Resident Alien: The Man with No Name by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse

 

(pb; 2016: graphic novel, collecting issues 1-4 of the Dark Horse miniseries. Volume 4 of six-volume Resident Alien graphic novel series, published by Dark Horse Comics.)

From the back cover

“Dr. Harry Vanderspiegle. A smart, gifted, and stranded alien explorer hiding in plain sight, has been posing as a doctor and solving crimes in the small town of Patience, Washington. After Harry accidentally reveals himself to investigators who are on his trail, a stubborn federal agent arrives in town to heat things up! With a little help from the local shaman, Harry and nurse Asta finally realize the danger they’re both in, but some of their allies could help them avoid detection as another murder mystery rocks their town.”

 

Review

The fourth Resident Alien graphic novel focuses on Vanderspiegle’s further immersion into Patience, Washington, when Asta and her father have friendly sit-down with the stranded extraterrestrial, and a mystery stemming from a middle-of-town fire that claims the life of a mysterious hobo who has hidden ties to the community around them.

Like previous entries in this collection of miniseries, Name’s tone is humane, gentle, and sometimes quietly funny, with occasional, brief violence that isn’t so violent that it upsets the organic, delicate overall tone of Resident. Worth owning, this. Followed by Resident Alien: An Alien in New York.

The Big Needle by Ken Follett writing as Symon Myles

 

(pb; 1974)

From the back cover

“From the West End of London to the playgrounds of Paris to the desolate beaches of Wales, a dangerous and deadly intrigue as snowballing. Innocent people were being terrorized, homes were being destroyed, and dead bodies were becoming unnervingly common─all because the most powerful organization in the world was thirsting for one man’s blood. His name was Chadwell Carstairs. And he was a threat for as long as he fought The Big Needle.”

 

Review

Needle is a word-spare, swiftly plotted, hippie friendly, hardboiled, and hard-to-set-down short novel (175 pages) from an author more widely known for his political thrillers (e.g., Triple and The Man from St. Petersburg). Its deft, first-person-POV has brief scenes of explicit sex and its underlying humor is briefly undercut by mentions of two incidents of rape and torture, which take place between the lines, and whose victim shakes off them a little too easily (although Needle acknowledges that her experiences redirect the lives of key characters). The identity of Needle’s mysterious main villain (Mr. H) is not difficult to spot, but it makes sense and easily could’ve been, with a few altered lines, one of several other characters.

I’d recommend this for those who like their pulp unapologetic about its well-written, entertaining low-end thrills─think a stripped-to-the-bone Will Viharo novel, or Mickey Spillane, with more humor and minus his Right-Wing bigotry and nihilism.

Note: Music-loving fans of Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange or its resulting film versions and plays may appreciate one of Needle‘s scenes that tips its hat to Burgess’s work.

A Conspiracy of Faith by Jussi Adler-Olsen

 

(hb; 2013: third book in the Department Q series. Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitkin.)

From the inside flap

“Detective Carl Mørck holds in his hands a bottle that contains an old and decaying message, written in blood. It is a cry for help from two young brothers, tied and bound in a boathouse by the sea. Could it be real? Who are these boys, and why aren’t they reported missing? Could they possibly still be alive?

“Carl’s investigation will force him to cross paths with a woman stuck in a desperate marriage─her husband refuses to tell her where he goes, what he does, how long he will be away. For days on end she waits, and when he returns she must endure his wants, his needs, his moods, his threats. But enough is enough. She will find out the truth, no matter the cost to her husband─or to herself.

“Carl and his colleagues Assad and Rose must use all of their resources to uncover the horrifying truth. . .”

 

Review

Conspiracy is another slick, entertaining and thrill ride of a police procedural in the Department Q series, suspenseful and twist-filled, with supporting characters (e.g.  Assad and Rose)─with their secrets, some of them easy to suss out─who evolve in tone-consistent and surprising ways. Adler-Olsen again balances dark horrors with humor and warmth, and it’s a winning combination of tone and overall talent; top-notch mainstream work, this. Followed by The Purity of Vengeance.

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The resulting Danish film, Department Q: A Conspiracy of Faith, was released on March 6, 2016. Hans Petter Moland directed it, from Nicolaj Arcel and Mikkel Nørgaard’s concept.

Nikolaj Lie Kaas reprised his role of Carl Mørck (from Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes and Department Q: The Absent One). Fares Fares reprised his role of Assad (from the aforementioned prequels). Johanne Louise Schmidt reprised her role of Rose Knudsen (from The Absent One).

