Friday the 13th HAS COME BACK to BLAIRSTOWNNNNNN!!
NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 107: Camp Crystal Lake Day Care
Buy this shirt HERE |
Is your present babysitter is just not CUTTING it? Well, don’t fret, because there’s help out there. Why leave your kids with an overpriced teenager who ignores your kids so she can watch her phone and wait for texts messages to come in? Your kids deserve better! Why not drive them into the middle of the woods of Northwestern New Jersey and let them breathe in the fresh air and admire the scenic landscapes? What if I added in the bonus that there’s a chance they’ll come back so completely scared shitless that they’ll never make any trouble again? Sounds tempting already, right?
Listen, your kids can’t stay in the air conditioning every day of the summer playing video games, they need to start getting in touch with nature and enjoying some recreation that doesn’t involve electronics or cell phones. The answer for you isn’t sending your kids to Young People’s Day Camp, it’s the flexibility and fun of Camp Crystal Lake Day Care.
Your kids will love playing outdoor games, swimming with kids their age, and hearing ghost stories by campfire, all the while under the caring, compassionate, and watchful eye of our experienced counselor, Jason Voorhees. Register your child TODAY!
NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 106: KILL Tour T-Shirt from Fright Rags
The KILL Tour T-shirt is inspired by the Destroyer album cover art from my favorite band, KISS. Anytime the world of horror combines with KISS, it’s a win-win. The t-shirt art includes Freddy, Chucky, Jason Voorhees, and Leatherface taking the place of KISS. What knocks this baseball style tee right out of the old Roosevelt Stadium is KILL’s tour stops are listed on the back just like an old vintage concert t-shirt! On KILL’s Decades of Destruction Tour, in honor of the release of the original Friday the 13th film, the band’s May 9th, 1980 tour stop was at Crystal Lake…in NEW JERSAAAY!
Previous releases that I also HAD TO HAVE included G.I Jason (the GI Joe/Jason Voorhees mashup) and one of their beautiful Friday the 13th The Final Chapter tees. Artist Jason Edmiston was responsible for the artwork on both the GI Jason tee as well as this KILL tour shirt, but the new one may take the cake. It’s a dead heat for me. What do you think? If you own the regular black t-shirt version of “KILL,” it’s slightly more accurate to the Destroyer cover, but I opted for the larger KILL logo on the baseball tee.
You can now see why I felt so compelled to make this shirt part of my wardrobe. But surprisingly, this shirt wasn’t released without criticism since it’s hard to please everyone. The flack on this shirt was that Michael Myers should’ve been in the artwork instead of Chucky. I’m not sure why that happened, but if Myers was on the shirt instead it would indeed be perfect. I’m not complaining one bit though, I think it was an awesome idea and I’d like to see more cool ideas like this from Fright Rags.
Enhance Your Halloween Viewing With Blinky Productions Horror Prequels
Living through numerous Halloweens has translated to me holding many solo horror movie marathons. I’m sure some of you can relate. But what should you do when you’ve exhausted all of your movie options? That is a question I’ve pondered for a while now, and I finally share my discovery with you. If you are looking to spice up your Halloween viewing, read on!
You’ve seen all the Nightmares, all the Fridays, and all the Halloweens, right? Well what if there were prequels that you never knew about? What if there were top quality extensions of those franchises to be seen? Based in New Jersey, Blinky Productions fills those voids! In addition to their original productions, they make independent short and feature length films that incorporate the characters we love. Some of their films revolve around superheroes, but many of them star horror icons. Usually their type of output would be considered “fan-film,” but the quality of their films is superior and sets them apart from most of the fan made stuff I’ve seen on YouTube.
Blinky Productions films have been on my radar for years now, but I never got around to watching some of them until last year. At a New Jersey Batman Convention that I went to, I finally got to meet the man behind Blinky, a friendly movie making mastermind and Jersey guy, Chris Notarile. I picked up a few of their DVDs including one I’ll be reviewing in the future, but for now I’ll tell you about the one that has become a part of my annual Halloween viewing.
I snatched up a great little trilogy of horror shorts to add to my collection. Delving further into the mythos of the Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween franchises, these shorts make me wonder why these franchises aren’t releasing good quality big budget installments when Chris does it with almost no budget in comparison. What’s great about these films is that you don’t have to lower your expectations before watching them as you do with many independent fan made shorts.
Out of the 3 shorts, the one I felt was the most interesting was KRUEGER: A TALE FROM ELM STREET. The short gives us a front row seat during one of Krueger’s interrogations, before he was “burnt up like a weenie” if I may quote the Fresh Prince. MYERS: RISE OF THE BOOGEYMAN adds a cool little twist to the Halloween lore and I enjoyed it. The only one that fell a little short for me was VOORHEES: BORN ON A FRIDAY. It deals with Mrs. Voorhees tracking down one of the very girls who was responsible for her son’s drowning. You can watch all of them rather quickly which works if you’re planning a mini-marathon. For instance, watching the Krueger short before watching your favorite Nightmare on Elm Street film will enhance your experience!
The Jersey based Blinky Productions’ motto is “High Quality Films…Without the Budget.” In addition to their horror inspired films, they’ve also created shorts featuring The Punisher, Batman, Flash, and Catwoman among so many others. Their original productions are badass as well (i.e METHODIC) so check them out! Up next I’m going to watch FRIDAY THE 31st: MICHAEL VS. JASON!! In the mean time though, go enjoy the wet-dream of horror fan films at their YouTube page, and by that I mean Freddy vs. Jason vs. Leatherface vs. Pinhead and many more!
