It's time to continue our journey into the Friday the 13th novels with another trip to Camp Crystal Lake. This one is a direct continuation of our last book, Mother's Day, which I really enjoyed. Will I enjoy this follow up, or much like Jason's mask, are some things best left buried? We'll see for ourselves with Jason's Curse.
Oh yeah, now we're talkin'! My issue with the previous cover was the lack of really any iconography that could be considered Friday the 13th. That is heavily amended here with our villain in the Jason Mask rising from out of Camp Crystal Lake's waters, all while an unsuspecting pair sit in a canoe. Great stuff. It also gives off very "Fear Street Cover" vibes as well, which I'm sure are intentional. Guessing the same artist for some of those covers did this because it reminds me a lot of the cover for Double Date in particular.
We open on the waters of Camp Crystal Lake as a man named Big Red is fishing. He's described as being a hillbilly with a prosthetic leg and a glass eye. Big Red is described as not being very smart, but otherwise harmless. Hell, he even hates the idea of hurting fish despite loving fishing. But that kind Lennie-like characteristic will soon change as he ends up catching not a fish, but the hockey mask of Jason. He puts it on, and it attaches to his face like it's becoming his own flesh. And with it comes his leg being healed and his eye being back to normal. Of course, he also gains with it an insatiable bloodlust, as is common with those suffering from wearing Jason's mask.
We then turn the story to our protagonist, Kelly Boone, the younger sister of Billy Boone. It's been a year since the events of the last book, and she's been having migraines ever since, while also living in an off-campus housing share with a bunch of dropouts, which includes her boyfriend Doug Sanderson along with Miguel Hernandez and his girlfriend Tina Chen. She then starts to smoke a Camel, to which the book mentions Joe Camel being as famous to kids as Mickey Mouse and, I dunno, WAS he? Like, I saw Joe Camel in magazine ads, but like never gave a thought to the character at all. Maybe it's more a Canada thing, I dunno. While her life has gone bad, she's mostly been focused on one thing: her brother's murder and the connection to Camp Crystal Lake and the constant murders caused by Jason Voorhees.
Another reason Kelly's been having PTSD over everything is that if not for a sore throat, she would have been with the teens that weekend at Camp Crystal Lake, so now she wonders if things would have been different. If maybe she could have prevented what happened, even though Carly was pretty much lucky to make it out alive given she was dealing with a possessed hunter and an evil talking corpse head. Carly had since gone to Harvard, but not before eventually telling Kelly everything about what happened. In a letter, she told Kelly to just let this all go since Boone's dead and she threw the mask in the lake so there's probably like zero chance Jason or anyone will be back doing evil stuff. But Kelly isn't convinced to let it go, especially after reading up how a lot of horrible things are going on at and in the vicinity of Crystal Lake, including a nine year old kid hanging his dog, what the fuck? But regardless, she's out for vengeance and in her mind, she'll right the wrongs Jason caused.
We then change focus to Gabe and Ruth, or Ma and Pa, as they're Big Red's parents. They mostly bicker, both about their 45 year old son going out fishing despite not being all that wise, and for Pa's drinking problem, which they try to tiptoe is a reason for something big happening years ago. The two begin to brawl until Big Red shows up, brandishing a shotgun. The mask now opening the memories of what happened with Pa years ago, that while getting shitfaced with his friends, Pa was angered by the cries of Big Red and after beating the kid, he threw a freaking iron at him, leaving a dent in the boy's head. Okay, now I think I know why the boy ended up so simple. Now filled with the rage of the mask, Big Red shoots and kills his father before then turning the gun on his mother.
