Tag: Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th #1: Church of the Divine Psychopath – Scott Phillips

Welcome to Camp Crystal Lake: Blasphemy Edition 

Father Eric Long has had a revelation. The time has come for sinners to be judged by the Heavenly Vessel, A.K.A., Jason Voorhees. 

“Big guy. Hockey mask. Has issues?” 

The one and the same. 

The Ministry of the Heavenly Vessel are going on a road trip because it turns out that Father Long isn’t alone in his delusion. Like all good cult leaders, Long has managed to convince his entire flock to sell all of their worldly possessions and hand the proceeds to him. They’ve secured the lease to Camp Crystal Lake and the entire congregation are moving in. 

It’s not like the Father’s going to let a little thing like the fact that Jason is currently fish food prevent him from carrying out his mission. After retrieving a soggy Jason from the depths of Crystal Lake and nailing him to a cross (twice), freaky Father sets out to resurrect him. Jason’s going to church! What could go wrong?! 

Meanwhile, a strike team from the Agency, a covert branch of the government, are also making their way to Crystal Lake. Because what this situation desperately needs is more firepower. Besides the arsenal that the churchies apparently brought with them, that is. 

“I saw this in a horror movie once” 

A church, a strike team and Jason Voorhees converging on Camp Crystal Lake may sound like the beginning of a really bad joke but what it actually is is a recipe for a really big body count. I’m guessing that this “God-sanctioned Jason Voorhees bloodbath” takes place on Friday the 13th but no one ever showed me a calendar.

So, who are the victims this time around? This “salad bar of murderous possibilities” consists mostly of the strike team and church members. 

“Straight to hell for you.” 

It’s hard to figure out the exact body count but we’re talking more than fifty.

The people start dying in the prologue but these kills happen before the events of this book so I’m not counting those.

There’s a strike team mission prior to Mission Hockey Mask where a couple of strike team members stop breathing and all but two of the baddies have the kind of bad day that prevents you from having any other kind of day ever, but we don’t know how many there were to start off with.

The strike team members, some of who appear to be most content when they’re busy fighting amongst themselves, are lining up to die.

* Jeff Townsend – the six foot six leader of this suicide mission. He’s probably going to go down with the metaphorical ship.
* Walter Hobb – he’s five foot six, has soap opera looks and he’s recently suffered a serious case of demotion. He can’t see so well out of one of his eyes as a result of the mission that put him in the bad books but he’s a main character so he might just get to go home to his wife, Lauren. Lauren is pretty peeved that Hobb signed up for Operation Suicide By Jason. She runs a used bookstore, though, so she’s definitely going to survive. Not even Jason is going to lay a machete on someone who takes such good care of books.
* Samantha Noon – she’s 20 and a total badass. But… she has sex during the book and anyone who ever took Horror 101 knows that’s a death sentence.
* Chris Seaver – Townsend’s second in command for this mission. He also has sex, with Noon. Nice knowing you, Chris.
* Benjamin Hurley – he’s given a first name but I don’t remember hearing anything that could be accused of being a backstory. That doesn’t bode well for him.
* Bruno Ortega – he’s a pervert. Enough said.
* Acheson – he’s relaxed enough to leave his gun outside of reaching distance while he wanders around in the lake. Seriously, Acheson?
* Moseley – he’s a medic so he’s got to survive long enough to try to put intestines back inside bodies, right?
* Lovinger – this guy loves Burt Reynolds movies. Make of that what you will.
* Stilton, Blair, Leonard, Sisson, Garb, Connolly, Howard, Chaffin, Marr – the author didn’t care enough about these dead men walking to give them first names.
* Hurley, Miller, Hall – these men don’t get names until their death scenes. This may be a clue.

Then there are the true believers who, after the initial slaughter, get together for a cuppa. As you do. 

“Trouble has found its way to our little ministry.” 

* Father Eric Long – he’s the reason we’re in this mess to begin with. The way he spiritually guides three widows is beyond creepy.
* Kelly Mills – although she’s only 26, Kelly has a backstory. She doesn’t believe in God but she does believe in Long. Well, she wants to get in his pants, anyway. 
* Curtis Rickles – this former marine is the most detestable waste of oxygen you’ll find in this book. When he’s not shooting people, he’s busy sexually assaulting a minor. He needs to die a really drawn out, creative death.
* Don James – one of the Father’s inner circle, Don’s a biker with tattoos he probably got in jail.
* Meredith Host – 17 year old Meredith is at Crystal Lake with her parents, who are in their 60’s. Kelly is her best (only?) friend. That’s not to say this virgin doesn’t have lust in her heart.
* Roger (or Robert) – okay, so we don’t even know for sure what this man’s name is. That’s not a good sign.
* Denice Keenan, Jennifer Crenshaw, Lorelei Picardi, Charlotte Rutherford – these women share a cabin with Kelly, one of our main characters. These women may need to be sacrificed for the greater good if Jason wanders in. Especially Denice. She chose the bottom bunk so she’s more accessible.
* Travis Hornby, John Sullivan, Mark Brody, Susan Perkins, Susanna Brookwalter – yeah, I don’t know enough about these people to ensure their survival.
* Patricia Krenkle and Manny Krenkle, Mr and Mrs Host – do we know what Jason’s views are on marriage?
* Stan – I feel like there was a Stan but now I’m not so sure. 
* Ronald Shearing, Joseph Bookwalter – we know they existed only because we know they died.

