Blue Rose: Sauce for the Goose

My younger son requested I start running a Blue Rose game for him and a couple of his friends, and what the heck, that game's a lot of fun. This saga follows the end of the last one by some time (I'll figure out how much time if it becomes relevant). Meet the characters!

• Pe'lusa is a rhy-weasel adept. He's quick, mischievous, and enthusiastic. He wears a necklace, which marks him as rhydan if you're paying attention. 
• Saridon is a vata'an expert. Originally from the forest in the Pavin Weald, Saridon was raised by his older sister, who taught him healing magic. She died of a plague that resisted all attempts to heal it, magical or otherwise.
• Fynix is a vata'an expert, too! He hails from Kern, where he grew up with his abusive father. His parents died of disease (probably the same plague that killed Saridon's sister), although by the time that happened he had run off. 

The three of them have formed a little thieving band. They live in a tree house in the Thieves' Forest, a section of the Weald north of the town of Ennevan. The Forest is the domain of Lucius, a rhy-wolf, who runs the Pack, a gang of rhy-wolves, a couple of rhy-bears, and some human and night person toughs. Lucius keeps the peace amongst the scoundrels of the Forest. He takes a cut of people's spoils, but he doesn't allow thieves to steal from or harm each other while in the Forest. 

On this particular day, the lads are in the Forest. Saridon is tending to his hair and face (he's somewhat vain), while Fynix is sleeping off a late night. Pe'lasu is practicing magic, trying to refine his control of Move Object. He overhears another couple of thieves talking about a "fine, fat goose" - a traveling noble named Corlis Gorgan who has been moving around the area with an entourage. Corlis apparently travels in style, with expensive clothes and foodstuffs. These two thieves are not, for whatever reason, planning to rob him, at least not yet. They don't notice the weasel on the forest floor near them.

Pe'lasu scampers back to the tree and bounces on Fynix' head to wake him. He tells the other two about Corlis, and they agree this sounds like a solid score. They figure they need more info, though, so Pe'lasu heads into Ennevan to listen to some gossip. 

He returns that evening, a little wiser. Corlis Gorgan is a noble from Aldis, but his cariad is from Ennevan, so he took a circuit as a traveling noble up here so said cariad could visit family. Gorgan is known as an aesthete and a gourmand, and he travels with a chef and a dresser...as well as a small handful of guards. The thieves figure that they can't approach this as a direct confrontation, but they can probably sneak into the caravan after dark. 

Saridon puzzles over a map of the area and finds the most likely place for them to make camp - a grassy area near a stream and a crossroads. The thieves go and stake the place out, and decide on a clever plan. They spend most of a day digging a hole in a nearby copse of trees, and then Pe'lasu climbs a tree and watches. 

The caravan approaches, and Pe'lasu casts Water Shaping, draws water from the stream, and muddies the road. The driver of the carriage is clearly tired and isn't watching the road, and the wagon gets stuck. The characters watch carefully as guards get out, and Saridon and Fynix note that the guards are carrying staves, not swords, which is a little unusual. The leader of the guards, a woman named Amand, scans the area, but doesn't notice them. 

The guards build a fire and the thieves get to work. Pe'lasu uses Psychic Contact to link them, and Saridon sneaks into Gorgan's wagon. He knocks Gorgan out and proceeds to rob the place, move goods and finery back to Fynix, who puts it in the hole they dug. Saridon steals books, clothes, combs (which he keeps, obviously), food, and whatever other valuables he can carry. And then, before anyone is the wiser, Pe'lasu uses Plant Shaping to cover the hole, and the thieves bugger off, planning to come back for the loot once the caravan has moved on.

Next session, we'll see how that goes.

Movie #648: Freddy vs. Jason

Freddy vs. Jason is a comedy-horror movie starring Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter, Chris Marquette, Kelly Rowland, Kyle Labine, Lochlyn Munro, and Katharine Isabelle. 

