you can root for, and bloody
special effects? Welcome, we have all that here. Before the great Mulder and
Scully, the loyal Buffy gang, and the criminally-underrated “She-Wolf of
London”, Micki, Jack, and Ryan worked this beat -- not “beat” as in a DeBarge
video, but like a detective would say it; there were no choreographed dance
sequences here. The episodes had a formula based on questions – what is the
cursed object, who has it, where can they find it, and how do they get it back? Rinse and repeat. There
weren’t shows about the supernatural at the time, especially ones featuring
graphic violence and references to the occult. This show paved the way for the
ones that followed, whether it’s acknowledged or not. Kind of like how my
elderly neighbor Mr. Costello always farts in the elevator but then doesn’t
acknowledge it. I know it was you, Mr. Costello! Okay, that’s a terrible
example, but you get where I’m going with this. Friday the 13th: The Series deserves credit for paving the way for the 1990s mystery-supernatural
hybrid shows, and it never once farted in an elevator.
Helen Mackie. There is no more
amazing character in the history of the world. Sorry, Kindergarten Cop and Dr.
Giggles, you don’t get to be number one anymore. Helen shows up in “Vanity’s
Mirror” -- all pimples and bad attitude and sour demeanor. She has a sweet
sister that she doesn’t appreciate, all the while coveting her sister’s beau.
Oh, and she owns a cursed vanity that makes men fall madly in love with her;
then she kills them with about as much thought as she’d give to having Bill and
Ted’s Excellent Cereal for breakfast. You have not experienced the true joy and
horror of the late 1980s until you see Helen in her prom dress. Michael
Bolton’s Christmas album won’t seem so scary anymore once you’ve lived through
that.
Remember
to think twice about buying that used door stopper on Craiglist or those
antique toothpicks on eBay. Uncle Lewis might have owned them first.
Go
– right now – and find these episodes and experience the magic, wonder, and
awesomeness that you have been missing all these years. Don’t come back until
you are at least halfway through the first season. Good day, sir or ma’am. I
said good day!