Eleanor, Steve and Frenchie never leave Lefty’s so unless Jason’s feeling a bit parched, they’re probably okay. Sonia, the waitress, will probably make it as well. 

There’s an unnamed farmer driving a chicken truck in the general vicinity but he’s smart enough to keep driving so I’m fairly certain he’s going to keep breathing until at least the next time Friday the 13th rolls around.

This book reconfirms why this place is known as Camp Blood. The insides are now your outsides action is fairly consistent, once you get through the extensive backstories of a couple of contenders.

After the prologue, Jason doesn’t even get to kill anyone until page 172. His first kill is probably his best, although the next three are pretty decent as well. I came for machete slicing and dicing and Jason squishing heads like watermelons. Jason got a bit lazy in this book, primarily introducing people to his machete. Some kills only warranted a sentence and others happened off the page.

Rivalling Jason’s machete in the body count are guns. There are also five funerals we need to attend for people whose COD will need to be determined by a coroner because, while I’m guessing they were shot or met explodey ends as a result of a grenade, I don’t know for sure.

The rules that govern who should die in Jason’s world were pretty much thrown out the window in this book. The pure and hell bound were both fair game.

The person I most wanted to die did but their manner of death didn’t live up to my hopes. It needed to be less generic and much more painful and dramatic.

I wondered how much gunfire Jason could take. Hundreds of bullets didn’t slow him down at all. Speaking of not slowing down, honouring his ability to walk faster than his victims can run, Jason somehow managed to make a return trip to somewhere that takes half an hour to drive to in record time.

Handy hint: When the leader of your church starts citing Waco to guide you through current events, you may be in a cult.

Best description: 

Blood shot skywards like a gory lawn sprinkler. 

Content warnings include sexual assault. Readers with emetophobia may have trouble with a couple of scenes.

Next Friday the 13th read: Hell Lake, where an executed serial killer meets Jason in hell.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

The first in a brand new series of Friday the 13th shockers! Jason Voorhees is reanimated and worshipped by a bizarre religious cult. When a SWAT team is called in, it’s time for Jason to go about his bloody work and wages a one-man war against both sides.

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Friday the 13th, Camp Crystal Lake #5: The Mask of Jason Voorhees – Eric Morse

Spoilers Ahead! (marked in purple)

Jason went to hell and then Berkeley Books commissioned a series of young adult novels set in the Friday the 13th universe. Only Jason wasn’t in the books. Weird, right? His mask was there, though, and it had some supernatural powers to possess whoever thought it was smart to try it on. Cue the bloodbath.

So far, we’ve celebrated Mother’s Day, gone fishing, attended a carnival and gone on a road trip. Now, in this final book in the series, we’re making a documentary or we’re determined to stop Jason once and for all. It depends on which character you are.

So, who are the potential blood donors in this showdown?

The Heroes

  • Micki Foster. Micki hunts down cursed antiquities for her Uncle Lewis so she’s dealt with supernatural stuff for years. She is “attuned to the energies around her”. Her spidey sense may save her. Micki’s goal is to stop all the Jason drama by “finding the mask and locking it up in the vault back at Curious Goods.” Sort of like what the Warrens did with Annabelle.
  • Steven Freeman. Steven is Micki’s cousin. He used to be known as Ryan Dallion. He helped Jason’s niece, Jessica, send him to hell. He’s survived Jason already so he’s either got the skillset to finish the job another time or his luck will run out.
  • Rashid. He’s an expert in antiquities and was looking after Curious Goods for Micki. Now he’s in Crystal Lake. He has visions and appears to know magic.

They’re the heroes. They’re golden, right?