We shift focus over to Miguel and Tina. Miguel is described as short yet muscular, while Tina is described as tall with long hair. Tina notes that she thinks Kelly's losing her mind lately, or at least more so than usual, but Miguel would rather respond with Beavis and Butt-Head-esque chortles. He also calls her slave and to make him breakfast so, don't worry book, you're giving me enough reasons to want him dead. He also seems to be into Kelly, but also just as into going with her on the hunt at Camp Crystal Lake for any monsters. Real "Scooby Doo" vibe going on. He works at a dojo and knows Karate, and we know that Jason's just one crane kick away from instant death (or re-death I guess) Though Tina says that she thinks Kelly's crazy and that she's tired of feeling bad for her since her brother died. Well it's good of the book to make it 30 pages deep to make me hate some of these characters.
As Miguel gets a bit creepy around Tina, Doug shows up and we learn that Tina's more into Doug than Miguel. He's also 23 and has been at the community college for like five years. Mainly failing his courses due to gooning to new college girls. As Tina tries to hit on Doug, Kelly shows up and tells them that she's heading out to Crystal Lake for her hunt today and that's final. Doug and Tina think she's gone nuts and is way too obsessed with this, but Miguel's all in. However, reluctantly, the two decide to join them, since they're sure it's all bunk anyway. We cut back to Big Red, feeling like a big goof for, you know, murdering his parents and all. Mainly in that he could be caught by one of his uncles and get in trouble. But he comes up with a simple idea to fix all this. And by which I mean he takes his parents' corpses and tosses them into the hog pen for the hungry pigs. Well that settled itself.
The group begin their drive to Crystal Lake, with Miguel still being handsy around Tina in a very "I hate this fucking guy" way. They stop to get some snacks and continue to drive on. Suddenly, Tina thinks she sees what looks like Boone hitchhiking on the side of the road and stops the car, only to see nothing. Which makes the other three think that she's starting to lose it... more so than she's already lost it I guess. We cut back to Big Red's. Tuck, one of Gabe's friends, heads to his house to check in, but doesn't get an answer. He heads to the hog pen, but conveniently doesn't notice what, or specifically who, the hogs are feasting upon. He then runs into Kelly and the others and tells them that they've arrived in Crystal Lake, population 287 and counting down. Well, more like 285 but he doesn't know that. Tuck is here also to be Mr. Exposition to tell the kids that going to Camp Crystal Lake is a bad idea and that there have been a lot of killings there. Kelly says that she'll be killing Jason so that won't be a problem for long, which makes Tuck laugh at the very idea. He then demands money for giving them advice and starts to strangle Kelly before Miguel hits him with a karate chop, so at least those lessons are coming in handy.
After Tuck leaves, Kelly says again that she's out to get rid of Jason regardless, and shows that she's also carrying a pistol, which I'm sure will totally kill Jason. We cut back to Big Red who is at Tuck's bait shop, waiting for him. Since it was "Uncle Tuck" and Gabe's other friend "Uncle Bud" who were there that night when Big Red got the ol' iron to the noggin. Oh, and during a hunting trip when Big Red was twelve, after causing Tuck to miss shooting a deer, Tuck then shot Big Red in the eye with a crossbow, which explains the glass eye. So yeah, this book's doing a great job in making me like Big Red more than anyone else (except Kelly I guess). Speaking of Kelly, she ends up alone with Doug for a big. He tries to have sex with her, but she doesn't want to, mainly since she's in Crystal Lake and all and you know how well that goes for horny teens. Doug whines about it and more or less calls her frigid and thinks she's doing it on purpose. See my above comment about hating everyone but the protagonist and the killer at this point.
Hungry for some fish, Tuck takes his fishing rod and heads to the lake, ready to catch some food. However, he mostly catches leeches all over his legs. As he gets out of the water, he then notices a dollar on the ground. Because he's stupid enough to not see this as a trap, Tuck grabs the dollar, only to have squeezed the three-pronged fish hook holding it in place. And sure enough, the fishing line begins to jerk Tuck forward, dragging him on the ground and to a hulking beast with a white hockey mask. The foursome wind up at a diner with only a waitress still there. A waitress that Doug flirts with in front of Kelly because in case it wasn't patently obvious that this guy sucks, then I guess we need a few more examples. The waitress is named Darlene, but she wears the outfit and nametag of the previous waitress Betsey Doyle who lived in Crystal Lake and was killed by Jason, as previously mentioned in one of Kelly's clippings. Also Tina and Doug start flirting with one another and it bugs Miguel. We still got a 100 some pages left and I'm so ready for them to die, so points to that, book. Kelly returns to the car and starts to see Boone in the car talking to her. But nobody else sees him, so they think that Kelly has gone even crazier.