Taking place...sometime after Jason Goes To Hell and Freddy's Dead, I guess, Freddy (Englund) is in Hell. He's trapped because the adults of Springwood have managed to cover up any evidence of his existence, refrain from saying his name out loud, and (here's the iffy bit) confined to a mental institution any kids or teens who know about him. Freddy is too clever for that, however, and resurrects Jason (Kirzinger), pushing him toward Springwood to sow fear. Jason does what he do, conveniently killing a teenage jackass (Jesse Hutch) in his bed, and one of the local cops just blithely says "Freddy Krueger" out loud, just loud enough for Lori (Keena) to hear it. 

From there, Freddy spreads like a virus and soon gains enough power to get up to his old tricks, but Jason, being Jason, doesn't stop killing people, and our protagonists (Lori & her Scooby gang of doomed kids) wind up setting up a battle royale between the two monsters at Crystal Lake. 

Now, typing all of that out, it sounds so much cooler than the movie we got. I enjoy Freddy vs. Jason, but I have to admit that I enjoy it conceptually a lot more than what actually got filmed. Part of the issue is that I just do not care about any of the characters except for Jason and (kinda) Freddy. The set-up for the characters is actually fine - Lori, the unknowing daughter of one of Freddy's victims and the doctor keeping people drugged to avoid unleashing the monster; Will (Ritter), Lori's ex who "moved away" but was in fact institutionalized; Mark (Brendan Fletcher), the younger brother of another Freddy victim; Kia, a Korean car (Kelly Rowland), Lori's sassy friend (OK, that one needs work); and Scott (Munro), a local deputy who just moved here and is confused and horrified by how his department is handling all this.

And yet...it doesn't gel. There's a lot going on, and yet nothing seems to happen. The violence and gore are there, so is the gratuitous nudity, but it all feels obligatory and perfunctory rather than shocking. The only thing approaching a moment of tension is when Freddy invades Gibb's (Isabelle) dream and toys with her, only to see her crumble away as Jason stabs her sleeping body (while she's being date-raped, which I had forgotten about, ew), but it's over quickly and nothing else really comes close.

The movie utterly fails to draw on any of the extensive and somewhat dubious movie lore of either franchise, other than showing a few clips of older Nightmare movies in the beginning. It's a concept that could have been a legit horror movie, or a much stronger horror-comedy, but mostly it just kinda happens. 

My Grade: D-
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: Halloween (2018)

Character Creation: Quest RPG

Here we go, the only game I own (that I haven't done a character for) that starts with "Q". 

The Game: Quest RPG
The Publisher: Primal Atom
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Patton Oswalt has a bit on one of his albums where he talks about the sorts of comedians you saw at open mics in the 80s: people who were just off their nut/on drugs (which is kinda the point of the bit, but is incidental here), people who were clearly working their way toward really good work, and people who were, as he puts it, "funny, but who gives a shit?" I have no idea if this maps to other creative endeavors, but I see these categories in RPGs all the time, particularly when the RPG is produced by a single person or a small group. Quest very much falls into the category of "probably playable, but who gives a shit?" It's another D&D clone. There's an extensive and lovingly- (if not especially well-) written history and setting, races, lots of fun fantasy terminology...but what makes it different from other western fantasy games? Nothing that I can see.

Now, mind, I didn't finish reading the book, because the writing was making my eyes glaze over. With that said, some of the bits of the setting I read stuck with me, so that's good, I suppose. Let's do a character.

The first thing we must determine is race, origin, and homeland. Sure. I think I'll stick with human today. As usual, humans are kind of generic, but they get more freedom in chargen - most characters get 300 XP at the end of chargen with which to fuck around, I get 600. 

Homeland is up next. I'm gonna be from the continent of Balion, but from the city of Hydra, which is basically one big prison. My guy was born and raised there, however, so he's not a criminal, he was just raised by them. I get either +1 Craft or Swipe; I'm gonna take Craft. 

