Halloween Havoc: FRIDAY THE 13th PART 2 (1989)

Back in the ‘80s I worked in a video store. Yeah, I know, it seems like every geekoid jackass with a blog, a video camera or a multi-million dollar studio contract has done time in that quintessential ‘80s phenomenon. It was a mom and pop industry and it was harder to find a gas station than a freakin’ video store in those days.

Hey, man, don’t judge. The only reason I’m outing myself here is because when I worked at said video store we carried the Caballero adult video line and there was one movie that caused quite a bit of confusion. This was a time when the porno parody became a pretty hot commodity. Capitalizing on the titles of mainstream films promising a sexed up version and delivering, well, pretty much nothing but sex and bad acting. Some titles, such as DRIVING MISS DAISY CRAZY (1990), were a bit too close to the original, but nothing caused confusion like FRIDAY THE 13^th PART 2.

You can imagine the kinds of complaints we got when people got the wrong FRIDAY. Horror fans were pissed because they got some stupid porno (no, seriously) and guys with hookers (one of our locations was right across the street from a seedy motel) were pissed because they got some stupid horror flick. Seriously, what was Caballero Video thinking anyway? Oh yeah, they were thinking payola! As in cash in their coffers, not as in paying off on advertising promises, that’s for sure. I’m pretty sure this video started life under a different title as aside from a title card and a dime-store hockey mask used as set dressing, this ain’t got shit to do with the Paramount series.

Jessica (Barbii) is turning 21 today and her uncle Merlin (director Fred J. Lincoln sporting some serious Gunnar Hansen hair) is giving her a cake, a butcher knife and some really bad news. The news being that she was born in hell and since it is her 21^st birthday, her mother’s evil powers are somehow sending her back to hell to be with her brother Jason (Tom Byron). Once in hell (or what is basically somebody's pool room; a lava-rock wall covered in K-Mart's finest Halloween decorations), Jessica takes the news rather well, all things considered, and falls in with her brother’s plans. See, they are in hell, but they can get into the real world for brief periods of time, but only to corrupt the humans once there.

Jason’s big plan is a competition-slash-partnership where bro and sis will go out into the real world and see who can commit the biggest corruptions (ie: get laid a lot). Better still, to use those corrupted individuals to achieve world domination… or rather put a pimp (the eternally sleazy Billy Dee) in the Whitehouse. This is essentially an excuse to appear in the same tiny bar and seduce people who forward their ambitions including a stockbroker (Sharon Mitchell), a marketing expert (Porsche Lynn) and a politician (Mike Horner). These seductions are basically just scenes of these stars having sex in someone's house (bedroom and living room) and in one case the bar and a motel room. If you are looking for any sort of production values, you will not find any here.

The big twist at the end is Jessica seduces Jason to win the corruption competition, but Jason plays his trump card informing her that he is actually her father. Cue evil laugh. The End. Yep, that's it. No Whitehouse pimp, not even the damn campaign trail! I guess they were leaving the “story” open for FRIDAY THE 13^th PART 3. Oh, we should be so lucky.

Some vague attempts at comedy are made such as Jessica unsuccessfully trying to transport herself back to hell by folding her arms and nodding her head ala “I Dream of Jeannie”. Plus there is a completely gratuitous scene in which Joey Silvera plays a TV ministry preacher named Jimmy Braggart, who finds himself in a motel room surrounded by newspapers headlining his sex scandal which is mildly amusing at best. Mostly it’s just Byron in an assload of eye-makeup, hamming it up with his ludicrous lisp and bulging eyes. You can practically see the cocaine oozing from his pores. I think Jessica sums it up perfectly when she complains “god, it's boring, stupid, [and] unimaginative!” Can I get an “amen”?!

To add insult to injury the sex scenes, while effective, are nothing to write home about. They get the job done, with only Barbii and Mitchell’s brief girl-on-girl scene actually looking like there’s some genuine excitement going down. And even then I think that's just on Mitchell's end. She's clearly diggin' on Barbii, but like her namesake, Barbii is almost totally void of emotion other than a fake smile. Honestly, there is no reason to waste time actually watching this movie. That is, unless you worked in a video store back in the day and were amused by the non-stop confusion the title caused, then you might want to sit down with it again. Maybe.