Five Fine Friday the 13th Fan Films

We haven’t seen a new Friday the 13th film since 2009, and we may never see one again amid ongoing legal battles for the franchise’s domestic rights. But that hasn’t stopped Friday the 13th’s faithful fandom from expanding the Crystal Lake mythology. Friday freaks have churned out hundreds of independently made fan films, long and short in duration, most of which can be found on YouTube. Let what follows serve as a machete, of sorts, to help you slice through that dense forest of Friday the 13th fan films, getting right to the choicest spots on Crystal Lake.

1. To Hell and Back is the Ur-text of Friday the 13th fan films. Made by a group of Pennsylvania teens in 1995, the film is rare among fan efforts in that it is feature length. Much of that runtime is used effectively. The editing and cinematography are generally decent, and the lake exteriors look true to the franchise. As its title would suggest, To Hell and Back picks up where Jason Goes to Hell left off. The plot is set in motion when a goth twelfth-grader summons Jason from the dead with some Necronomicon-styled chanting. The ultra-cheap filmmaking gives To Hell and Back something of a grindhouse feel, fully realizing the exploitation spirit that obviously spurred the original Friday the 13th but was never fully realized due to Paramount’s backing. The kills are convincing, for the most part, and the director, David B. Stewart III, displays an unmistakable flare for depicting murder. The occasionally draggy plot is more than made up for with the well-conceived and well-choreographed final fight scene. The lakeside denouement succeeds at synthesizing both Part 1 and Jason Goes to Hell, making for one of the finest scenes in any Friday the 13th fan film. You can watch the film here.
2. Friday the 13th: Repetition was filmed on Canada’s pacific coast, and it benefits from trashy, Western-Canadian sensibilities, taking a schlocky, mirthful approach to the material. The script features some truly good one-liners, such as the quip offered by the South Asian camper who is skeptical of his Caucasian friends’ idea to go into the woods looking for Jason: “This is what white people do.” The film’s standout is the Crazy Ralph analogue, a rubber-faced gagster who really doesn’t look or sound like Crazy Ralph and is better off for it. At one point, he uses a straw to drink from a bandaged wound on his hand. With the cinema-vérité camerawork and the occasional, purposeful graininess, director Joseph Choi imbues Friday the 13th with a House of 1000 Corpses vibe. In this way, the film smacks more heavily of early Rob Zombie directorial efforts than it does of Friday the 13th. Repetition is worth watching for a few good laughs, as it does not take itself too seriously — which is, surprisingly enough, rare among Friday the 13th fan films. Watch it here.
3. Camp Crystal Lake is a small feat of guerilla fan-filmmaking. The short film was purportedly made in one night, but watching it, you’d think it took considerably more time and effort. Though there’s very little story here beyond a “Mr. K” having purchased the titular camp with hopes of fixing it up, there are lots of lovely visuals. The director, Rickey Bird, found some prime abandoned camp locations, to which the editors have overlaid various augmentations, including on-the-fly VHS tracking fixups. Perhaps the finest piece of cinematography in all the Friday the 13th fandom is Camp Crystal Lake’s shot of Jason in a meadow in the moonlight, looking confused. The female lead, one Erica Morgan, is possessed of an almost translucent prettiness and a pixyish voice, making her unforgettable among fan film leading ladies. When she (mild spoiler alert here) finds Mr. K’s corpse and squawks “Mr. K! Holy f***!” it is one of the most lovely and unvarnished moments in any Friday the 13th fan film. Camp Crystal Lake also clears up some questions circling around Jason’s sexuality. The final image (another mild spoiler alert) has Jason taking an incapacitated Erica Morgan back into the lake as a prize, of sorts, suggesting that the hockey-masked maniac is moving towards a more distinctly heteronormative sexuality. Don’t let these spoilers deter you from watching Camp Crystal Lake: it’s an atmospheric achievement that makes for eight minutes enjoyably spent. Watch it here.
4. Never Hike Alone is the Citizen Kane of Friday the 13th fan films. It has professional production values, thanks to the painstaking efforts of Womp Stomp Films. The film tells the story of a hiker equipped with a GoPro who stumbles upon the old Crystal Lake camp and, with that, Jason Voorhees. The film really captures the isolation effectively, feeling at times like a cinematic rendering of Algernon Blackwood’s story “The Wendigo.” Near the end, as the plot appears to be resolving itself, we see some truly surreal shots, taking the franchise to cinematic places the canonical films never dared to approach. The filmmakers got Thom Mathews to step back into the role of Tommy Jarvis, lending Never Hike Alone an authenticity few other fan films have. More amazingly than that, Never Hike Alone even managed to get a Blu-Ray release, which is truly mind-boggling given all the concerns around copyright related to this franchise. It has even spawned a sequel, Never Hike in the Snow. But with all that being said, the film’s Jason, played by director Vincente Disanti, lacks presence, being too reedy in stature to feel truly substantial. And so, while Never Hike Alone is the most famous of the Friday the 13th fan films, it is not the best. Watch it here.
5. Our search for the finest Friday the 13th fan film needn’t go any further than The Hunt for Jason, a triumph of minimalism and movement. The film grips its viewer by the throat from the get-go and holds steady at full throttle until its finish. There is little if any dialogue. Rather, The Hunt for Jason is all about meticulously choreographed action sequences. In fact, its brisk runtime plays out more like an extended fight scene, or perhaps even a brutal ballet. A Special Ops soldier seeks out and confronts Jason, and now the two trade an assortment of blows and grapples while parrying one another’s attacks. This film’s Jason is styled after Richard Brooker’s performance in Part 3, and the actor portraying the hockey-masked maniac realizes the shambling gait, the hanging arms, and the knuckle-dragging impeccably. The actor playing the Spec Ops guy isn’t so bad either. The two complement one other so compellingly, you almost forget they are both teenagers. Together, they’ve come up with some virtuoso sequences that culminate in a few undeniably cinematic moments. All members of the cast and crew should have careers in films or gaming. Of course, The Hunt for Jason is not perfect, but some of its superficial flaws are forgivable. For instance, it’s mostly set in a desiccated Southern California backyard, but this departure from the standard lake setting is not to its disadvantage. The Hunt for Jason is about claustrophobic, non-stop action, and it delivers that in full. Any description provided here will do little justice to the kinesthetic brilliance the players in Hunt for Jason embody. Fire it up here on YouTube, and be awed.

If you’re a Friday the 13th fan, any of these fan films will make for a nice little vacation in the Crystal Lake biome. Indeed, this author gives his personal guarantee that all of the above films are more watchable than Jason X and Jason Takes Manhattan.