Law Enforcement

  • Sheriff Lloyd Landis
  • Roy Turner, Sheriff’s deputy
  • John Cort, Sheriff’s deputy
  • Buck Mathers, Sheriff’s deputy
  • Ed Marlin, Sheriff’s deputy
  • David Justin, Sheriff’s deputy. He’s the new guy so he’s got even less chance of surviving than his colleagues.
  • Kelly Campbell, Sheriff’s deputy
  • Roy Turner, Sheriff’s deputy
  • Pat Colby, Sheriff’s deputy
  • Highway Patrol Officer Marshack
  • Highway Patrol Officer Perkins
  • State Trooper Jackson
  • State Trooper Scott Christopher
  • State Trooper Dan Culligan
  • State Trooper Peter Bennerson

There’s so many of them! Just knowing these men and women are law enforcement personnel in a slasher is your biggest clue. Most of these people are going to be toast, especially those who are introduced after 80%. That doesn’t stop them from bringing confidence to the game, though.

“You don’t know when you’ll have some hockey masked super killer running around the woods slaughtering people. A few AK-47s would seem to be standard issue.”

Cunningham County Coroner’s Office Staff

  • County Coroner Robert “Doctor Bob” Carey. He’s the one doing the autopsies.
  • Phil Raman. He’s Doctor Bob’s assistant. If he wasn’t so busy getting turned on when he touches Jason’s mask he might just make it but because this makes him inherently creepy, he’s definitely going to need to die.
  • Guadalupe (Lupe) Sanchez. Lupe is the receptionist. She knows Phil likes her but laughs at his advances. Clever girl.

If this was a Halloween book, then Michael Myers would almost certainly miraculously come to in the morgue and proceed to add to the body count. But this is Friday the 13th. We’ll see…

The Documentary Makers

  • Carol Martinez. The director of the documentary, Carol is rude to waitresses, her fellow documentary makers and pretty much everyone else. She’s also vegetarian.
  • Shawn Carlyle. He works behind the scenes on sound and lighting.
  • Jerry. Calls himself Jamal. He’s the cameraman and a pothead. He also gives Phil Raman a run for his money in being the most detestable character in the book. He’s a white guy with dreadlocks who seems to think there’s no problem speaking as though he’s from Jamaica. He’s not Jamaican. He’s Californian and he’s so irritating.

They’re coming to town just to dig up info on Jason. There’s no way they’re going to make it back to California.

The Mediums

  • Morgana
  • Julius

Okay, so they’re here at the behest of Carol, the rude documentary maker. Hopefully they’re the real deal and will be smart enough to get out of town when they realise what’s really going on at Camp Crystal Lake.

Camp Crystal Lake Campers

  • Bessie Nague. Bessie has allergies. She’s camping with her sister, Lilleth.
  • Lilleth Nague. She’s the webmaster of the Official BLOOD CAMP Fan Club website and Vice President of the Jason Voorhees Appreciation Society.

They thought it was a good idea to go camping at Camp Crystal Lake. We might as well dig their graves now. Lilleth’s Jason obsession may be the thing that saves them or she might be too starstruck by seeing him for her survival instinct to kick in.

The Townspeople

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  • Betty Loomis. She’s a waitress who knew Jason and Pamela Voorhees personally. Betty was married to Ralph. Yes, that one!
  • Mary. She’s a waitress who works with Betty.
  • Will Peters. He’s Steven’s partner at the Army/Navy store and will be running the store while Steven is running about doing Jason type stuff. Will has served in the military so he may have the necessary skills to survive.
  • Shane Wilco Jr. Shane is the bartender from Smokey’s Pub.

The townspeople have already survived Jason how many times? They know the legend and they obviously know what it takes to survive at this point. Let’s hope they keep their heads.

If you’re like me and you come to the slasher armed with some bloodlust and a raincoat to protect your clothes from the blood spatter, you’ll be waiting a while in this book. There are no new deaths for the first 40%. Never fear, though. Once the stabbing and hacking begin, they don’t let up. Most characters you only get to know by name before they meet their maker. The body count is high and I can’t even give you an accurate final number.

There are the recently deceased whose names we know: Phil Raman, Lupe, Deputy Marlin, Kelly Campbell, Will Peters, David Justin, John Cort, Shane Wilco Jr., Bessie Nague, Lilleth Nague, Jerry/Jamal, Officer Marshack, Julius, Phil Raman, Lewis, Rashid, Shawn Carlyle, Peter Bennerson, Dan Culligan, Perkins, Roy Turner, Carol Martinez, Pat Colby, Scott Christopher and Lloyd Landis.

Then there are the five people in the crowd outside of the coffee shop, an old man, an unnamed biker, a foolish biker and an unnamed policeman. The Sheriff estimates about fifty deaths in the Main Street, which include two deputies that were named and Shane Wilco Jr.

Phil kills people before and after he becomes attached to the mask. Jason kills a bunch of people. Three people die by cop.