We then cut to "Uncle Bud", the other friend of Gabe's. He's at his son's house, forced to babysit their kids while his son Bud Jr. and wife Jessie leave for the movies. Big Red heads inside the house and the kids, Cassie and James, aren't really scared of him and think he's just playing monster with creepy hockey mask. But then the visions and bad memories return and Big Red remembers when he was fourteen when Bud let him get drunk and use his chainsaw, which led to Big Red slicing up his own leg badly, which explains the prosthetic leg. He kicks the kids away and is about to hit Billy, the baby, but just leaves him in the crib. As he heads to see Bud, we move back to Kelly and the others as they arrive at Camp Crystal Lake and check out the empty cabins. Miguel and Doug wrestle some more and don't take this too seriously, Tina complains, and Kelly tries to get them all to calm down and start setting up a Jason trap. Which is essentially to pretend they're staying in a bunk and have him fall in a big hole they dug that's filled with pointy stakes. We then see Jessie and Bud Jr. return home to see everything (and presumably everyone) destroyed. So good odds Big Red killed the kids too, so maybe his sympathy card just ran out.
As the foursome build the trap, Tina continues to assume the worst about Kelly. That she's so overboard that this is probably less trying to kill a supposed hockey mask wearing psycho and more some murder-suicide thing to appease the ghost of her brother. With the trap finished, Kelly takes the first shift of waiting for Jason. We learn a bit more about Tina and Miguel's relationship. How they pretty much made out and that's all, despite Miguel bragging about having sex with her, because at this rate all he really has been is a kung-fu cuck. Also Doug tries to make out with Kelly again to no avail. She begins to pass out, having a dream of her and Doug on the lake with Jason about to attack. Somehow I'm not as mad that our cover for once is just a quick dream sequence. Tina has Miguel get Tina for the next shift and heads to her sleeping bag next to Doug's. But then we get a chapter stinger so bad you'd swear it was Stine as Kelly grab's Doug's foot, but it falls off! No, wait, it was just his sneaker.
Doug meets with Tina and the two continue to flirt and decide to go for a walk, where they find a treehouse and head up into it. As they continue to make out and, yet again talk about how shit Miguel is. As they're getting flirty in the treehouse, Big Red is wandering the woods with some liquor he took from Bud's. He's in a panic since, as we predicted, he not only killed Bud, but was in such an uncontrollable rage that he killed the kids and the baby as well. He passes the treehouse where Doug and Tina are canoodling. Doug thinks that it must just be some old wino roaming around, which is pretty dumb, but considering these two don't think Jason is real, it's not too out of character to get mad at. But Doug saw the mask, so he knows they have to rush it back to camp.
Kelly builds an Apache scout nest, since they probably need more traps for Jason than a hole with spikes. She talks a bit with Miguel when they see Tina and Doug back at camp, ready for breakfast. Big Red is there too, but they don't see him. Kelly has herself, Tina and Miguel head out to town to talk with the townspeople and record them talking about Jason and the kids being at the camp, all while Doug stays at the camp. So if they find his corpse when they get back they can pretend to be surprised I guess. Tina threatens to take the car and leave, but doesn't. Also Kelly eats a grasshopper in front of them as we learn that she and Boone would eat bugs all the time. All while Big Red watches on kind of confused but also kind of ready to kill.