Amanda Collin played Rakel. Søren Pilmark reprised his role of Marcus Jacobsen. Morton Kirkskov reprised his role of Lars Bjørn (from the first two films). Michael Brostup reprised his role of Børge Bak (from the first two films). Jakob Oftebro played Pasgård.

Louis Sylvester Larsen play Trygve. Pål Sverre Hagen played Johannes. Lotte Andersen played Mia.

Darkman: In the Face of Death by Randall Boyll

 

(pb; 1994; final entry in the book-only Darkman quadrilogy.)

From the back cover

“Darkman: Once Peyton Westlake was a brilliant scientist conducing ground-breaking work with artificial skin─but his life was changed forever when vicious gangsters destroyed his lab and left him horribly burned beyond recognition. At that moment, Peyton Westlake died and re-emerged from the hellish fire as DARKMAN, a creature of the night driven by superhuman rage. Using his artificial skin process and his ability to become anyone for ninety-nine minutes, DARKMAN extracted a deadly revenge on the men who destroyed his life.

 

“Now, Darkman must take to the night once again to stop a vicious, rogue CIA agent known only as Rondo  who wants the secret of Darkman’s skin for his own evil plans. Once he possesses Darkman’s technology, he will use it to impersonate the president and forge an empire with himself as leader. With time running out, Darkman must somehow stop Rondo or else the entire world will fall under a madman’s will.” 

 

Review

Boyll’s fifth Darkman book is as comic book-y and over-the-top action-exciting as the franchise’s previous novels. This time out, there’s an international element and one-note, cliché-spouting villain (Harold Ferguson, a.k.a. Rondo R. Rondo) who is more comic relief than serious bad guy, one who tries to steal Peyton Westlake’s groundbreaking false-face formula while Westlake/Darkman and Darla (Jennifer) Dalton (from The Gods of Hell) try to rescue her ransomed American diplomat brother (Adam) from his South American captors. 

Tone-wise, Face is lighter than its prequels. It still has plenty of cinema-worth wild action scenes and settings (e.g., when Rondo runs goes crazy in a shopping mall, and Davis City, a jungle town where the US Confederacy still thrives). It also sticks to character-true storylines and events, another trademark element of Boyll’s Darkman works, with an open-ended series wrap-up that doesn’t demand a sequel while leaving it open for one─worth reading and owning, Face.

Replay by Ken Grimwood

 

(hb; 1986)

From the inside flap

“We have all fantasies about it. Especially men like Jeff Winston. At 43, he’s trapped in a tepid marriage and a dead-end job. Until he has a sudden, fatal heart attack and awakens in his eighteen-year-old body in 1963.

“Staring at a Playboy centerfold on his college dorm room wall, Jeff Winston realizes that his memories of the next 25 years are intact. He knows the future of stocks like IBM and Xerox. He knows who will win the Kentucky Derby. He is going to replay his life─living once again through the assassinations of the 1960s, Vietnam, Watergate, the Reagan revolution.

“The odds against the Dodgers winning the 1963 World Series in four straight games are astronomical. But Jeff makes a bet and with the money that brings him, he builds a multibillion-dollar fortune, becomes one of the most powerful men in the world.

“And again. . .

“Until he turns 43 and dies again. When he awakens in 1963, he can make other choices. . . from uninhibited hedonism to a search for understanding. Or perhaps love─with a woman who, like Jeff, is a replayer. How many more times must they lose each other and all they hold dear? And why have they been chosen to replay their lives?”

 

Review

Replay is a mainstream, well-paced and character-centric science fiction/reliving-your-life novel, solid in its descriptions and story-freshening elements to keep it entertaining and interesting. Good read, this, worth checking out.

The Sandman: The Wake by Neil Gaiman and various artists

 

(1995-6, 2012 – graphic novel, collects issues 70-75 of the comic book The Sandman. “Introduction” by Mikal Gilmore. Eleventh book in the thirteen-book Sandman graphic novel series.)

 

Overall review

Wake is a solid wrap-up to the original run of The Sandman comic books (additional books within the series are later-published prequels or side stories). For the most part, it’s short and sharp (with the exception of issue 75, “The Tempest,” which runs long). Great series.

As in previous Sandman graphic novels, the artists, letterers and colorists who bring Gaiman’s transcend-the-genre writing to vivid, distinctive representation.