It’s safe to say that both Camp Crystal Lake and the town are painted red. Bonus points for visiting the Voorhees’ home.

My main frustration in this book was Jerry/Jamal thinking it was okay to speak the way he did. The biggest turnoff was the use of the word ”retard”. I don’t care about the context; this is never okay.

This was a bit of fun but it really needs some proofreading. There’s a typo here, a missing word there, your/you’re violations and many other red pen opportunities. At one point the carnival murders happened two months ago; on the same day, later in the chapter, they happened three months ago.

One frustration I had with the first four books was the absence of Jason. He actually shows up in this one! Hooray!

We also finally get an explanation for the whole supernatural mask thing.

If you want to read this book for yourself, you can download the PDF here.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

It has been four years since Jason Voorhees was dragged down to Hell. Since then the evil of Jason has arisen four times in the form of his possessed hockey mask. Four souls have worn that mask and have viciously killed dozens of innocent people who have mistakenly ventured into the woods around Camp Crystal Lake. Now the mask has chosen its latest and final wearer and the seeds of Jason’s resurrection have been planted. But, there is opposition. Reunited, Micki Foster and Ryan Dallion must not only face a superhuman killing machine, but also the horrifying truth at the heart of the curse of Camp Crystal Lake.

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Friday the 13th, Camp Crystal Lake #4: Road Trip – Eric Morse

Spoilers Ahead!

It is a dark and stormy night and time for revenge of the nerd, Friday the 13th style. Teddy Bateman is Buzzy the Bee, Carville Hornets’ team mascot. He has a crush on Summer but has never had a girlfriend. This short, geeky senior is understandably angry about being the target of bullying.

He’s on the way back from a football game with the players, cheerleaders and coach that contribute to his misery. Good on him for being the one who finds the mask. It’s a pity the mask wearer usually winds up a corpse in this series. Jason himself is still a no show.

“You’re going to die”

The potential Voorhees victims in this book:

Carville Hornets (a school football team):
Coach Wardell – if you don’t play sports then you’re of no interest to Coach, unless he’s taking out his frustration on you.
Russ Johnson – linebacker star on the field and boyfriend of Belinda off the field.
Slick Chambers – top receiver and the fastest player. He’s a serial cheater and doesn’t say ‘no’ to drugs, so not even his “sexy eyebrows” will be enough to save this player.
Dave Myers – quarterback and captain of the team, who also does drugs. Dave has put a limit on the amount of times his ditzy but loyal girlfriend is allowed to tell him she loves him each day, so I’m not sure we‘re cheering him on to survive.
Billy Raymond – centre. He travelled back on the bus so, although we’re briefly introduced to him, he’s irrelevant to this story.
Tommy Bartlett – kicker. He took the bus as well. Therefore, he’s irrelevant too.

The Cheerleaders (there are ten but we’re only introduced to four):
Missy Lowe – cheerleading captain. Missy is tall and blonde. She’s enthusiastic, especially about her love for Dave (who she knits for) but we constantly reminded how dumb she is.
Summer Stone – has four older brothers and is a cynic. She’s tall, with dark hair and blue eyes. Her weakness is Slick, who has no doubt cheated on her a lot more times than she knows about.
Belinda Karras – a control freak, Belinda is short and pretty.
Arlene Kerdell – the top girl of the cheerleading pyramid, Arlene takes the bus, so we didn’t really need to learn her name.

The Locals:
The Trooper – for someone who plays a larger role in the story than I initially expected, I thought he had earned a name. I was wrong; he’s the Trooper the entire time. Although law enforcement don’t usually fare well in horror stories he does warn some randoms about the town’s history, so there’s a slim chance he’ll survive.
Tina – other than being the trooper’s wife, the only other piece of information I have about this woman is spoilery in nature. She’s unlikely to survive.
Cliff – an architect and the trooper’s best friend. His character is essentially only there to help tell Tina’s spoilery story so we may as well dig his grave now.

The Randoms:
Donny Borelli – as far as I can tell, Donny and his friend, Stu Bergman, served their purpose in this book as soon as they introduced the trooper, the cave and the vampire bats.
Mr Morrisey – bus driver. It appears they are smart enough not to take the Crystal Lake detour.

“You’re going where?”

While I wasn’t invested in any character enough to hope they lived (or died) I did have to give most of the characters some credit. Other than Donny, Stu and the locals, no one actually planned on spending any time in Voorhees-land. The Carville Hornets are actually the only ones in this series so far that didn’t reserve their death day in advance.

“BEHIND YOU!”