As Doug stays at the camp, Darlene the waitress shows up and the two continue their flirting. Doug wants to continue this more intimately in the cabin, but as Darlene heads there, she ends up almost falling into the spike trap. He heads to the lake for a bit to make sure that the others aren't around and returns to the cabin where he finds Darlene, or to be more precise, PARTS of Darlene, who was torn apart by Big Red. Big Red shows up, brandishing a bloody axe. Doug tries to avoid him, but ends up falling into the spike trap. So yeah, great trap idea there, Kelly. But I guess she didn't factor in both a possessed hillbilly monster and her shitty boyfriend's cock literally cocking things up. Later, Miguel and Tina are at the lake, their whole interview thing being a bust. She reveals to Miguel that she's breaking up with him and that she and Doug are a thing, which means Doug plans to break up with Kelly. As Miguel tries to process this, Big Red shows up with the axe. Tina manages to get into the lake and avoid Big Red, leaving Miguel to face off with him. Time for all that martial arts to take effect. Instead he pisses his pants and runs off. He finds the scout nest and hides in it, but then hears a familiar voice telling Big Red where Miguel is hiding.
Meanwhile, Tina finds a raft and hangs on to it. She also took off all her clothes since, I mean this is still based on Friday the 13th, so we need random titillation, also because her wet clothes are making her heavy. However, she ends up being covered almost head to toe with leeches. As she tries to struggle, her body gives out and she's pretty much eaten alive by the leeches. Kelly finds Miguel and Tina's tape recorder, which was conveniently recording their conversation and Tina's scream. She rushes back to camp and finds a cop car and what looks to be a cop. But instead it's a cop with an axe in his guy and Big Red, who has a gun. She dodges the shots and leaps over the trap to the cabin, where she sees Doug's impaled corpse and Darlene's remains. She looks for the gun, but soon realizes that Big Red not only took the gun of the cop he killed, but also got his hands on Kelly's gun. She heads to the Apache scout nest, but finds what's left of Miguel.
Big Red confronts Kelly and is ready to shoot her, but for some reason he's unable to. This gives Kelly enough time to struggle with the gun in his hand and shoot Big Red in his prosthetic leg, then two gunshots to his head which don't really harm him. She then manages to grab a stick and poke his glass eye through the hole of the mask. Kelly makes a run for it, but realizes that the mask is what's keeping him alive and she has to find a way to get rid of it. She hides in the treehouse and sees Big Red heading for the spike trap. She rushes to get the axe from the dead cop, but suddenly of Boone shows up and grabs it from her. I guess he's a zombie or something because his hands are skeletal and he's now no longer a vision in Kelly's head. He reveals that he led Big Red to them, and he was the one who led Big Red to kill the others first before finishing Kelly off. Because I guess he just really sucked. I mean he sucked in the last book, but not to this extent. I don't know this feels like an extra beat that I'm not loving.
Essentially this was Boone's plan for like a year since he died. That he was always a risk taker and an asshole, so after he died, I guess he blamed Kelly for surviving while he didn't. Big Red falls into the spike pit, but manages to survive and heads back to Kelly, as Boone gives him the axe to finish the job. Kelly manages to grab the knife she had with her and avoid the chop of the axe. She cuts the hands of Big Red, grabs the axe and starts to chop him to pieces. Boone is frustrated and goes to kill Kelly, when the prosthetic leg of Big Red comes to life and stomps Boone to nothing. Boone's body then turn to mist, which briefly forms the visage of Jason before disappearing. Kelly then chops off the mask from Big Red's body. She tries to chop it up, but no such luck. She then smokes one last Camel cigarette and removes Doug's corpse from the pit. She then buries the mask in the dirt where I'm sure nobody would think to find it. Cops arrive later and find both Doug and Kelly's corpses. Her having succumbed to everything an hour after the conflict. She died content that nobody will find the mask and the terror is over. Anyway there's two books left, so... Also I guess Boone wins?
