Friday the 13th – From Crystal Lake to Manhattan (Ultimate Edition DVD Collection)Friday the 13th – From Crystal Lake to Manhattan (Ultimate Edition DVD Collection)
DISC 1: FRIDAY THE 13th – The film takes place years after a young boy named Jason drowns in a lake while attending Camp Crystal Lake and shortly thereafter, the camp closes. Flash forward to the present, where the owner decides to re-open the camp and one by one, the counselors have mysteriously been murdered by an unseen person. PART 2 – The second installment picks up with Jason Voorhees, presumed dead from drowning years ago, exacting revenge on the innocent campers at “Camp Blood.” Living
Rating:  List Price: $ 79.99 Price: $ 40.71 |
(out of 179 reviews)
Review by Richard Lamery for Friday the 13th – From Crystal Lake to Manhattan (Ultimate Edition DVD Collection)
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Paramount truly are quite shameful, lazy, and contemptable. Everything about this ‘Ultimate’ release screams “cheap-a$$” quite loudly. And here’s why.
I think it is forgiveable that Paramount didn’t see fit to release these movies in their uncut forms. It would lose them money in some circles if this boxset were to not be stocked in Blockbuster. So for this release, uncut death scenes have been prepared.
Here are the catches, and they are quite significant: 1) gore footage for the original Friday the 13th and Part 6 are presented in horizontal SPLIT SCREENS alongside the R-rated versions. That’s right, Jason fans- it’s squeezed into only HALF the screen space. That’s 2 out of 3 movies. 2) The gore footage from Part 7 looks quite bad, in a very rough made-for-video way in which the age shows a lot of wear and tear. There’s bonus footage here as well from Part 4, but it’s made-for-tv deleted scenes that don’t include any gore.
Also, remember when Paramount put out the first Friday on DVD? You could finally see Annie’s throat-slitting in it’s entirety. Well, Paramount’s decided to cut that back out. So that means if you ever want to see it again, you have to buy the original on DVD separately. Which I’ll be doing, you can bet.
Here are some other things you might like to know. The set contains 4 discs of movies. Each disc has 2 movies on each disc side. I’m sorry, but my DVD players freeze erratically whenever a disc has more than 3 hours and 10 minutes of stuff on them. 20th Century Fox released The Family Guy TV seasons in these very slim single cases- why didn’t Paramount have this brainstorm too?! That way, we could get 1 movie a disc, like we deserve. At least that would show Paramount thought about someone else.
The 1 Bonus Disc contains a few truly bogus featurettes. Paramount didn’t even get half the cast members that would have been willing to do interviews and commentaries. They just had some people go off to a convention 1 year and get a mere handful of people there on camera. They neglected to put effort into contacting actresses Kimberly Beck and Melanie Kinnamon, who have been very outspoken about their enthusiasm onset and their appreciation for the series fans. Also, director Steve Miner is absent from participation on the featurettes or commentaries. Yet he’s been on bonus features for the House, Halloween H20, and Last House on the Left DVDs. So sorry, I don’t buy that he didn’t want to participate here.
The only real work Paramount did here was on the commentaries. The commentaries for only 4 movies. The directors of Friday the 13th’s 6, 7, and 8 do commentaries. Jason actor Kane Hodder joins the director on Part 7, and the cast of Part 3 do a commentary. But there’s yet another catch! These commentaries – at least the one I heard for Part 3, have the worst sound quality I’ve heard from a big studio commentary since John Waters track for the Cecil B Demented DVD. And even that was less TIN-can sounding than this.
This boxset is the biggest insult to fans of this series. And even at $57, this is overpriced. I urge everyone here to pay attention to the rumors I’m hearing about future re-re-releasing of these movies on yet another boxset or individual uncut releases. At the very least people, don’t buy this until you hear it’s about to go out of print. The Star Wars boxset is worth more than this.
Review by Sloopydrew for Friday the 13th – From Crystal Lake to Manhattan (Ultimate Edition DVD Collection)
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Fans have been begging Paramount for years to release the unrated and uncut Friday the 13th films. The “Blockbuster and Wal-Mart won’t sell them” excuse I’ve heard, here and there, is patently untrue. Both Blockbuster and Wal-Mart sell and rent unrated films (call either of them up and ask if they carry the unrated edition of “Bad Santa,” if you need proof). They simply don’t sell or rent NC-17 movies.
So what’s Paramount’s excuse? No input from the Directors of the films? Nope, that’s not it. John Carl Buechler, director of Friday the 13th Part VII has openly campaigned for an unrated version to be released (so fans can finally see “the new BLOOD”). Tom McLoughlin, director of Friday the 13th Part VI, told me directly that he has contacted Paramount, letting them know that he would be willing to do a director’s commentary AND re-edit an unrated Director’s Cut of Jason Lives. The studio didn’t take him up on his offer to create an unrated Director’s cut (he does provide commentary on part VI). If this box set is any indication, they never will. Kane Hodder, Jason in Paramount’s F13 6, 7 and 8 has been screaming for unrated and uncut versions, and has expressed a desire to do commentary for each of the films (including the ones he didn’t star in). So why, at the very least, isn’t there commentary on EVERY disc? I suspect it’s because Paramount wanted to cram two movies onto each disc, leaving no space for commentary or other valuable extras on some of the films (and giving a compressed picture, that isn’t much better than what you get on video).
