13 FANBOY (REVIEW)
Dir. Deborah Voorhees
Reviewer. Martyn Wakefield
In the midst of a franchise boom and return of legacy characters, the question everyone is asking is, Where is Jason? In a year that we had revivals for CANDYMAN, HALLOWEEN, CHUCKY, SCREAM, and soon to be TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, the original bad boy of horror has still to receive any notion of big screen love. That's mainly down to a legal dispute that was held between series creator Sean S. Cunningham and Warner Brothers which has since been close but still we have no new blood for the slasher legend.
A void in the market, and one that is being filled with fan-fiction. The latest of which is 13 FANBOY which sees a franchise fanatic hunt down the stars of the series in a murderous extreme of fantasy.
After witnessing the murder of her grandmother Deborah Voorhees, a famous Friday the 13th actress, Kelsie Voorhees is left traumatized as a child. When other Friday the 13th actresses begin to fall victim to the killer, an adult Kelsie finds herself as the target of the deranged fan that wants to replicate the horror franchise's death scenes in real life after risking her life to save her grandmother's best friend Dee Wallace.
Featuring a dream cast for any FRIDAY THE 13TH fan, Dee Wallace, Deborah Voorhees, C.J. Graham, Kane Hodder, Judie Aronson, Lar Park Lincoln, Tracie Savage, Ron Sloan, Corey Feldman and Jennifer Banko.
13 FANBOY doesn't have the high production of the series it takes so much from but it does have so much more in common than a cheap cash-in. Cast aside, this is truly a love letter to the franchise and one that feels a natural companionship with the classic. The killer brutally makes his way through the cast and has a soulless quality to the deaths but at no point does it feel that motive is lost as the fanboy takes his emotional distress on those that he watched as an abused child ignore his messages over the years.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder but with 13 FANBOY we are reminded of what could be. An aged cast may not be what feature in any renewal but they still show there's life beyond death.
