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To Halloween what Rhinestone is to Nashville, though within the realm it does achieve a certain classicism. A wave of disasters after the drowning of a certain Jason Voorhees turns Camp Crystal Lake into "Camp Blood": The townspeople react to a visitor's mention exactly like Transylvanian villagers hearing about Count Orlok's castle, the stagecoach ride comes courtesy of a trucker who just doesn't get "these dumb kids." The counselors (Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannine Taylor and Kevin Bacon) are getting things ready for the re-opening, which means smoking pot, lounging around in bikinis, and playing strip Monopoly. The local loony chants "You're all doooomed," and soon enough the subjective camera from Black Christmas is introduced with added heavy-breathing. Since the hockey-masked boogeyman is still a few sequels away, Sean S. Cunningham sketches a bit of detail between the guts-spilling—one appreciates Taylor's telling of a dream in which the rain runs red, or her Kate Hepburn impression at the outhouse mirror before she takes a hatchet to the kisser. The wackiest frisson is the unveiling of Special Guest Villainess... Betsy Palmer. (Maybe Jaye P. Morgan was busy?) "So young. So pretty. What monster could have done this?" A snapshot, intentional or not, of the idleness of post-Seventies hedonism, where apolitical dummies come to life solely as Tom Savini gore effects (cf. the bridal tableau suddenly animated by a bullet in The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz). The coda takes from De Palma (who took it from Boorman), and gazes ahead into dark waters. With Robbi Morgan, Peter Brouwer, Ron Millkie, and Walt Gorney.
--- Fernando F. Croce |