Origin...hmm. I can take Stoneborn (I was raised in a city) or Cageborn (raised as the child of slaves, or prisoners, in my case). I feel like given the particulars of Hydra, Cageborn would be more interesting. In very brief, Hydra is run by seven paladins whose spirits judge everyone in the city. The "better" you become, the lighter your robes get. When they're white, you can leave. I think there would be some interesting "nature vs nurture" to be had with a character literally born and raised to criminals ("Megamind vs. Metroman," if you will). I'll say my guy is Domestic Cageborn. I'll take a free point of Build for my trouble. 

Attributes! There's four (Muscle, Verve, Spirit, Mind), and I get 10 points to throw around. Really 6 points, because I have to take 1 point in each, minimum. There's no scale given, but the book says anything greater than four needs a rationale for being so proficient. 

Well, one point in each to bring everything to 2 would give me 2 remaining. I suppose I'll put one into Spirit and one into Verve. This kid ate scraps, he's not going to be muscular, and he's not terribly well educated. 

Secondary Attributes are next, and I have this niggling feeling I shouldn't be writing stuff in yet because I'll get XP at the end to boost stuff. Let's look ahead and check. OK, there are a bunch of specialized skills that cost XP, and I'm sure I'll want a couple of those, so I'll g'head and write stuff in. 

Health is (Muscle + Spirit) x 10, or 50 in my case. Speed is Verve + Mind (5). Magic points is (Spirit + Mind) x 10...50 once again. Carry is (Muscle + Verve) x 10, Lift is Carry x 2 (50 and 100 respectively). 

And now Skills...Oy. OK. Each Attribute gives you rating x 4 points to spend on Skills under that Attribute, but they're not 1-for-1, they're buy-each-level-as-you-go. Geez. Well, start with Muscle and move along, I suppose. I get 8 points there. Let's buy Stealth 2, Endure 2, Agility 1, and Rend 1. 

Moving right along to Verve: I get 12 points. I'll take Craft 2 (which really gives me 3 'cause I get a freebie), Heal 1, Swipe 1, Range 1, Build 2 (again, 3), Melee 2. 

Mind! 8 points again. World 1, Flora 1, Magic 1, Lore 2, Fauna 1, Science 1. 

Finally Spirit (12 points). How about Arcane 2, Awareness 2, Will 2, Spectral 1, Influence 1, Instinct 1. 

Cool. Now I have 600 XP to buy Specialized Skills (or probably other stuff, I dunno). Oh, actually, I'll take Weaponsmith and Armorer, meaning I get a bonus to make and repair weapons and armor. That oughta make me useful. 

Right, so, my character is Halley. Halley was born in Hydra. He never knew his father, but his mother raised him and kept him safe from the weirdness of the prison-city as best she could. As Halley got older and developed a talent for crafting and building, he took notice of things like the fact that his mother's robe was just a shade off white, as though she was all but ready to leave the city...but it had been like that for as long as Halley could remember. Finally, she told him that she was, for his entire life, caught in a loop - she wanted to leave and make a better life for her son, but that desire to leave and be free was enough of a temptation influence that it kept her there. 

Halley was not (and is not) educated enough or philosophical enough to get his head round that, but he developed his skills enough that he could leave, and take his mother with him. But she couldn't, not until she managed that one little nudge towards a white robe, and if she knows what it is she needs to do, she's not saying. She insisted, though, that Halley leave, and he spent a couple of years outside of Hydra learning to apply his skills to weapons and armor. He's not sure where all this will lead, but he's 100% sure that Hydra deserves to crumble and the paladin-spirits should die. 

Halley is in his 20s now. He's lean and callused, hands scarred from putting mail together and from forge-burns. He's got some natural magical talent but has never really honed it. Of late he's been thinking about offering his services to adventurers to do in-the-field repairs to their gear in exchange for a cut of whatever they obtain (or some similar hook for a group). Halley is blonde and has reddish stubble that never quite reaches the level of "facial hair," and fierce blue eyes. 

Chill: Let Them Fight

Here's last time, on we go.