With spelunking, strange hybrid vampire bats, cheating partners and too much time spent at the football game, this is definitely not my favourite slaughter fest of the series. The mask has once again added more magic to its repertoire, with a newly found ability to remotely operate a car, even before it’s attached to someone’s face. The introduction of the cave, especially minus a backstory, felt like a weird choice although it did provide a semi-legitimate reason for the inclusion of the vampire bats.

A series of unanswered questions relate directly to the bats, the most pressing of which is: What is their backstory and why are we not told about it?

It took quite a while for the hockey mask action to commence. This is a short book, yet it wasn’t until page 96 that someone put the mask on and the first kill by the person wearing the hockey mask didn’t happen until page 116! Even then, one of my biggest disappointments of the third book was repeated here: the hockey mask guy wasn’t even directly responsible for about half of the kills.

The Death Toll: a spider, bat and somewhere between 9 and 11 people.

The spider got squished by a car in the prologue and then I had to wait around for a while before I got to the first human kill.

Of those not killed by the person possessed by the hockey mask, three people were shot (Tina, Coach and Cliff), Slick was sucked dry by vampire bats and Teddy got roasted. The hockey mask guy was only directly responsible for four deaths (unnamed trooper, Missy, Belinda and Dave).

I think one of our two spelunkers (Donny and Stu) was dispatched via vampire bat and the other was never heard from again, but I may be wrong about these guys. It didn’t seem overly specific at the time.

Best Insult:

“You’re the world’s biggest fungus brain”

Kill of the Book: Missy, who was skewered with her own knitting needles, which were attached to the stinger on the mascot’s head.

There are some racist, sexist and homophobic comments and enough discrepancies between the text and cover image to tell me that the artist didn’t read the book. The uniforms on the cover are blue and white but in the book they’re orange and black. The kid in the hockey mask is supposed to have dark, curly hair and the blonde girl is supposed to have her hair in a whole pile of braids. The killer doesn’t wield a machete in the book, the van is supposed to be white and, as I’ve already said, the massacre takes place on a dark and stormy night.

If you are planning on reading this series you should probably read them in order. The second book follows on from the first and the events of the third book are mentioned in this one.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

When the football team van swerves off the road and crashes after the big game, everyone blames Teddy, the class nerd and the team’s mascot. While his tormentors take shelter at Camp Crystal Lake, Teddy trades in his mascot suit for Jason’s hockey mask – and makes this a night his classmates will never forget.

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Friday the 13th, Camp Crystal Lake #3: The Carnival – Eric Morse

Spoilers Ahead!

I’ve been waiting and waiting and Friday the 13th is finally here again!

You know what that means! It’s time to spend some quality time with Jason.

Except Jason’s a no show. Apparently he’s still enjoying his slaycation in hell because he doesn’t even make a cameo in this book.

His mask is still at Camp Crystal Lake though, ready for the next set of victims to arrive.

During the first two books we got to know the Boone family. Billy and his friends participated in Camp Crystal Lake’s Mother’s Day massacre. Then Kelly, Billy’s sister, decided it was her turn to experience all of the bloody fun she missed out on the year before. No Boone’s were harmed in the making of this book, although that may just be because there aren’t any left.

Vince Fantana’s Travelling Fun House and Carnival has come to Crystal Lake for the weekend of “the July Fourth blowout”. That probably should have been my first clue that I wasn’t going to enjoy this book as much as the first two in the series. A Crystal Lake massacre that occurs on a day other than Friday the 13th? Sacrilege!

I’m not sure what bright spark thought it was a good idea to set up a carnival on the grounds of Camp Crystal Lake, where the land is most likely still squishy with the blood of the most recent massacre. It’s a good thing sleazeball Vince surrounds his carnival with an electric fence, because that’s not a recipe for disaster or anything.

Some of the carnies who may not live to tell the tale are:

Mitch Deevers – Mitch is in his late 20’s and is the creepy chief mechanic for the carnival. He has tattoos of snakes and the names of all of his conquests on his arms.

Stump – Mitch’s rottweiler. Mitch chopped off his dog’s tail for some reason; hence the name.

Helen, AKA, Madame Xaviera – the carnival’s fortune teller.

Selena Tokar – Helen’s 17 year old daughter.

Molly Meecham – the carnival nurse and the freak show’s “Fat Lady”.

I also wouldn’t place bets on Stu, Karl, Big Joe, Peg O’Neill or Moe the clown living long enough to enjoy the midnight fireworks. I definitely wasn’t a fan of one of the carnies being referred to as a ”midget”.

Attending the carnival on this fateful night are a small group from Holloway, Massachusetts, which is only 30 miles from Crystal Lake. I mention its proximity as it’s close enough for them to have heard all about Camp Crystal Lake on the grapevine. They should know better than to tempt fate.