I think that comes down to the villain being Boone. I get that Boone sucked in the first book, but I would have never thought that he'd come back a vengeful corpse with a Machiavellian plan to kill off his sister. Which makes me wonder if this really was Boone, or a manifestation from the power of the mask, since we get that quick shot of Jason before the mist vanishes. That whatever this evil is was somehow willing to continue the cycle of death by luring Boone's sister to Crystal Lake. All the while, latching onto Big Red and using his trauma to add even more death and destruction. I just really wish the book did more than maybe one vision Kelly has to execute that. I kind of wish the book left it as visions of Kelly's. That it could just as much be in her own head given the trauma and grief that she's suffered from Boone's death. But given Miguel hears Boone before he dies, that's not the likely case.
Kelly is a decent protagonist. One you can kind of feel for. Her brother is killed and it broke her completely. She feels guilt as well as she avoided going to Camp Crystal Lake with Boone. You understand her need for revenge and how it causes her to seemingly teeter off the brink. All while also keeping her being somewhat in over her head. Naive to what could truly keep Jason down. Not that the impaling idea couldn't have fully worked, it just likely wouldn't to this point given what we've seen Jason overcome. I hated that she dies in the end, even more so hand in hand with Doug. I don't know, your last moments on earth holding hands with the Swiss Cheese corpse of your shitty flirty boyfriend about five years your senior who was going to break up with you because you wouldn't blow him on command isn't the happy ending I think this book wants it to be.
I like Big Red. I think it's because he always feels sympathetic. That we know that while the murders mostly come from his bad memories, especially around his family, it's the mask that is controlling him to do so. That he's an unwilling puppet to the evil that has possessed him. So much so that I can get that when that power is severed, that his prosthetic destroying Boone feels like his last chance to do something right for once before finally dying. It doesn't absolve his actions, but it at least makes you understand why things happened the way they did. We don't get enough time with Bud, or Tuck, or Big Red's parents, but it's enough to at least make you realize that Big Red's life was hell and the people who were supposed to take care of him destroyed him piece by piece. Kind of hard to be sympathetic to someone who throws an iron at an infant. Granted, just as hard to be sympathetic to a baby killer either, I guess.
The rest of the cast suck, but I think that's the point. Doug is a flirtatious creep who whines when he doesn't get anything from Kelly and then flaunts his sexual interests in front of her. Tina is mainly here to whine and be part of that rift between Kelly and Doug. And I guess to be the one for the reader to ogle, given she's written to be slender and tall and everything. I don't know what the book wants me to think of Miguel. That he's such a loser that the book wants me to like him. Kind of like Albert in the last book. But nah. He's too much of an annoying dick to really like. Be it him constantly creeping around Tina, or him talking like a moron, or just his whole martial arts stuff that doesn't even get any proper payoff other than him pissing himself. It just never leads to a character I ever had a moment of sympathy for, even when he's just being constantly cucked.
Overall though, I still enjoyed this book, though it's very flawed. It's 186 pages but is always moving. Granted, it slogs a bit in the middle with a bit of wheel spinning. Not as egregious as, say, some of R.L. Stine's worst cases, but I still think it does have one or two too many scenes where you're just waiting for these assholes to get what's coming to them. It does still have that Friday the 13th feel, but more so due to the iconography of the mask and Camp Crystal Lake. If you took both away it would feel like any other horror book. But there's enough horror, enough shocking moments and a solid enough climax that I think it's a recommend. If it fixed some issues and maybe made the Boone twist work better, I'd have liked this more. Next one takes place at a carnival so that's at least something fresh. But, for now, Jason's Curse gets a B-.
Also, this is blog number 500. It wasn't intended as such, but scheduling conflicts made it so. But I think a book about a horror franchise in a blog series that mostly covers horror still fits as a 500th blog. Will we make it to 500 more? Hell if I know. But if you've been with us since the start, thank you for five years and 500 blogs and I hope you stick around for whatever the future holds.
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