The envoys are in the graveyard facing off against a animated corpse! It smashes out of the casket and Blake falls backwards, wanging his head on a gravestone (his player was out, so BONK). The corpse hurls a chunk of casket at Jordan, knocking her back. Beth Anne grabs a shovel and whacks it in the head, while Father Will helps Blake out of harm's way. Jordan flings up a Sphere of Protection, and the zombie collapses. 

Willa, still very much in attack mode, takes her shovel and decapitates the corpse. Jordan rather testily opines that this doesn't have anything to do with Willa's father - this was all Jaworsky. She tells Willa that she needs to get her shit together, because being this reactionary isn't helping anyone. Father Will, meanwhile, calls Detective Jackson to ask about the text that he sent about the grave...but Jackson has no idea what he's talking about. Beth Anne hears Jaworsky's voice, and she starts ranting at him. Willa asks if Jaworsky is there, and offers to look for him. Jaworsky encourages this, and Willa activates Eyes of Dead. She sees a big, hairy creature leaning on a tombstone, but it sees her looking and melts away. Beth Anne hears Jaworsky say that he'll leave her alone for a while, and his voice fades away.

Father takes Blake back to the ranch so Darnell can look him over, while the others stay behind and fill in the grave. They head out to a coffee shop and talk about Jaworsky and Douglas (Willa's dad) and so on, and Beth Anne reiterates that she just isn't sure if the last 20 years of her life have been real and to what extent. The envoys try to wrap their brains around exactly what Jaworsky is and what he can do - they decide they'll need to verify phone and text communication for a while because clearly Jaworsky can screw with those. Melinda plans to sit with Willa and Beth Anne once they back to the ranch and get some notes, and then try to figure out what he really is. Father Will, back at the rectory, does his own research and finds some commonalities between Jaworsky and demons.

The envoys go back to the ranch, and Darnell meets them. He examines Jordan's injuries (which she'd forgotten about; it's been a day) and everyone heads to bed. Beth Anne dreams of being a little girl again with the hiking boots with the pink and green laces, going out to the woods with Jaworsky in search of the "hodag." But Beth Anne stops him and asks what he really wants, why he's still here and so on. Jaworsky says that he provided monsters to hunt and adventures to have, but if Beth Anne wants him to be a monster, he can arrange that. Beth Anne says that she doesn't know, now, if the things he told her were "monsters" really were, and Jaworsky repeats his point: if she wants him to be the monster, he can, but when her friends start dying, remembering that she asked for it. She wakes up, and finds her room full of candy in Halloween bags, perhaps a gift from Jaworsky. 

Beth Anne calls the others to the room and verifies that they can see the candy (they can). They all head down to the living room, which Jordan wards, and talk about their options. Melinda says that Jaworsky bears some resemblance to things that SAVE calls "invited" - powerful, unique creatures that can be summoned and sometimes dismissed. Problem is, though, that if you dismiss them, sometimes that banishes them and sometimes it just frees them. Also, such creatures are powerful and clever, and they're often smart enough to mislead people about their real capabilities. Sure sounds like Jaworsky!

Father Will is heading to the ranch, but as he approaches his radio starts playing a song from Sweeny Todd and the accelerator goes to the floor. He manages to keep the car under control, for the most part, and just bumps into the stone staircase. He gets out, shaken, and the others fill him in on what's going on. 

At this point Willa's phone rings. It's a doctor from the hospital, asking about her mother. Seems she checked herself out at about 3AM, but no one is sure why or who countersigned the AMA form. Willa relays this to the others, and looks at the area. She sees that the public transit line could lead to a place called the Cactus Bar - a dive that's been there for years and that she remembers her mom picking her dad up when he was drunk. They head to the bar - it's closed, but there are folks there setting up. Father Will and Willa knock on the door, and a waitress answers. She asks, "Are you Father Will?"

Father Will, taken aback a bit, confirms that he is. The waitress hands him an envelope, and says that a young girl, maybe 12, came and gave it to her as she got to work. She says the girl walked back down the sidewalk, but turned and went behind the bar. 