Our main character, who you will definitely not want to be a final girl, is Maxi (Maxine, but don’t call her that) Wagner. An only child with a troubled home life, Maxi is a shoplifter, hitchhiker and was caught smoking dope at school, which is why she’s a year older than the rest of her class. She’s angry and mean, and I’m not entirely sure why she still has any friends, given the way she treats them. She’s not a virgin so, if Horror 101 has taught us anything, she probably won’t survive.

Maxi is 17, tall, thin and beautiful, with “long legs that seemed to go all the way up to her head.” Of course, every time I imagine this potential victim running away from the killer I see this in my head:

Wendy (Wens) Denberg is 16, short and not pretty. That’s almost all that I know about her.

KC (Katherine Carter) is 16 and is sweet and polite. She’s a virgin and considers ‘sleazeball’ a swear word so you’d think she’d be safe, but going to the carnival was initially her idea so her virginity may not save her.

Greg Dillon is a senior from Hawthorn. His parents died in a car accident the day after his 13th birthday so in theory it would be cruel to kill him off. However, he has a huge crush on Maxi so his judgement is not the best. That may be his downfall.

All of these potential corpses have been attending summer school. Graham Newton, who’s 26 and British, goes to the carnival with the three girls. He’s their summer school English teacher. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Also ripe for the picking are Bernard LeBlatt (12), Nick Harris (13) and the Barfield family – James, Mrs (the poor woman doesn’t have a first name) and their three year old son, Bobby.

Liberties really are being taken with this series now. It’s Friday the 13th adjacent at best. While it was still an okay read I was disappointed overall. It takes a while for the action to begin. Early on we have our first casualty, a bug, but then we have to wait until 45% before the human carnage commences. RIP, little bug. Oh, and a rodent dies as well.

The most detailed death scenes seemed to be reserved for minor characters and I only learned of the demise of some of the main characters after the fact. The mask has retained its magical powers from the first two books; tattoos are also magic in this book.

The killer was a huge letdown for me. They couldn’t even take credit for a good portion of the kills. Instead the rides, which are essentially possessed by the invisible evil vapour that’s supposedly wafting up from the ground, and the electric fence are responsible for the most interesting ones.

From the a woman most likely wouldn’t have written this about a 17 year old schoolgirl files: “Naked, she was sitting on the edge of her bed, pressing a cold can of beer against her forehead.” When said 17 year old schoolgirl is in a bad mood it automatically means she must be getting her period. Naturally! There couldn’t be any other reason.

I’m hoping my next Friday the 13th read will be worth the wait.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Four teenagers looking for fun and thrills to break up the boredom of summer school get more than they had bargained for when they visit a traveling carnival that has pitched its tents at the old Crystal Lake campgrounds.

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Friday the 13th, Camp Crystal Lake #2: Jason’s Curse – Eric Morse

“You crazy kids want to die tonight, is that the idea?”

After a poorly timed sore throat caused her to miss out on attending last year’s Mother’s Day massacre, Kelly Boone is preparing for her own Camp Crystal Lake slaycation. Jason Some random hunter wearing Jason’s mask killed her older brother in Book 1 and she’s ready to take action.

Unfortunately Jason isn’t the man behind the mask in this book either. I’m guessing he’s still hanging out in Hell; the first book appeared to take place sometime after Jason Goes to Hell in the Voorhees-verse timeline. Jason does have a very brief cameo of sorts in this book; it’s possible he was hallucinated by someone who’d lost a significant amount of blood but I’d prefer to believe it was him somehow briefly reanimated as mist. Since Jason is currently mostly unavailable we have yet another new hockey mask wearer.

So, who are potentially nearly departed?

Kelly Boone – Our hero with the tragic past. Now 18, Kelly has gone from captain of the varsity basketball team to someone who didn’t even apply for college. She has a lot of nightmares and migraines, and is depressed. When she’s not busy smoking she’s in the library researching Crystal Lake. She has a plan. She has a hunting knife. She should be a shoo in to survive. However, she is also the first person to suggest the group split up so my Horror 101 alarm bells are ringing. But someone has to survive, right?

“I mean, our whole lives are at stake, okay? In case you want some motivation.”

Doug Sanderson – Kelly’s boyfriend. This “cool and relaxed” 23 year old drives a beat up Volvo and consistently flunks courses at the local community college. Not the brightest of contestants, he’s a serial flirt and cheater so there’s no way he’s making it out of Crystal Lake alive.

Tina Chen – Miguel’s girlfriend. She’s 17, smart and planning on studying psychology at NYU. Her psychobabble and willingness to cheat on her boyfriend don’t bode well for her.