 

Review, issue by issue

“The Wake: Chapter One” (#70): “Dreamers, guests, celebrants and mourners” gather in the necropolis Litharge “at stony crossroads in the shadow of the Quinsy Mountains” to acknowledge Morpheus’s death. Meanwhile, his successor─the new Dream of the Endless, previously known as Daneil Hall─holds court with a select few (Cain, etc.).

 

“The Wake: Chapter Two” (#71): More conversations between the new incarnation of the Dream of the Endless and his immediate staff are shown as are other guests─a few of them cape-and-cowl types and supernatural magicians.

 

“The Wake: Chapter Three” (#72): The Wake begins in earnest. Matthew the raven decides what the next phase of his life will be. Dream of the Endless prepares to meet his siblings.

 

“The Wake: Chapter Four” (#73): In modern times, Rob Gadling─actually Morpheus’s undying drinking buddy Hob Gadling─attends a Renaissance Faire with his girlfriend (Gwen). Gadling has a conversation with one of Morpheus’s siblings, who has a pertinent question for him.

 

“Exile” (#74): An older Asian man has a dream about a desert, a kitten, and Morpheus.

 

“The Tempest” (#75): 1610 AD. Will Shakespeare writes, has conversations with his daughter (Judith) and his wife, and is visited by Morpheus.

The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen

 

(hb; 2012: second book in the Department Q series. Translated from the Danish by K.E. Semmel.)

From the inside flap

“[Detective Carl] Mørck is satisfied with the notion of picking up long-cold leads. So he’s naturally intrigued when a closed case lands on his desk. A brother and sister were brutally murdered two decades earlier, and one of the suspects─part of a group of privileged boarding-school students─confessed and was convicted.

“But when Mørck reopens the files, it becomes clear that all is not what it seems. Looking into the supposedly solved case leads him to Kimmie, a woman living on the streetsk, stealing to survive. Kimmie has mastered evading the police, but now they aren’t the only ones looking for her─because Kimmie has secrets that certain influential individuals would kill to keep buried. . . as well as one of her own that could turn everything on its head.”

 

Review

Like the previous Department Q novel The Keeper of Lost Causes, Absent is an entertaining, slick and hard-to-set-down thriller/police procedural, this entry with particularly well-to-do and sadistic villains and a fascinating antihero (Kimmie) who’s stalking them. There are few surprises in Absent, but it’s still a good genre read, worth owning. Followed by A Conspiracy of Faith.

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The resulting 2014 Danish film, Department Q: The Absent One, was released in Denmark on November 23, 2014.

Mikkel Nørgaard directed the film, from a screenplay by Rasmus Heisterberg, based on Nikolaj Arcel’s concept.

Nikolaj Lie Kaas played Carl Mørck. Fares Fares played Hafez el-Assad. Søren Pilmark played Marcus Jacobsen. Morton Kirkskov played Lars Bjørn. Johanne Louis Schmidt played Rose.

Danica Curcic played Kimmie Katherine Greis-Rosenthal played Tine.

Pilou Asbӕk played Ditlev Pram. David Dencik played Ulrik Dybbøl.

Darkman: The Gods of Hell by Randall Boyll

 

(pb; 1994; third entry in the book-only Darkman quadrilogy)

From the back cover

“Darkman: Once Peyton Westlake was a brilliant scientist conducing ground-breaking work with artificial skin─but his life was changed forever when vicious gangsters destroyed his lab and left him horribly burned beyond recognition. At that moment, Peyton Westlake died and re-emerged from the hellish fire as DARKMAN, a creature of the night driven by superhuman rage. Using his artificial skin process and his ability to become anyone for ninety-nine minutes, DARKMAN extracted a deadly revenge on the men who destroyed his life.

“Now, across the city, children are disappearing, and the niece of Darkman’s former fiancée, Julie Hastings, is the latest victim. Searching for the kidnappers, Darkman stumbles across a strange cult sacrificing the children in a quest for immortality. Forced to infiltrate the group, Darkman must confront the diabolical plan’s evil mastermind, a deadly killer with a tortured past who will stop at nothing to find the secret of everlasting life.”

 

Review

A few days have passed since the events of the last Darkman book, The Price of Fear. Julie Hastings is recovering from Alfred Lowell/Witchfinder’s gasoline-soaked burning attack when the pestiferous Detective Sam Weatherspoon, investigating the Witchfinder’s assaults, tells her that her brother and sister-in-law (Jerry and Margaret Hastings) were killed in a home invasion. One of their young daughters, Tina, escaped harm and capture, while her tween sister (Shawna) was kidnapped by unknown criminals─the seventh kidnapping in a string of them.

