Friday The 13th: The Series The Complete Series! (Finally!)

The Good: Cool concept, Moments of style, Generally likable characters
The Bad: Lack of DVD bonus features, Repetitive plots, Occasionally hammy
The Basics: A fun and scary horror television show, Friday The 13th: The Series is now all in one place for those who like horror with a repetitive feel to it!


It’s something of a miracle that Friday The 13th: The Series, which has no relation to the movie series featuring a hockey-masked killer, made it onto DVD. This horror television show ran for three seasons with a total of seventy-two episodes which are now compiled in Friday The 13th: The Series The Complete Series Pack was almost completely missed by viewers.

This boxed set includes:
Season 1
Season 2
And Season 3 without any additional content from the original DVD releases. This is a simple bundle pack of the original DVD releases.

The plot of Friday The 13th: The Series is simple: The owner of Curious Goods has died and his shop has fallen to his niece and nephew, Micki Foster and Ryan Dallion to keep. All of the objects in Curious Goods were cursed by the devil, which gives them great powers (time travel, animation of inanimate objects, time stopping, resurrecting the dead, etc.) each with a terrible price. After discovering that the antiques from the shop have been sold to collectors around the world, Micki and Ryan set about attempting to recover them for safekeeping to try to stem the flow of evil into the world.

They are accompanied by Jack Marshak, a scholar of the occult who is quick on his feet and believes in the more fantastic elements pertaining to the cursed objects. Each episode has the trio following peculiar occurrences (sometimes guessing wrong at what the cursed object is) and working to recover the strange objects.

The premise is simple and the show becomes a bit repetitive after a while, though in the third season, there is a casualty and a slight cast shake-up. But the concept is actually remarkably fresh for a television horror series and the show features mild gore (it was on late-night), but more often relies on jump-out-of-the-dark tactics which quickly put Micki and Ryan in peril.

What works best about the show is that the series is smart enough to create antagonists who are not only likable, but empathetic. A man who grieves for the loss of a woman he lusted for seeks to reanimate her corpse by killing others with an enchanted embalming tool and the episode, though wholly creepy, works because the “villain” is motivated by a realistic (if slightly over-the-top) sense of desire.

Louise Robey, who plays Micki gives consistently solid performances, though her character does not always believe in the extreme nature of the cursed objects. Similarly, Chris Wiggins manages to infuse a wry sense of humor into Jack, while still making him seem incredibly intelligent. Even Steve Monarque manages to hold the show together in the final season doing what he can as Johnny (coming to an established and small cast is notoriously difficult for actors).

Anyone who likes horror and can deal with the campy aspects of that genre will find something to like about this predecessor to The X-Files, even if there are almost no DVD bonus features.

For other shows that originally aired on FOX, please check out my reviews of:
Family Guy - Volume 10
Glee - Season Three
Fringe - Season Four
House, M.D. - Season 4
Arrested Development
Kitchen Confidential
Wonderfalls
Firefly
The Lone Gunmen
Millennium
Ally McBeal
VR.5
The X-Files
Ned And Stacey - Season 1
The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr.
War Of The Worlds - Season 1

5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television And Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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