Miguel Hernandez – Tina’s boyfriend. He’s 18, works at a karate school and is excited to be going monster hunting. His martial arts training could potentially be useful but his annoying Beavis and Butthead impressions may make you wish hockey mask guy would shut him up. His arrogance may be his undoing:

“Actually, mister, we’re going to stick around, see, and kill Jason for you, since no one around here seems like they can do it themselves.”

Big Red – the man behind the mask. I felt for this 45 year old with the artificial leg, glass eye and permanent indentation in his bald head. He’s survived a bucketload of awfulness in his life and I probably would’ve still wanted to give him a hug while he was swinging a machete at me. It doesn’t matter how much I want him to be okay though. He’s the guy wearing the hockey mask. He’s toast!

Ma and Pa – Big Red’s parents. Depending on what their backstory is they probably have a 50/50 shot of surviving (at best).

Tuck – Pa’s drinking buddy who runs the fishing store. Horror 101 taught me that alcohol intake is usually enough to warrant a death scene so it’s probably not looking too promising for good ol’ Tuck.

Bud – Pa’s other drinking buddy. He has a son (Bud Junior), daughter-in-law (Jessie) and three grandkids, Cassie (6), James (4) and Little Billy (a baby). The adults are fair game but surely the children will live long enough to grow up to be adults that a new generation hockey mask killer can slaughter.

Darlene – The new waitress. She wears the name tag of the diner’s last waitress, who was previously sliced and diced. This doesn’t seem like a good omen.

Officer Donner – Law enforcement types don’t usually fare so well in slasher type encounters so I’m not holding my breath for this one.

This was a fun read but I didn’t get into the characters as much as I did in the first book. A lot of the death scenes took place off page and as I’ve already mentioned, Jason isn’t the slasher in this story so that was a let down.

Jason’s mask has some weird but kind of cool, leave-your-brain-disengaged powers. After donning the mask, Big Red’s glass eye begins to somehow show him scenes from the past, including one he would have been too young to remember himself. There’s also some unexplained magical connection between the hockey mask and Big Red’s artificial leg.

While I wanted to believe the hockey mask magic was possible, the story pretty much left me behind when Boone (Kelly’s brother), who came back as a sort of ghost, sort of corporeal evil dead guy, started helping out the hockey mask guy! I thought for a while that he may have been Kelly’s sleep deprived hallucination but he didn’t seem to be. Surely Kelly, who’d risked everything to avenge her brother’s death, deserved at least a “thanks for that, little sis” before Boone turned evil, if he absolutely had to.

Body count – 14 people and 1 grasshopper, if I’ve counted correctly. Most, but not all, of these deaths were orchestrated by our Jason wannabe.

Cover image: While this picture is cheesy horror fun, it doesn’t exactly line up with the story. None of our couples take a boat trip together, the guy in the hockey mask is supposed to be bald and wearing overalls, and even he would know better than to hang out in the lake, considering the abundance and size of the leeches that live there.

From the bizarre coincidences department: This book was my 169th read so far this year. The square root of 169 just so happens to be 13. Coincidence or X-File?!

Content warnings include domestic violence, physical abuse of a child and bullying.

I found the awesome artwork near the beginning of this review at dandingeroz.deviantart.com.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Obsessed by the murder of her brother at Camp Crystal Lake, Kelly Boone sets out to put to rest forever the evil legacy of Jason Voorhees, but the curse is reawakened when a backwoods fisherman hooks a surprising catch, Jason’s hockey mask.

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Friday the 13th, Camp Crystal Lake #1: Mother’s Day – Eric Morse

No one comes out here. Ever.

So, here we are again at Camp Crystal Lake for another fun game of Who’s Going to Survive This Massacre? The first of five Friday the 13th young adult novels, we appear to begin our killing spree somewhere after Jason Goes to Hell in the Voorhees-verse timeline, with our mate Jason safely tucked away in Hell, a great place for slasher movie villains to hang out, have a barbecue and plan their next outing.

After all, there was safety in numbers.

Our victims contestants in this Mother’s Day special are:

  • Carly – good girl, tragic background, overprotective mother, token virgin.
  • Suzanne – friend of Carly, hippie tie dye meditative type, one half of Kyleandsuzanne (one word).
  • Kyle – drives a dented Volkswagon van, hippie tie dye meditative type, other half of Kyleandsuzanne (one word).
  • Billy Boone – known for wild parties and drinking, older brother of Kelly, bad boy with a motorbike.
  • Kelly Boone – captain of the varsity basketball team, Carly’s friend since she joined the team, younger sister of token bad boy.
  • Monique – transfer student from Paris, has a talent for making guys drool, token tease / is she or isn’t she going to sleep with every guy she meets?
  • Paul Sexton – winner of the Most Appropriate Surname award, brings a different girl back to the dorm at Brown each night, tanned, athletic, no one could ever love him as much as he loves himself. The girls love him almost as much though, as evidenced by the following quote:

He was so handsome, it was hard to look at him directly. It was as if he were this bright light and you had to shield your eyes.