Unbeknownst to Julie, Weatherspoon, and Darkman (a.k.a. Peyton Westlake, Julie’s ex-fiance) these crimes are being carried out by thugs, Pocketknife (a.k.a. Percy Hursch) and Flynn, at the behest of a desperate former-evangelist cult leader, Reverend Norman Hopewell, whose “Ceremonies of Youthful Defilement” require fresh female virgins.

Also in the pulptastic, fast-paced mix: Martin Clayborne, rich “local real estate developer” (from The Price of Fear), who continues to show romantic interest in Julie, and Darla Dalton, a mysterious woman who shows similar interest in Westlake.

Like Boyll’s previous Darkman novels, Gods is a hard-to-set-down, comic book-y, gory and over-the-top work with lots of cinematic vivid action, hyped up emotions and situations, and excellent writing and editing. This is a fun, worth-owning read (as are all the Darkman books thus far), if you’re looking for an unpretentious B-flick-style book that evolves the series and its distinctive and well-sketched characters between the splatter, violence, comeuppance and other explosions. 

Followed by Boyll’s Darkman: In the Face of Death.

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen

 

(hb; 2011: first book in the Department Q series. Translated from the Danish by Lisa Hartford.)

From the inside flap

“The Keeper of Lost Causes, the first installment of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s. . . Department Q series, features the deeply flawed chief detective Carl Mørck, who used to be a good homicide detective─one of Copenhagen’s best. Then a bullet almost took his life. Two of his colleagues weren’t so lucky, and Carl, who didn’t draw his weapon, blames himself.

“So a promotion is the last thing Carl expects.

“But it all becomes clear when he sees his new office in the basement. Carl’s been selected to run Department Q, a new special investigation division that turns out to be a department of one. With a stack of Copenhagen’s coldest cases to keep him company. Carl has been put out to pasture. So he’s as surprised as anyone when a case actually captures his interest. A politician vanished without a trace five years earlier. The world assumes she’s dead. His colleagues snicker about the time he’s wasting. But Carl may have the last laugh and redeem himself in the process.

“Because she isn’t dead. . . yet.”

Review

Keeper is an entertaining, well-written, slick and hard-to-set-down police procedural/thriller with unique-for-the-genre elements (a Muslim janitor detective and villains who utilize a striking form of victimizing the woman they’ve kidnapped). The set-up’s easy to piece together─not a flaw, a feature: it’s the how and who that matters here. Great start to a series, this, one worth reading and owning.

Followed by The Absent One.

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The resulting 2013 Danish film, Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes, was released in Denmark on October 3, 2013. Mikkel Nørgaard directed the film, from a screenplay by Nikolaj Arcel.

Nikolaj Lie Kaas played Carl Mørck. Fares Fares played Hafez el-Assad. Sonja Richter played Merete Lyngaard.

Søren Pilmark played Marcus Jacobsen. Morton Kirkskov played Lars Bjørn. Per Scheel Krüger played Anker. Troels Lyby played Hardy Henningsen.

Mikkel Boe Følsgaard played Uffe Lyngaard. Patricia Schumann played Søs Norup. Rasmus Botoft played Tage Baggesen.

The Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman and various artists

 

(1993-5, 1996 – graphic novel, collects issues 57-69 of the comic book The Sandman. “Introduction” by Frank McConnell. Tenth book in the thirteen-book Sandman graphic novel series.)

From the back cover

“They have had many names: The Erinyes. The Eumenides. The Dirae. The Furies. Agents of vengeance, implacable and unstoppable., they do not rest until the crime they seek to punish is washed clean with blood. It is to them, The Kindly Ones, that Lyta Hall turns when her baby Daniel is taken from her, and it is the Dream of the Endless who becomes their target. But behind a mother’s grief and unyielding rage, there are darker forces at work, and what they set in motion will eventually demand a sacrifice greater than any the Dreaming has yet known.”

 

Overall review

Kindly is one of the most emotionally satisfying and intense storylines of the Sandman series, with recurring characters driving the sometimes-twisty events with their passions and their guilts─in the Dream King’s case, the murder of his son, Orpheus. Intertwined in the themes of guilt, grief, rage and forgiveness, there’s Gaiman’s usual skewering of sexism, homophobia, and other nasty human motives. Excellent read, one of the best Sandman offerings, this.

