Last year, I amused myself at the expense of my entire readership by wasting dedicating my entire summer to a comparative study of the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street film series. It was a resounding success; at amusing me, anyway, if not necessarily at adding to the world’s compendium of cinema scholarship. Except for Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. That was hard to get through. And really, so was Friday the 13th, Part 3D. Yeah, and Jason X.
The point being: because I am a fool like none other, I’m doing it again. Since I already looked at the two most important slasher franchises in history, it made sense to hop right over to the third and fourth most important: Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. And here there is a significant difference from last year.
Of the eighteen films comprising the F13 and Nightmare franchises, the very best among them (Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street) still isn’t any more than an exceptionally good scary movie. In contrast, the first films in each of this summer’s series (at least; I haven’t seen any of the others, but I do not hear good things) are straight-up great cinema, forget the genre, forget everything other than the fact that this is top-drawer filmmaking, period. Which means that the heights are higher and the falls will be all the steeper because of it, and that of course means that the blogger will be all the crankier.
Here is the schedule I hope to keep. You’ll notice there’s no big finale like last year; thank God, nobody has managed to cram Leatherface and Michael Myers into the same plot yet.
5/31 – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
6/7 – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
6/14 – Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3
6/21 – Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
6/28 – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
7/5 – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
7/12 – Halloween (1978)
7/19 – Halloween II
7/26 – Halloween III: Season of the Witch
8/2 – Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
8/9 – Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
8/16 – Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
8/23 – Halloween H20
8/30 – Halloween: Resurrection