Is this a sequel or a remake? Just like the first movie, a bunch of indistinguishable camp counselors meet at a camp on Crystal Lake, run around in their underwear, and get picked off, one by one, until it gets down to the last one who, at the 68 minute mark (as opposed to the 70 minute mark in the original, but then, this sequel is a few minutes shorter anyway) has a long series of chases and close calls with the killer. The killer is finally killed off (yeah, right), and then there's a scene with lovey dovey music, after which Jason springs out of nowhere and drags the heroine down. She wakes up on a stretcher (as opposed to in the hospital) and asks about her friends. Sheesh. This exact same movie got made the previous year -- why did it have to be made again?

As if the parallel with the first movie wasn't enough, the opening scenes of this sequel flashback to a LOT of the final scenes of the first movie. The girl who survived it has nightmares, and then we get a replay of all the high points of her "climactic" duel, Jason flying out of the water at her, and her subsequent conversation with the hospital staff. (Omitted is the one single funny-bad scene in that movie involving the killer's demise.) These flashbacks last over five minutes and seem longer. If we didn't realize how cheesy it was the first time, we get a second chance.

The girl wakes up from her nightmare and has a long scene in her apartment where she walks around in eerie silence, closing strangely open windows and so forth. We're expecting Jason to jump out of the shadows at any minute. After she suspects something is amiss, she grabs a knife and investigates concernedly, and we realize that a false jump scene -- most likely one involving a cat -- will occur just prior to Jason's sudden entrance. Sadly, we're right. A cat flies in the window. Relieved, she opens the refrigerator and sees -- Jason's mother's head! Yes! That's right! Jason runs around putting his mother's head in people's refrigerators!

Roll the opening credits. Cut to the new batch of cardboard camp counselors. The old guy on the bike shows up again and utters eerie warnings, though somehow his own advice doesn't keep him from poking around the camp in the dark himself. Three of the counselors drive up to Crystal Lake, impeded on the way by a fallen tree trunk in the road. While the two guys move it, the girl comments on how spooky the place is, then goes wandering off in the woods. Uh huh.

Boring stuff happens, like the obligatory yet utterly ineffective nods to characterization. A dog gets lost. We see it run up to Jason. Cut to a close-up of hot dogs sizzling on a grill. Ooooo, symbolism! It's ok to show grisly scenes of people dying gruesome deaths, but showing the DOG getting killed must have been pushing the 'R' rating too far. Later, the dog's mangled body is found, and still later, the dog comes back alive. I have no explanation for this whatsoever.

Two of the counselors, against the rules, decide to take a hike to Camp Crystal Lake (the new batch is at a different camp on the same lake). They get discovered by a cop, who just happens to be hanging around there, five years after the events of the first movie. He chases them off, saying that the area is "condemned." Huh? The *woods* are condemned? Later he catches sight of someone else wandering around the area -- Jason, this time -- and he chases him a LONG way into the woods, for no particular reason. This guy sure expends a lot of effort shooing people away. He runs across a dilapidated house in the woods and looks around inside. He enters a room and sees something that horrifies him, at which point Jason bumps him off. The camera doesn't show what was in that room, which means that the One Who Survives will end up at the house during the climax and also stumble upon the room.

Meanwhile, some of the counselors have gone back to town to hang out in a bar. One of the characters has a truly laughable scene where she supposes Jason might be real and tries to empathize with him. It has such a ridiculously false ring to it, I was laughing and shaking my head in spite of myself.

Some of them return from the bar to the camp -- the others inexplicably never show up again. In their absence, Jason has been knocking off those remaining, who, according to the rules established by the first film in this series, may not do anything to defend themselves once they catch sight of Jason, no matter how long he takes to raise and swing his weapon of choice. There's a shot of him dragging a bloody body down the stairs mere seconds before the guys from the bar enter and look around. No blood on the stairs.

At last we get down to the last intended victim (actually there's two, but the other stays out of the picture for a while, for some reason), and we can finally have a scene or two with a modicum of suspense. Although this movie is a hair worse than the original, if such a thing is possible, the "climactic" scenes are a little better. There are a couple of rare moments of actual suspense and a jump scene that fooled me even though I was watching for it. Nevertheless, there is still a healthy portion of stupidity to come, such as the moment when the heroine hides crouching behind a car. Jason runs past, then stops, looks back, and takes a few tentative steps toward the car. The heroine is inexplicably facing in the other direction. She's crouching, leaning back against the car, which means she's facing away from both the car and Jason. Nevertheless, the very INSTANT Jason turns away again, she bolts in another direction. Outrunning killers is a lot easier if people off-camera are helping you out.

Eventually she gets her hands on a chainsaw, starts it up, and swings it at Jason. It certainly seems effective -- Jason looks visibly concerned and hurriedly backs away. So why -- WHY -- does she drop the chainsaw the instant Jason trips backward over something and run away without it?? She had him at another point, too, by tricking Jason into believing she was his mother. She had a knife hidden behind her back, but after she got Jason to kneel down before her, she took approximately one hour to swing that knife at him, which gave Jason plenty of time to block the blow.

This movie, like the original that preceeded it, is worthless. The one or two good moments aren't even close to worth braving the rest for, and the one or two funny-bad moments are even less worth braving the rest for. The only thing scary about it is that the series didn't end with it.

Rating: 1 turkey.