As in previous Sandman graphic novels, the artists, letterers and colorists who bring Gaiman’s transcend-the-genre writing to vivid, distinctive representation. Followed by The Sandman: The Wake.

 

Review, issue by issue

“The Kindly Ones: 1” (#57): Two-thirds of the triumvirate Furies (Stheno, Euryale) have tea. Hippolyta Hall, living with her baby (Daniel) and her friend (Carla), checks out a dodgy job. Matthew, Morpheus’s raven, queries those around the Dream Lord about the fates of the ravens who came after him.

 

“The Kindly Ones: 2” (#58): Hippolyta speaks with Stheno and Euryale. Clurican, the fairy Duke of the Yarrow and the Flay and brother of Nuala (Morpheus’s servant) visits the Dream King with a request.

 

“The Kindly Ones: 3” (#59): Hob Gadling, mourning the death of his most recent wife─he is immortal, or close to it─is visited by Morpheus. Hippolyta gets news about her kidnapped son (Daniel) and forms a plan.

 

“The Kindly Ones: 4” (#60): Remiel, one of the angelic guardians of Hell, visits Lucifer. Hippolyta seeks out Stheno and Euryale in real-time to achieve revenge for her kidnapped son’s fate. Carla visits her and Hippolyta’s downstairs neighbor, Rose Walker. Morpheus resurrects the Corinthian, this version slightly more obedient than the last one.

 

“The Kindly Ones: 5” (#61): The two Furies (Stheno, Euryale) try to convince Hippolyta Hall to stay with them, become the new version of their long-dead sister (Medusa). Rose Walker visits her ex-neighbor, Zelda (minus her dead sister, Chantal). Morpheus charges Matthew the raven and the Corinthian with a task. Nuala returns to her family castle in Faerie. Detective Pinkerton, creepy cop, reveals his true identity to Carla.

 

“The Kindly Ones: 6” (#62): Rose Walker flies to England to visit the nursing home where her grandmother, Unity Kinkaid, died. Rose interviews doctors and patients within the institution and is told sometimes creepy stories and sweet tales about her once-comatose relative. Larissa, the terrifying, blood-spattered witch girl with Coke bottle glasses, locates Hippolyta Hall

 

“The Kindly Ones: 7” (#63): Larissa takes in Hippolyta Hall. Odin, a.k.a. “Grim, the Death-Blinder, the High One, the Gallows-God,” visits the Dream King, speaks of a grievance stemming from events in the last issue of The Sandman: Season of Mists. Destiny grants his younger sibling Delirium a wish. Morpehus visits Gilbert, a.k.a. Fiddler’s Green, who expresses concern about the Lord of Dreams. Hippolyta speaks anew with the two Furies about vengeance and its rules.

 

“The Kindly Ones: 8” (#64): Rose Walker meets Desire. Delirium visits Morpheus. Matthew the raven and The Corinthian locate Carla’s burnt corpse─The Corinthian says he knows who killed her. Stheno, Euryale and Rose visit Morpheus, much to the dismay of one of the Dream Lord’s gatekeepers (Gryphon). Rose Walker hooks up with a nice guy with relevant secrets.

 

“The Kindly Ones: 9” (#65): Rose Walker visits Fawney Rig, a manor was called Wych Manor─the waking-world site of Morpheus’s 70-year imprisonment. While there, Rose meets Desire, who claims to be related to her.

In Swartalfheim, the Corinthian and Matthew the raven confront Loki. The two Furies and Hipplyta kill another of Morpheus’s servants (Gilbert, a.k.a. Fiddler Green). Morpheus visits Larissa, the spooky woman with Coke bottle-top glasses. Matt the raven meets one of Noah’s seven raven (“Raven”). The Corinthian locates Hippolyta’s son, Daniel.

 

“The Kindly Ones: 10” (#66): The Corinthian rescues Daniel, and while do so meets Robin Goodfellow (a.k.a. Puck). Odin retrieves Loki. Abel is visited by the two Furies (a.k.a. the Dirae) and Hipplyta. In Faerie, where Puck has recently returned, wild social changes take place. Nuala makes big life-changing decisions. Mervyn confronts Hippolyta and the Furies. Rose Walker returns to America.

