13 April 2022

Review: Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th

Blu-ray: Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (2013)

As a fan of the Friday the 13th franchise since I first watched the original movie on its VHS release back in the 80’s, I’ve wanted to watch Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th for ages now, but somehow never got around to it.

This has now been rectified thanks to this great 2 disc blu-ray release by 101 Films.

Clocking in at over 6 and a half hours and covering everything from the first movie in 1980, through to the 2009 reboot, this in-depth documentary had me enthralled and entertained through every single minute of it.

Featuring interviews with more than 150 cast and crew members across the entire franchise (including the TV series), hundreds of rare and never-before-seen photographs, film clips, outtakes, archival documents, conceptual art and behind-the-scenes footage, there’s more than enough here to give you an even greater appreciation of what all involved did to bring these movies to the cinema screen.

Pre-production woes of financing problems, script rewrites and casting changes, are soon replaced by humorous on set stories of how everyone coped with adverse weather conditions (try skinny dipping in a lake in winter and pretending it’s warm and sunny!), practical effect misfires and high jinks with each other to get through the filming days and nights.

Pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about the Friday the 13th franchise is answered here, as well as a multitude of things you’d never have thought about in the first place.

Essential viewing if you only have even the slightest interest in the Friday the 13th movies, and even if you’ve never seen one before, this will peak your interest to dive into them all and see first hand what is discussed in this fascinating documentary.

It’s made me want to go back and watch them all again.

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