Why aren’t the films uncut and unrated? Because Paramount is too stubborn to release them that way. It has been known for years that Paramount has been “ashamed” of this series. They don’t get what it is that makes the movies great, and therefore think they can give fans bargain bin box sets like this, rather than presenting them with the quality box set the Friday the 13th films DESERVE.
This should have been a 16 disc set. Each film should have had 2 discs, one featuring the unrated version, the other the theatrical version. There should have been commentary on the unrated version (disc 1) for the movie, and extras on the rated version (disc 2). It’s a shame that Paramount won’t sell the entire series to New Line, a studio who has expressed interest in doing a comprehensive box set, which would include the long sought after uncut films.
If New Line’s Freddy vs. Jason wouldn’t have been the hit it was, fans wouldn’t even be getting this box set. Then again, they wouldn’t have been missing much. Fans should let Paramount know what they think, by voting with their dollars. Until we get the box set we deserve, after we made these movies the gigantic hits that they were (most of them), and stuck with the series through thick and thin, we should reject this lame offering by Paramount and hold out for something better.
Paramount should be proud of this series. They should embrace it. They should never be ashamed of the 8 films they distributed. The only thing Paramount needs to be ashamed of is this quickie box set made to milk more cash from diehard Friday fans, at Halloween time. While I’ll forever love the films, I cannot say anything nice about this set. It is easily the most poorly put together major DVD release I’ve ever seen. It’s a disgrace. Not even the bloodiest uncut scenes could be as disgusting as Paramount’s lackluster treatment of the Friday fans who have made the studio filthy rich, over the years.
Review by Halloween of 78 for Friday the 13th – From Crystal Lake to Manhattan (Ultimate Edition DVD Collection)
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I never thought I’d actually see all of these movies released together, but now that they are, all I can think is what the crap was Paramount thinking?!?!
As I write this I can see a kick ass box set on my shelf called “The Nightmare On Elm St Collection.” And as I look at that box set, I hate this Friday one more and more.
How can you not do four CRUCIAL things?
One being releasing these UNCUT (I know, I know, “we lost the footage”…BULL! You don’t just lose footage to eight films!).
Another being NOT giving them GOOD sound for those who have been dying to pop these into their surround sound system…MONO?!?!?!
Another being no Friday 3-D in 3-D?!?!?! COME ON! Spy Kids was even released in 3-D, and that fan base won’t give a crap about that movie in 5 years, while Friday fans are dedicated (Friday fans deserve a good box set!). How come a Sylvester Stallone gets to be in 3-D, but not a horror icon?!?!
Finally, two movies per disc? I swear Paramount, you are trying to have people NOT like this box set. Man, even the Leprechaun Box Set has the movies seperated!
My advice to anyone looking to buy this is: Just dish out another 30-50 bucks and get the Nightmare Box set, because it is the cream of the crop, and buy these Friday movies individually, this way you at least get better sound options.
This gets a -13 out of 10.
Review by JasonX for Friday the 13th – From Crystal Lake to Manhattan (Ultimate Edition DVD Collection)
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This is the sloppiest, worst thought out attempt to steal money from Friday fans paramount has come up with. After spending 25 bux a pop on bare bones, terrible transfer DVD’s, we get this “special box set” With NO real features besides the audio commentaries…No Uncut footage(especially part 7 which has TONS of cut scenes) No 3-d part 3, etc. God do I wish New Line had the rights to ALL these movies, then we’d have a worthwhile box set with UNCUT movies! As it stands, this is a cheap piece of trash and hopefully Paramount will put out a decent HD-DVD box set when that becomes the norm because this is ridiculous!
Review by Joseph Brando for Friday the 13th – From Crystal Lake to Manhattan (Ultimate Edition DVD Collection)
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Although I am happy Paramount has finally released some sort of FRIDAY THE 13TH box-set – on the whole, it is pretty disapointing. It seems to be something that was very cheaply thrown together to make a few bucks and satisfying the fans’ requests does not seem to have been “paramount”. Most every other horror movie that a company has taken the time to release on DVD has been released in its original uncut version and with a director and/or cast commentary, so that should have been the bare essential for each historic film in this set – but we don’t even get that. What makes it even worse is that the original FRIDAY THE 13TH has been released in every other country in a special-edition DVD (from Warner Bros) including the uncut version, a very nice “making-of” featurette and a commentary including several of the cast and crew. Paramount obviously was too cheap to even acquire the rights to those features and throw us a bone on this set. There is also no excuse for not releasing Part 3 in 3-D as that has also been made available in other countries. The “extras” on the 5th disc are embarassing and laughable – for example: the two people interviewed for Part 3 are not Steve Miner (the director) and Dana Kimmel (the star) but instead some guy I’ve never heard of (the director of photography) and Larry Zerner (Shelly, definately NOT the star). Shame on you Paramount – now that you have cashed in on FRIDAY THE 13TH one more time, do us all a favor and sell the rights to these films to NEW LINE (or even ANCHOR BAY, for that matter) so they can release a proper special edition box-set.
Things missing from this set:
1-uncut versions
2-commentaries for each film
3-Part 3 in 3-D
4-the original movie poster artwork