Current Events > Here's my ranking of every Friday The 13th movie (SPOILERS and hot takes ITT)

(+) Yeah! (+)

So for the past year-ish, my best friend and I have been slowly watching through every "old school" slasher and horror move franchise, trying to watch EVERY sequel and remake for each one. We ended up finishing the Friday the 13th franchise first as of a couple weeks ago, so I decided to go ahead and rank all of them, purely by my own personal enjoyment of each one.

12. Friday the 13th Part 2
Man, this one was rough, and almost made me not want to watch the rest of the franchise. As you'll see soon, I didn't fully LOVE the original movie, and this ended up lowering the bar even further for me. A 10 minute flashback of the OG movie with virtually no original footage, boring and forgettable characters, very few memorable kills, and fucking Potato Sack Jason all combine for a very bleh experience. By far the worst Friday movie IMO.

11.Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
This one's pretty rough too. Jason doesn't even fulfill the titular promise of going to Manhattan until like, 80% of the way through the movie. There's some especially bad film editing in this one, mostly forgettable characters and kills, and just an overall boring experience, which is especially disappointing given that being stranded on a boat gives a lot of opportunity for cool moments. The only good thing about this movie is it starts the positive trend of Jason murdering sexual assaulters, and that's pretty dope. As much as I didn't like this movie much, I think this is the movie that I weirdly started to like Jason just as a character. Which is weird to say 8 movies in, but that's part of my weird relationship with this franchise.

10.Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
This is the lowest rated movie in the franchise on LetterBoxd, and... I get why. This is so batshit insane and doesn't even really "feel like" a Friday movie. But I think that's also why I can't rank it last. It tried something new and different, which for better or for worse is something the franchise needed. Its crazy ideas might not have landed well, but I'm glad it attempted to freshen things up at the very least. Demon worms are weird, but at least they weren't wearing potato sacks.

9. Friday the 13th (1980)
Super hot take, but I kinda hate the original movie. It might be partially because I didn't watch it till around 2015ish and already knew about Jason's common perception in media as the hockey masked killer who was brutal and vicious, but man, this didn't age well IMO. Only one kill in the whole movie is memorable (Kevin Bacon, of course), all of the characters are super generic and forgettable (even the Final Girl), and JASON ISN'T EVEN THE FUCKING KILLER. When this movie first came out I could see it being a cool twist, but if you watch this movie for the first time already knowing who Jason Vorheez is, "It was actually Jason's mom!" feels like such a cheap and dumb plot twist. I can't rank it last cause given the time it was made and the complete lack of budget it's kinda cool what they were able to accomplish, but man. It took me a long tine to appreciate Jason as a horror icon, and it's largely because he had such a non-existent start in his own franchise.

8.Friday The 13th (2009)
It's a perfectly acceptable reboot IMO. Not amazing, but as you've already seen, I wasn't amazed by the original source material either. Had some decent kills, Padaleki was fun in his role, so meh. It was ok.

7.Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
I wish they had been able to pull off the rights to Jason vs. Carrie, cause honestly, there were some really cool ideas here, The backstory they made for the fake Carrie I think is what tanked the plot here the most, if they had been able to do what they originally wanted with the conceptI think it could have been a lot better. Cool seeing someone be an actual sorta-threat to Jason.

6. Freddy VS Jason
I'm counting this one as a Friday movie because, frankly, Jason is the protagonist in this movie. I've seen every Nightmare movie except for the 2010 reboot, and as a whole I think I like the Nightmare franchise more than Friday, but this is Freddy at his worst. He's way to creepy (not in a fun horror movie way) and doesn't have any of his normal quality of zingers, while Jason weirdly comes off as fairly impartial and just a force of nature that happens to oppose Freddy, and it strangely makes Jason look really cool. Freddy sadly drops this movie in the rankings a lot, which is a shame.

5.Friday the 13th Part III
This is the first movie where Jason gets his mask, and the first time I was even kind of invested in this franchise. It still has its flaws, but I think this was the real start of Jason becoming a very creative and versatile killer, he gets his iconic look, and while some of the early 3D effects were a little distracting, some of them turned out cooler as a result, and it was fun seeing that relatively early attempt at 3D horror.

4.Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
Cory Feldman was a good presence in this, and it was the first time (IMO) that the franchise had even sort of interesting characters, including a very young Crispin Glover. The dog yeeting itself out a window and (as far as we know) surviving was a cool moment in the movie (assuming they didn't actually throw a dog through a glass window, but given that they killed a real snake in the original I don't have high expectations for how they treated animals in this franchise). Some decent kills from Jason, and was a big turning point in a positive direction for the franchise IMO. But if I find out they actually threw a dog out a window this movie drops in rank drastically.