Blinky Productions Official Website
http://www.blinky-productions.com/
Today Is Jason’s Birthday…
Jason Voorhees must totally feel like Samantha Baker in Sixteen Candles. I forgot today is his birthday. There’s just been a lot going on and sometimes, as people get older, things like this pass us by. I’m going to make it up to him with a post of badass birthday cakes in his likeness! Thanks to user zackzander50 for the video above!
There’s also a red velvet Jason cake posted over at I Really Like Food, which isn’t as good as the others, but still cool. So, happy birthday Jason! I really hope we see you on the big screen again soon. Maybe even in IMAX?
G.I JERSEY: G.I JASON On T-Shirt Tuesday
The REAL AMERICAN SLASHER, Jason Voorhees has never looked cooler. In this era of mash-ups, this is the ultimate ’80s indulgence. When I first saw the tweet from Fright Rags eluding to this t-shirt I lost my mind. Combining GI Joe and one of the greatest horror movie franchises of all time is one of the coolest ideas for a t-shirt I’ve seen in a long time. Not only does the shirt respectfully pay tribute to both properties, but it does it in such a way that if GI Joe was to actually release a Jason figure, this is EXACTLY how the card back would look. Please take note of Jason’s birthplace! That’s right folks, nobody in Jersey cares about Jersey Shore except kids in middle school. Who needs the shore when we have Crystal Lake to boast about! Who cares about the New Jersey budget? Governor Christie should be talking about how proud he is that Jason Voorhees now has his own official G.I Joe file card. This is the important shit, for real.
Valentine’s Eve Starring Jason Voorhees?
Many people say Valentine’s Day is lame and stupid, but they’re mostly single people. Even though it is a pretty hokey holiday (if you want to call it a holiday), I usually just embrace it as I do most other holidays. If you have even the slightest degree of appreciation for your loved ones, I’m sure you’ve scanned the selection of Valentine’s Day cards at the local grocery or convenience store and found a bunch of generic B.S. That’s why I looked to Zazzle this year. It’s where I found one of the coolest Valentine’s Day cards ever.
NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 66: Friday the 13th Part 3
No you aren’t imagining things. I did indeed post about Friday the 13th Part 3 previously in the Halloween Countdown. Not to slash a dead horse with a machete, but the film does a hell of a job honoring the Jersey history of the franchise even though it wasn’t filmed there. Thanks to that I was able to squeeze a whole other post out of it! There’s never a shortage of Jersey related t-shirts for me to write about every Tuesday, but it definitely gets repetitive. When I come across obscure finds like this one in the background of a movie, that’s when this column is most interesting. Think about it, how many people are blogging about that t-shirt in Friday the 13th Part 3? The answer is probably only 1 person, because anyone in their right mind who wants tons of hits wouldn’t give two shits about that t-shirt…but I do.
I came across the shirt when the young and attractive Vera (Catherine Parks) and prankster Shelly (Larry Zerner) head to the local convenience store in the fictitious town of Green Valley, NJ. There they attempt to buy some crap from this rotten bitch of a cashier who is in the running against Shelly for possibly the worst mop of hair in history. OK, we get it, you “don’t accept no food stamps.”
They’re just trying to get some munchies but then they run into an evil biker gang who attempts to steal Shelly’s wallet. Maybe if the movie wasn’t in 3-D then Shelly wouldn’t have recklessly tossed his wallet directly toward the camera only to have it fall on the floor. The wallet was on the floor so it was fair game, and in a strange twist of events, the felonious biker gang opted NOT to steal that luscious Green Valley Has Everything t-shirt that is seductively hanging on the wall enticing all the customers with it’s over the top sexual innuendo but grabbed the wallet instead.
Now, I’m not positive, because no human being can see lettering that tiny and blurry, but it looks like in parentheses the shirt says (including wildlife), which is completely unfunny if read literally. Hopefully that is what it says and we won’t have to go and solve some 28 year old mystery.
In case you’re about to click over to Expedia to plan a trip, don’t bother. There is no town called Green Valley in New Jersey, but there is a campground named Green Valley Beach in Sussex County. For the Google Maps enthusiasts out there, Camp NoBeBoSco (Camp Crystal Lake) is about a half hour away from there. Now enjoy that freaking awesome song by Henry Manfredini and Michael Zager (from Passaic, NJ!) that plays while they’re shopping in the convenience store:
New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol.47: Friday the 13th Part 3
What do sexual escapades, skinny dipping, smoking pot, and getting murdered all have in common? They are all things that those punk ass teenagers from New Jersey like to take part in, hence, the state was the natural choice for the home of Camp Crystal Lake in the Friday the 13th franchise. Some of the films in the series don’t harp on it’s setting, while others are proud and throw in many references, some blatant, some subtle. Friday the 13th Part 3, was not only presented in 3-D, but it also featured overt references to New Jersey.
Friday the 13 Part 3 is one of my favorite installments of the series along with 1, 2, 4, 6, and Freddy vs. Jason. How could it not be on my list? There’s hot women, a Tommy Chong wannabe, and 3-D yo-yo-ing! And I also can’t forget the villainous biker gang led by Ali, who look like they were ripped out of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video. In the scene pictured above, one of the gang members is about to siphon the gas from the kids van. Their van has a New Jersey license plate as well as a Bruce Springsteen “The Boss” bumper sticker. I think it’s cool that the filmmakers paid attention to the details and kept the film set in Jersey no matter how unpopular the state used to be. Nowadays the chances of seeing a film set in Jersey are much greater.