Review by Matt Anderson

Part 2turns out to be a decent sequel thanks in large part to a creepy finale that, as with the first movie, slices and dices Hitchcock's Psycho.

One year after the first movie scared up big box office, but five years after the events at Camp Crystal Lake, Jason's all grown up and at the center of a new spree of murderous mayhem. Unfortunately, by virtue of the fact he's essentially a feral man-boy with limited formal education, he ain't the sharpest blade in the drawer.

One of the movie's saving graces is a fun, but sick, sense of humor that plays with horror movie conventions as it serves up false starts, red herring showers and vicious scene shifts, such as focusing in on a sweet little dog named Muffin then cutting to a grill full of hot dogs. And there's also a skinny-dipping scene that plays on the riff from Jaws.

Clocking in at a scant 86 minutes, including that prior episode recap, this first sequel holds pretty steady in its own sordid way, but the finale is extremely abrupt, almost as if they simply ran out of film and decided, "OK. Well... that works..."

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