Jordan and Beth Anne check behind the bar, and Jordan finds a pile of bandages by the dumpster, clearly Hilary's. Father Will opens the envelope. Inside is a letter reading "She can't see. She can't tell where she's going, and it's hard to wrangle her in traffic. Maybe I'll stop bothering." Father Will points out to Willa that they do know someone that has enough insight into both Hilary and Willa to guess where she might be going - Douglas.

Willa grits her teeth and summons up her father's ghost, and explains the situation. Douglas seems furious, and flows out of Willa. He directs the envoys up the highway and to a self-storage facility, and in the very back, to a unit with a broken door. Willa and Jordan lift up the door and two people, Hilary and a young girl, drop down with ropes around their necks. 

The envoys rush forward to help them, and Douglas flies into the room, ready to punch something that the others can't see. Everything in the room goes black, but Beth Anne and Father Will manage to find the hanging people and stabilize them so they don't keep strangling. Jordan raises a Sphere of Protection and gives them some light, and Willa finds a stick on the ground. She imbues it with Astral Attack, and, remembering where she saw her father's ghost strike, hurls it. 

The darkness melts away and she sees her father holding another being up. The creature is hairy, but that's about all the detail Willa can see - her vision just kind of slides off. It's bleeding, though, and the stick is jutting out of its side. It melts away, and the envoys manage to get the folks down off the ropes and call paramedics (and Detective Jackson!). 

It turns out that the girl went missing last night. She says that she doesn't remember anything after dreaming about "Mr. Rabbit," her childhood imaginary friend. She woke up and saw him in the room, and then...nothing. 

Willa sees her father's ghost leaning on a car, and goes to talk to him. She thanks him for what he did, and he says that when he was lying on the floor, dying, he realized that he'd failed in his one goal - to prevent his daughter from becoming anything like his mother. He says that this storage unit was his home for nearly two months when he was a kid; he ran away from home to avoid his mother's abuse, but she found him here. She tells him that when he was sober, he was OK, but it was the man he became when he drank that she hated and was relieved to see die. He says that now, being dead, it's like he's always drunk - there's something inside him that he can't name, but he feels it coming back and he knows he'll find her again. He whispers that he wishes he knew where his mother was, and Willa notices that the windows on the car are frosting up. She tells him he'd better get gone, and he vanishes. 

Beth Anne's phone rings - Jaworsky. He tells her that her friend (Willa) packs a wallop, and he's decided that he doesn't need to fight Douglas. Actually, he's just given him what he was looking for. Beth Anne asks what that means, and Jaworsky tells her to figure it out, and hangs up. 

Beth Anne chooses not to mention this to Willa, though. She's been through enough today. Next time, we'll see if that decision has any consequences.

Movie #647: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is the first in the series to be produced by New Line after they bought the property, and the...what, ninth? in the series overall (not counting the reboot). It stars Kane Hodder, John D. LeMay, Erin Gray, Kari Keegan, Steven Williams, Steven Culp, Allison Smith, and Billy Green Bush. 

We start out pretty standard - beautiful young woman (Julie Michaels) getting undressed for a shower in a spooky cabin on Crystal Lake. Jason (Hodder) shows up and attacks, but instead of screaming and dying, as is standard procedures, she fucking parkours her way through the woods in a towel and leads Jason right into a trap set by the FBI, who promptly gun his ass down and blown him up with explosives. It's actually pretty satisfying, if I'm honest, if only to see someone take a somewhat smart approach to the matter.

Of course, it doesn't work, because something something supernatural magic blabbity-bloo. The coroner (Richard Grant) becomes hypnotized by Jason's disembodied heart, and eats it, becoming possessed by the murderous spirit of Jason Vorhees and goes on a wee killing spree. It's not without purpose, though - Jason can only be reborn through a Vorhees, and only killed by a Vorhees. That means he needs to find a blood relative, and holy shit, there are a few of those in Crystal Lake. Specifically, his sister Diana (Gray), her daughter Jessica (Keegan), and her infant daughter Stephanie (Brooke Scher). Hot on his trail is scary-ass bounty hunter Duke (Williams), hired by Fox "News" anchor Robert Campbell (Culp; OK, it's not Fox, but it sure feels like it), and into the mix is Jessica's baby-daddy Steven (LeMay). 