3.Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
This one gets a lot of hate, but I actually really liked this one. This is the first movie in the franchise that started to embrace its own silliness and have fun with its own premise. John Sheppard was an underrated Tommy Jarvis IMO, and there were a lot of fun side characters in this one. I know a lot of people didn't like that it wasn't "REALLY" Jason as the Killer, and sure, I can kinda get why people wouldn't love that, but the rest of the movie having enjoyable characters, some good jokes, some good kills, etc., I think more than makes up for that controversial "twist"

2.Jason X
I don't care what anyone syas, Jason X is an amazing movie. It's VERY close to being my number one, but my top entry barely manages to slip ahead by being more in tune with the rest of the franchie, but man, Jason X is so enjoyable due to how much it revels in its silliness. It feels like a parody of its own franchise, but its a GOOD parody. The characters are purposefully over the top, it has possibly the best kill in the franchise (the freezing and bashing someone's face scene is insane.), the Holodeck scene where he re-enacts the classic sleeping bag kill scene, fuck it's so good. I know it's a hot take, but I just don't get how someone can get this deep into the franchise and not have fun with this movie. It's the prfect combo of a horror B movie and a sci-fi B movie, and I absolutely love it.

1.Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
Jason X might be the most "fun" Friday movie IMO, but Jason Lives is the movie that takes the previsouly established format and makes it is own. It sticks to the slasher formula but isn't afraid to try new things and have a little fun with its premise. Jason literally comes back by getting struck by lightning in his grave, that's so badass. They "kill" him by chaining him to the bottom of the lake he came from. Tommy Jarvis is fun and suave. Man, this movie rocks. I never thought that a 6th entry in a franchise could be my favorite, but Friday proved me wrong. This is the movie that really made me fall in love with this franchise, and cemented Tommy Jarvis as being an all time great horror protagonist.

i to love jason X its a fun movie

I enjoy the entire series, but I too really love Jason X. Has one of the best kills in the series, as far as I'm concerned.

Don't want to spoil your list yet but I hope Jason x gets a high ranking. It's my personal favorite.

Edit: hell yeah! Number two and an understandable number one as that is my second favorite. Awesome dude glad you liked Jason x so much.

You're definitely the only person I've ever seen who ranked Part 2 as the worst one. For most people, myself included, it's the best of the series.

Part 6 at number 1? Carry on.

PeteyParker posted...

You're definitely the only person I've ever seen who ranked Part 2 as the worst one. For many people, myself included, it's the best of the series.

I almost feel bad ranking it so low cause I know a lot of people liked 2, but something about it just really didnt sit with me. It took me and my roommate over a month to watch part 3 after this one, mostly because I was so hesitant to watch more of the franchise due to how much I disliked the first 2 movies. Glad that I stuck with the franchise, but if I hadnt been watching with my roommate, theres a good chance I wouldnt have continued watching.

I am glad to see that Im not the only one who loves Jason X. It doesnt deserve any of the hate it gets IMO.

thats some crazy ass shit. friday v sucks, not because of the ending but because it's way too rapid fire with too many victims and all of the kills are done in this dumb almost-a-giallo way like the first two but done with WAY less style. It's like a straight to vhs version of what made those two movies entertaining. i dont want to look at a dudes hands for 90% of the kills, just try to sell me that its jason by showing jason more often

honestly only thing that looks right is your number one

I always kinda liked Jason X, but mostly because it was a new wild setting.

What has happened to the series after the reboot? I remember seeing it in theaters and thinking it was pretty decent. Was that really 2009? Why no new ones?

WrkHrdPlayHrdr posted...

I always kinda liked Jason X, but mostly because it was a new wild setting.

What has happened to the series after the reboot? I remember seeing it in theaters and thinking it was pretty decent. Was that really 2009? Why no new ones?

IIRC theres a lot of dumb legal fights over the rights, so its kinda put the whole franchise on lockdown indefinitely.

WrkHrdPlayHrdr posted...

I always kinda liked Jason X, but mostly because it was a new wild setting.

What has happened to the series after the reboot? I remember seeing it in theaters and thinking it was pretty decent. Was that really 2009? Why no new ones?

Some asshole who had a minor part in working on the Friday series manged to get the legal rights to Jason and he refuses to sell the rights or use Jason for anything.

Bump

I really wanted to see Jason X as the trashterpiece a concept like "Space Jason" wanted to be but man, I couldn't stand it

Part 6 is my favorite too though, it's just a really good time

Everyone with a brain sees Part 6 as the best Jason movie.

JKwaffle posted...

12. Friday the 13th Part 2
Man, this one was rough, and almost made me not want to watch the rest of the franchise.

Man, that's the best one in the series.

New Beginning, x and freddy vs jason are the best ones.

FortuneCookie posted...

Man, that's the best one in the series.

I almost felt bad putting it so low given that I know a lot of people like it, but man, it just did not land for me at ALL.

Bump

shit list

Robot2600 posted...

shit list

Nah

Yah, we've all got opinions. 2's the best.

bump

Last bump, then Ill let this die