Simon Hawke | Through the Shattered Lens

It’s been five years since Pamela Voorhees’s went on a murderous rampage at Camp Crystal Lake. Mrs. Voorhees is dead, Camp Crystal Lake has once again been declared off-limits, and the sole survivor of Pamela’s rampage is officially considered to be missing.

Paul Holt, who is renowned for his program that trains summer camp counselors, has opened up a camp on the shores of Crystal Lake. With the help of his on-and-off again girlfriend, Ginny, Paul is training his counselors on how to handle every situation and also making sure that they all know better than to go wandering around the remains of Camp Crystal Lake.

Of course, Paul assures the counselors that Jason Voorhees is just a myth and he’s not really wandering around the woods, regardless of what the old-timers in town say. Of course, Paul is wrong. Jason is out there and he’s not at all happy about having a bunch of rowdy people partying so close to his home. One night, when most of the counselors head into town, a small group remains at the camp and they soon come face-to-bag with Jason himself.

The novelization of Friday the 13th Part II was published in 1988, a full seven years after the film was first released. As such, it follows the plot of the film fairly closely, even to the extent of starting with an extended flashback to Alice’s battle with Pamela Voorhees. The kills happen in the same order and in the same way as they did in the film.

What writer Simon Hawke adds to the story is much the same thing that he added to his novelization of the first film. He gives each of the character’s a backstory and explores how they feel about being at Camp Crystal Lake. He makes them a little less generic than they were in the film. For instance, Terri — who was pretty much just a girl who didn’t wear underwear and liked to skinny dip in the film — is revealed to actually by fiercely intelligent and independent in the novel. We learn a lot more about Mark’s determination to be seen as being an individual as opposed to just the counselor in the wheelchair. We learn that Sandra’s older brother once visited the Spahn movie ranch. Ginny and Paul’s relationship also takes on a bit more depth in the novel than it did in the movie.

That said, for fans of the franchise, the most interesting thing about the novelization will be the passages that take place in Jason’s mind. Hawke presents Jason as being someone who was shunned even as a child and who only had his mother in his life. Jason is also revealed to being addicted to murder, needing the rush that he gets from the hunt. We learn a bit more about how Jason has survived in the woods for all those years and what exactly he was doing in that abandoned cabin. To be honest, it’s not as if Hawke really brings anything new to Jason’s mentality. Anyone who has watched the movies knows that Jason is addicted to murder. But it’s still interesting to see the other characters through Jason’s eyes.

The novelization of Friday the 13th Part 2 is an improvement on the first novelization though, again, it’s probably something for Friday the 13th completists only. A copy of it can be found on the Internet Archive.

In the woods of New Jersey, there sits a summer camp that was abandoned after a child drowned and two counselors were subsequently murdered. Now, nearly 20 years later, Steve Christy is determined to reopen Camp Crystal Lake, the summer camp that his family started and lost their fortune trying to save. Steve has a group of young and enthusiastic camp counselors helping him to get the camp ready to go and, as they soon discover, Steve is a tough taskmaster. He’s so tough that even his occasional girlfriend Alice is thinking about abandoning her job at the camp and returning home.

Of course, it’s not just Steve’s temper that the counselors have to watch out for. There’s also someone else lurking around the camp, someone who is determined to kill everyone involved in trying to reopen it. One-by-one, the counselors fall victim to the killer until finally, only one survivor is left to fight for her life….

Interestingly enough, the novelization of Friday the 13th was first published in 1987, seven years after the film came out. The novelization follows the plot of the film, with each of the murders happening in the same order and in the same way. In many places, the dialogue is recreated verbatim. The same person is the murderer in both the book and the film and the book ends with the same twist as the film.

The most interesting thing about the book — really, the only interesting thing about it — is that the book goes into a bit more detail about everyone’s backstory before they ended up at Crystal Lake. As such, we witness Mrs. Voorhees actions right after the drowning of her son, Jason, in which she begs the Christy family to rehire her as their cook. We also learn about the background of each of the victims, who are a bit less generic in this book than in the movie. We especially learn a lot about Jack and Marcie’s relationship, though I have to say that it’s hard to imagine the confident movie version of Jack having much in common with the more insecure Jack who shows up in the novel.

I was a bit disappointed by the book’s backstory for Steve Christy. My personal theory has always been that Steve Christy, with his glasses and his mustache and his ascot and his air of superiority, was a former member of the SDS who later became a Weatherman and helped in the abduction of Patty Hearst. I always assumed that he was working so hard at Camp Crystal Lake because he was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and he needed a place to hide out. The book, however, portrays Steve as someone who just feels like he has to redeem his family’s name. I think my theory was a bit more interesting.

The novelization of Friday the 13th is probably something that will be best appreciated by Friday the 13th completists. (There’s really not much reason to read it otherwise.) A copy can be found at the Internet Archive.