“The Kindly Ones: 11” (#67): The Corinthian and Daniel meet Cain and Goldie. Rose discovers that Zelda, her ex-neighbor, has passed. Cain, Goldie, The Corinthian and Daniel reach Morpheus’s castle, as does Morpheus and the Dirae.

 

“The Kindly Ones: 12” (#68): Morpheus talks with Matthew the Raven while preparing for war with the Furies. Rose and her ex-neighbor, Hal, attend Zelda’s funeral.

 

“The Kindly Ones: 13” (#69): Everything comes to a head, the conflict between the Dream Lord and the Dirae resolving in a multi-realm-changing fashion─strange rebirths of sorts.

Friday the 13th Part 3: 3-D by Michael Avallone

 

(1982; movie tie-in novel, based on a screenplay by Martin Kittrosser and Carol Watson)

From the back cover

“He lies in wait. Patiently. Quietly. Ready to strike. As darkness settles over the forest, the victims enter his lair. And one by one they die!”

Review

The plot of the third Friday runs thusly: Chris Higgins, survivor of a failed attack by Jason a few years prior─an assault not shown in either of the two previous films─takes seven of her friends to her family cottage (Higgins Haven) near Crystal Lake. Jason, who is not specified by name until late in the book, takes umbrage at this and brutally dispatches those he views as invaders.

The blunt, giddily unhinged and no-nuance writing is appropriately choppy (given the rapid-style editing of the Friday movies), with head-hopping between characters (often within the same paragraph), the death scenes simile-laden, and the characters Friday-stock (though Avallone gives at least one of the characters a surname, Vera Sanchez). Much of Friday reads like A solid writer with a short deadline wrote a rough Ed Woodian slasher movie tie-in novel, with a focus on hyperbolic, darkly humorous dread and violence, e.g.:

“The hand twisted the cleaver in a vicious, merciless circle. Harold’s chest exploded in flame and agony. 

“His paunchy body toppled backwards, crashing to the floor.

“The meat cleaver jutted from his chest like a tombstone.” (p. 30)

. . .or:

“[Jason’s] mad eyes shone like fiery coals in the gloom of the porch.” (p. 152)

Is Friday worth reading? Yes, if the above passages entertain you. Not only that, the out-of-print Friday is an alternate version of the 1982 film on which it is based─it was written before canon was established within the franchise, and there are noticeable differences between the 1982 book and its source flick.

One of the big differences is Jason laughs, chuckles, howls and screams in the book, something he doesn’t do in the films. In the book, Loco is black, not white. The book also has a different ending, one that negates Jason’s chances of returning, unless he encounters Re-Animator‘s Dr. Herbert West (or somebody like him) or the Friday works that followed were prequels.

There appears to be a fun Halloween (1978) shout-out in the scene where Edna, husband-pecking future Jason victim, sees a figure moving between her windblown laundry on a clothesline. Debbie, one of Chris’s friends, reads a “shocker” by Sidney Stewart titled The Beast With Red Hands─this is a real-life, low-brow Robert Blochian thriller (judging by Amazon reviews), penned by Avallone under the aforementioned nom de plume, one of seventeen the prolific author used in his career.

If you’re entertained by low-brow movie tie-in thrillers that read like they were hastily written and edited or you’re a die-hard Friday fan, Avallone’s Friday might be a worthwhile investment.

Note: In 1988, another, presumably more canon-friendly book version was published, Simon Hawke’s Friday the 13^th: Part 3. Like Avallone’s Friday, it’s out of print and pricy, and is said to have its own minor variations (e.g., giving Edna and Hank more of a backstory, as well as Jason).

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The source/counterpart film was released stateside on August 13, 1982. Steve Miner directed it, from a screenplay by Martin Kittrosser and Carol Watson.

Richard Brooker played Jason Voorhees.

Dana Kimmell played Chris Higgins. Paul Kratka played Rick, Chris’s would-be boyfriend. Tracie Savage played Debbie. Jeffrey Rogers played Andy, Debbie’s boyfriend.

Catherine Parks played Vera Sanchez. Larry Zerner played Shelly, Vera’s “loser” prankster and Vera’s blind date─and previous owner of Jason’s now-iconic white mask. Rachel Howard played Chili. David Katims played Chuck.

Gloria Charles played Foxy. Nick Savage played Ali. Kevin O’Brien played Loco.

Cheri Maugans played Edna. Steve Susskind played Harold, Edna’s henpecked spouse. David Wiley played Abel, the Biblical doomsaying bum.