  • Albert – loveable nerd who appears to live his life in the friend zone, Paul’s unfortunate roommate who’s designated to the couch whenever Paul is entertaining the ladies (so always), token fat kid who is bullied for his weight (I seriously have no idea why this kid is at this weekend away when he could have been enjoying some quality alone time while he packed his stuff and changed dorm rooms).

Our contestants are so white they may glow in the dark (well, except maybe Paul who probably does glow in the dark, but from his tan instead) and they’re all hormone laden heterosexuals. So where’s the diversity? My thoughts are that everyone from the LGBTQIA community and those who don’t glow in the dark, along with every other human who doesn’t fit our stereotypical cast, were all too smart to apply to be contestants in this blood bath.

“The only time you’re safe – really safe – is when you’re dead.”

So who has a chance of surviving?

  • Carly – As the token virgin she should be a shoo-in, except she did drink some beer which lowers her chances significantly.
  • Suzanne – As one half of Kyleandsuzanne (one word) she has sex with Kyle so she’s a goner.
  • Kyle – As the other half of Kyleandsuzanne (one word) he has sex with Suzanne so he’s also toast.
  • Billy Boone – Bad Boy. Enough said. Start digging his grave now.
  • Kelly Boone – She’s at home sick so doesn’t venture anywhere near Camp Crystal Lake … until the second book which I haven’t read yet. As she appears to play the lead in the second book I guess we’ll assume she will survive this one.
  • Monique – Considering how much of a tease she is, how much she whinges and how readily the guys fall into a drooling mess at her feet, we can be fairly confident she won’t make it. However, as she’s of the ‘is she or isn’t she going to sleep with every guy she meets’ variety, there is the question of whether she’ll be having sex or not when she meets her maker.
  • Paul Sexton – Sorry, buddy. You’ve had too much sex and love yourself too much to have a hope of surviving this game.
  • Albert – If anyone other than the main character is going to survive, my bet’s on nerdy, loveable, overweight, friend zoned Albert. He’s adorable. The only thing standing in his way of survival is his ability to whinge.

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t an enemy hiding behind every tree.”

Unfortunately Jason doesn’t even get a cameo in this book but his hockey mask and its supposed power (which comes from who knows where) plays a starring role, complete with thick white worms crawling out of the eyeholes when we first see it. Our psycho killer is a hunter who makes the poor decision to hunt when it’s not hunting season (hasn’t he ever seen Bugs Bunny?) and ends up finding a soggy cardboard box that contains the head of Mrs Voorhees, who proceeds to direct him and he does as he’s told. Would you dare say “no” to Mrs Voorhees’ animated head, especially when Friday the 13th is two days before Mother’s Day?

This turned out to be one of those guilty pleasure books for me. As a young adult book from the 90’s there was kissing (but not enough to be nauseating), sex (but off the page) and violence (but not drawn out and graphic like a Saw movie). It reminded me of maybe a step up from a young adult trashy romance novel combined with what I remember of the Point Horror books I used to devour (and probably should reread as I bought a whole pile of them while doing some nostalgic op shopping a few years ago).

They had done nothing wrong, nothing to deserve this brutal horror.

That is, except for applying to be a contestant in a slasher novel. I did have a few disappointing moments while reading in addition to Jason’s no show.

  • It failed Horror 101 by having a character say, “Be right back” and then returning alive.
  • After the initial slaughter I had to wait around 100 pages for more bloodshed.
  • I can’t imagine Jason ever wanting to use a gun to kill people but our hunter does.
  • My biggest disappointment was a scene that could have easily been mistaken for having taken place in Psycho-world rather than the Voorhees-verse. I’m not specifically calling it plagiarism but if you’ve got a grown man talking to the corpse of his mother it can’t bring to mind anything other than the Bates family.

This book was never going to be a literary masterpiece but it was a lot of fun and I look forward to reading the rest of the young adult series. When I started reading I thought I’d aim to read the second book on the next Friday the 13th but because of the guilty pleasure I felt with this short, kinda trashy read (I mean that with no disrespect), I want to keep reading.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, Billy Boone and his friends set out on a camping expedition to Crystal Lake, unaware that Jason’s mother continues her quest for revenge and that a hunter is stalking the teenagers at the camp.

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