Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (2013)

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I wasn't blown away by the Friday 13th franchise, I think they were ground breaking and positively genre defining but none of them exactly blew me away.I recently watched the Friday 13th documentary His Name Was Jason (2009) and wasn't exactly impressed with what I saw.How can a person like myself who found the franchise lackluster enjoy a documentary about the material? Well, I did. This documentary is so in depth, so thorough that I was positively fascinated. Giving around 30 minutes of stories, background and factoids about each movie the documentary stands at over 5 and a half hours so isn't swift viewing.With countless interviews from the creators and cast to unseen footage and deleted scenes this is one of the most competently made fan service documentaries I've ever seen and is a must watch for any fans or even just horror addicts like myself.Want to know why some of the movies were so cut? Interested to find out why Kane Hodder didn't play Jason in Freddy Vs Jason? Eager to discover which movies succeeded and which bombed? This documentary covers these questions and so much more.Brilliant viewing and that's coming from someone who as mentioned doesn't consider the franchise as critically acclaimed as most others.The Good: Corey Feldmans opening and closer Essential viewing for fans of the series Extremely in depth The Bad: Uses the same interview segments as His Name Was Jason (2009) Some key figures weren't interviewed Things I Learnt From This Documentary: You can make a good documentary about anything if you just handle it right Across all 12 movies and a total of 120 potential points on IMDb they only garnered 63 from me

When studios make DVD extras they hire people who most of the time are not "Fans of the Film" that they are working on. The First Release "Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me" is an example of a passionless produced product. That is not the case here. "Crystal Lake Memories" is a professionally produced product that happened to be made by people who love the films and that comes across hear "LOUD AND CLEAR".Each film is covered here. There is interviews of the cast as well returning to certain locations. I found the most entertaining segments were the ones devoted to "Friday the 13th Part IV" and "Friday the 13th Part VII" I have no complaints about this documentary. I just wish that the fans could raise the funds and restore the gore that was edited out of each film. You don't need the actors to come back. Body doubles and insert shots is all we need.

I am a huge fan of the 'Friday the 13th' franchise. Watching this documentary was just so enlightening! See how everything started, one of the biggest horror films ever made,is amazing, and while watching the documentary I felt like part of that. Seeing all my favorite characters, the stunts, and even how the hockey mask became a thing was fantastic.From all the actors who portrayed Jason Voorhees , my favorite is Steve Dash. This guy was such a professional. (watch the documentary and you will understand) :)I don't usually write reviews, but this doc was amazing!

Bookended by sequences narrated by Corey Feldman, this incredibly lengthy, eleven hours long documentary about the making of the Friday the 13th film series, told, in chronological order, by the cast and crew of each film, is interesting even if you already know a lot of what is being discussed. Each film is given a fair amount of time for coverage, about 25 minutes or so, with interviews of the cast and crew of that specific film, as opposed to some random fan, like we ended up getting in His Name was Jason. Monica Keena's comments are amusing, but it also seems like she is perhaps taking Jason a bit too seriously. She seemed a bit too insulted by Jason later killing her character in comic book form. From his interviews, one gets the feeling that Derek Mears is genuinely a fan of the character and the series, and made the character frightening again, for the first time since part VII. Kane Hodder was a good Jason, he made the character his own by doing something unique with it, which had never been done before, but his Jason wasn't scary or frightening, more slow and methodical. Even the segment devoted to the (in my mind, underwhelming) in-name-only television series was well done.