Friday The 13th: 5 Moments From The Franchise That Are So Bad They’re Hilarious (& 5 That Are Just Plain Bad)

Starting as a simple knock-off of John Carpenter’s Halloween, Friday The 13th exploded into a mega horror franchise. This franchise consisted of nine sequels, a crossover with Freddy Krueger, and a reboot in 2009 for a total of twelve movies. It’s true that big things have small beginnings.

As always, when a horror franchise continues to milk itself across so many movies, it results in many different directions and styles. In some cases, the Friday The 13th movies would get so ridiculous and downright silly that it created some laugh-out-loud moments, as well as some painfully bad moments.

10 Hilarious: Uber Jason – Jason X

To be fair, Jason X does not take itself seriously at all. It was meant to be a just-for-fun entry of the Friday The 13th series set in space. That’s why Jason X is a rather divisive film for the fanbase. What is also divisive is the new Jason Voorhees. Kane Hodder returned for the last time to play Jason, and his first form is already odd.

However, in the second half after being blown to bits, he is repaired by nanotechnology which turns him into Uber Jason. The idea of a cyborg Jason is not a bad one, but all the cybernetics are clearly nothing more than glossy plastic and everything gets so crazy and over the top with Uber Jason that it’s impossible to not laugh.

9 Plain Bad: Fake Jason – Friday The 13th Part V: The New Beginning

Jason Voorhees was killed in Part IV, but the Friday The 13th movies were still making money. So, Part V: The New Beginning went for a mystery angle as a Jason Voorhees lookalike starts killing. Is it Jason’s ghost? A zombie? Or is it an imposter?

Well, in the end, the identity is revealed to be Roy Burns, a paramedic that only appeared a couple of times. Many felt this was just a weak twist since the character was hardly established, and it’s never explained how he knows who Jason is and how he created a perfect disguise of him.

8 Hilarious: Oh My God, Oh My God – Friday The 13th Part 3

Friday The 13th Part 3 was how many iconic things from the series got introduced. Sadly, it still features some less than stellar moments, and one of them comes from Chili Jachson. The character was already intolerable to begin with, but things turn laughable when she discovers her friends are all dead.

Chili starts running through the house frantically and crying out in fear. The delivery of her lines is so terrible, especially when she starts yelling out, “Oh my god.” Fans have mocked the acting to death; even her death in the scene gets a chuckle due to the nonchalant way she reacts to it.

7 Plain Bad: The Not-So Three Dimensional Stuff – Friday The 13th Part 3

Before it was a very expensive gimmick in the 2010s, 3D was a very cheap gimmick in the 1980s. Several horror movies attempted to use it, and one of them was the third Friday The 13th. As a result, there are many shots of characters throwing items at the screen or pointing towards the camera.

If there was an actual 3D effect going on, it would be forgiven. Unfortunately, the majority of home releases do not have said effect. So as a result, most of the scenes featuring characters and Jason himself pandering to the 3D just makes things feel awkward and out of place.

6 Hilarious: Motorcycle Death – Friday The 13th Part V: A New Beginning

A New Beginning features a backwoods country foul-mouthed woman named Ethel. The character is one of the few highlights, because she’s basically like a live-action cartoon character. The apple did not fall far from the tree with her son Phillip too, as he has a tantrum while riding the motorcycle.

The angle in which they film him riding and his screams are already enough to provide a giggle. It goes full-blown comedy when the killer’s cleaver just pops into view from behind a tree and the head is taken off perfectly.

5 Plain Bad: Jason Takes A Boat – Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Anybody who was intrigued by Jason Voorhees in New York City was very disappointed. A majority of Part VIII takes place on the boat that goes between Camp Crystal Lake and New York. In fact, there is only a single sequence in the entire movie that was filmed in New York City.

So, the title of the movie is a big lie. Is it still a fun slasher? Well, no. Most of the boring runtime takes place on the boat but due to having an extremely low budget and because of the MPAA’s constant tampering, most of the slasher elements are rather bland.

4 Hilarious: The Boxing Match – Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

One of the few kills of Part VIII that works despite the MPAA is the most famous one of the film. Julius is trapped on a rooftop with Jason Voorhees; rather than the typical victim who runs, likely trips, and cowers as he is killed, Julius fights back.

Julius actually goes in and lays out several hits on Jason: he even makes Jason stumble back a bit. However, it is still Jason, and all it does is wear Julius out. Julius just accepts his fate and with one single punch, Julius’ head is knocked clean off and falls right into a garbage container. It’s ridiculous, hilarious, and a bit amazing at the same time.

3 Plain Bad: Jason Is A Slug – Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday

As a whole, Jason Goes To Hell remains one of the more baffling entries in the series. One of the reasons for this is because it ditches the zombie killer in a hockey mask in the opening scene. For the majority of Jason Goes To Hell, it is revealed the Jason is a demonic slug-like creature that hops from body to body.

In a franchise that’s dealt with a lot of strange and ridiculous things, this was the one that many felt jumped the shark. It made Jason Goes To Hell feel as if it belonged to a completely different franchise, like Hellraiser.

2 Hilarious: Is He Killing Him? – Friday The 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter

For many fans, Part IV: The Final Chapter is one of, if not the best entry of the franchise. It did everything a good slasher film should do, at least most of the time. There is one infamously mocked death though, and that is Rob’s in the basement. After all the build-up of Rob being this rival for Jason Voorhees, he is killed rather easily.

On top of it all, Rob is pushed into the shadows where Jason starts eviscerating him. Now, instead of screaming in pain as someone would, Rob instead yells out, “He’s killing me!” He doesn’t just say it once, he hilariously repeats it a few times which ruins all tension in the scene.

1 Plain Bad: Jason’s “Death” – Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Jason chases the last survivors through the sewers of New York, and they have to escape before the toxic waste is dumped through. Yes, New York City dumps a river of toxic waste through the sewers apparently? First, a bucket of waste is thrown onto him. As a result, his mask melts off and he screams, which is very unlike the character.

Unlike other films where the maskless Jason is a highlight, this unmasked Jason looks like a rejected Jim Henson character. The heroes make it out, but Jason gets hit with the waste river. Finally, Jason melts away in what should have been a neat kill but instead, he reverts back to being a human child. Why? Well, there is no reason.

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