“Mother’s Day (Friday the 13th, Camp Crystal Lake, #1)”

“The Camp Crystal Lake novels came out at the weirdest possible time.

This first one, Mother’s Day, came out in 1994, one year after Jason Goes To Hell, which was the sequel that put Jason in the grave…at least for 9 years or so, at which point it was decided the way to revive Jason was to put him in space.

They say that in space, nobody can hear you scream, but I’m pretty sure the screams of investors in that one were audible, defying the laws of physics, but somehow it felt right.

Jason Goes To Hell tried to change the Jason mythos a little, making it so that the Jason mantle was passed from person to person. It may have been that this idea was not well-received, but I think it’s more likely that the slasher’s time had faded, waiting to be revived by the likes of Scream and the self-aware, slick horror movies for Gen X’ers (who would later be millenials, but we don’t need to fight about this here and now).

Now, why someone decided that the failing Friday the 13th franchise should be made into novels is unclear to me, but my best guess is that the answer starts with cha and ends with ching.

I can definitely see someone saying, “Look, we shit out some of these, kids who are too old for Goosebumps and Scary Avenue or whatever move onto these, we make some money, and maybe we remind a younger generation about Jason, and we can bring him back. IN SPACE.”

And it’s not the worst idea. The Young Adult book market was pretty nonexistent in 1994. The concept of the teenager may have been invented in the 50’s, but the invention of the book market for teenagers took another 50 years to smack publishers in the face. You’d have The Outsiders, and…that was it. Ponyboy was really holding the line for an entire genre for a good long while.

Buuuut here’s the problem with Camp Crystal Lake. Here’s a list of problems:

1. Because they came out after Jason Goes to Hell, they follow that formula. Meaning they’re following the formula of the least successful movie in the series, this whole thing where different people become Jason. Imagine you’re JJ Abrams, you’re relaunching Star Wars. Are you going to be like, “Why remake the wheel, Attack of the Clones is right there”?

2. Mother’s Day is, weirdly, more PG than any of the movies. That makes no sense to me because you can get away with ANYTHING in a book. You can do horrific shit in a book that’d never pass the MPAA. But it seems like they really pulled back. My guess is this was an attempt to please parents of the target audience, but I think parents are either going to let their kid read one of these, just thanking christ they’re reading SOMETHING, or they’ll see what it is on the cover and be like, “Uh, hell no.” In other words, I can’t imagine a parent actually pre-reading this whole thing in order to determine that it is, in fact, pretty tame, and not super inappropriate for a kid who’s, I don’t know, 14, and therefore it’s pointless to skimp on the gruesomeness, which would’ve improved this book quite a bit. The kills are not spectacular, and there just aren’t many of them. I’m sorry, but that’s what we come to Friday the 13th for. I want Jason to pick up someone in their sleeping bag and smash them against a tree (Part VII), or someone to be “bludgeoned to death with an electric guitar” (Part VIII). I wanna see “Groin stabbed with a spear gun” (The Final Chapter). Yes, I’m that sicko, but I pose that so is anyone who picks this up.

3. Okay, in a typical Friday the 13th movie, we go through stages. Stage 1: kids arrive at the lake, don’t believe in Jason. Stage 2: mildly creepy things start happening. Stage 3: a couple kills, but most of the kids aren’t aware what’s happening. Stage 4: The killing really starts, the kids make some attempt to not die. Stage 5: final confrontation between Jason and the final girl.
Mother’s Day is 185 pages long. It does have an opening with some creepy nonsense, and then we get our next kill on page 124! About 70% of the way in. Meaning we read 70% of this book where almost nothing happens. On page 157, the killing begins in earnest. That’s 85%. Point being, it’s WAY too long waiting for Jason to show up, especially because we’re not really getting a lot of other creepy stuff along the way, so it’s just sort of…kids hanging out on a dock and having a good time for 157 pages.

Now, I’m not entirely sure this is different from the way the movies work, but watching a movie is easier and more passive than reading a book.

4. Jump scares DO NOT work in a book. At all.

5. The missed opportunity is to do something different.
You could give me characters that I care about, which isn’t the norm in slashers. You could give me some insight into the killer, which would be different. You could skip straight to the mayhem within the first 10%.

The beauty of a book like this is that it’s cheap as shit, so you don’t have to please a movie studio or make something that’s palatable for massive audiences. You can go for broke. Do whatever. Make it fun. Make it gross. Make it wacky. Do SOMETHING. “