Jason body-hops from person to person, winds up in Robert, goes full Terminator on a police station, and finally winds up bursting out of a body in the form of a smaller worm-monster creature and slithering into Diana's dead body...under her skirt, if you see what I mean. And then OH YEAH! Jason is back in his normal, Kane Hodder form, and Jessica and Steven go full final-couple and kill his ass with a magic dagger, whereupon Freddy Krueger's arm bursts up through the ground and grabs his mask. 

So, Jason Goes to Hell is by no means a good movie, but it's a decent entry in the series and it's a much more competently made movie than the last few. It's firmly action-horror, rather than comedy-horror. It's really less of a slasher movie than much of the series, actually, because of Jason body hopping and the "hunt down the monster" vibe of the whole thing. It's also the first movie in the series that I remember explicitly mentioning that Jason is not OK with folks drinking and fucking, and it puts Jason in a larger, national context - he's famous, and while he's not widely known or believed to be supernatural, there's clearly a mythology built up around him. 

Does all of that make sense? Hell, no, and it doesn't track with the last movie, which saw Jason's body dissolving in toxic waste in NYC (what the hell). But it does mean that we see a thoroughly unpleasant woman (Rusty Schwimmer) running a Jason-themed diner that serves "Jason fingers," which is pretty funny. The performances are just as overwrought as usual, but with commitment, and it's amusing to me that Steven, despite looking like a nerd (or Ted Raimi), is an actual badass for some unspecified reason. Hell, the waitress at the diner (Smith) rocks out on Jason with a shotgun and a length of rebar, and it's a very new thing to see Jason's victim's consistently fighting back rather than screaming, tripping, and bleeding. 

Anyway, this is one of the better movies in the series, for the same reason that Jason X is - it doesn't take itself seriously as cinema, but it does try to make a competent movie. 

My Grade: D
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Freddy vs. Jason

Character Creation: Sentinel Comics RPG

Very excited about this one. 

The Game: Sentinel Comic RPG
The Publisher: Greater Than Games
Degree of Familiarity: I've played the card game, but never the RPG
Books Required: Just the one

Sentinel Comic RPG is very much a four-color, lighthearted supers RPG. I appreciate that it has a feel that it's going for, and that's true both of the tone of the game and the rules. I spot influence from Fate and Cortex, but mostly from the card game. Powers for heroes aren't given "trappings" (as Savage Worlds calls it); they're defined by their game effect and the player is left to fill in the narrative bits. Likewise, you have a specific set of actions you can do (attack, hinder, etc.), but what all that looks like in the fiction is up to the people at the table. 

I like this setup, but what I really like is that the book gives running examples (with illustrations; amazing what you can when you have an art budget) and puts into context all of the rules and narrative assumptions that it uses. And, it uses a kind of random-table setup for chargen, so holy cats, sign me up. 

You can just pick results off the tables if you want ("constructed" method of chargen), but I'm gonna grab my dice and do the "guided" method. GUIDED BY CHAOS, ANYWAY. 

So, first up, I roll 2d10 to pick a Background. Interestingly, I can take the result of either die, or their sum, so one roll gives me three choices, which I really like. 6 and 4 makes 10, so my choices are: Law Enforcement, Adventurer, or Military. Hmm. I think I'll go with adventurer. I would have trouble not getting too dark with either of the other two, I think. Let's say my hero used to be an adrenaline junkie, and maybe still is, but let's see where the dice take us.

First, though, I assign a d10 and a d8 to two of History, Leadership, or something selected from Physical qualities. I think I'll go d8 in History and d10 in something Physical (gotta look those up). Go for a kind of Nathan Drake/Lara Croft kind of vibe. Acrobatics, how about. 

Now I pick a Principle of Expertise. Principles give roleplaying situations to use in play in exchange for bonuses on roles, and also give you different abilities. Ooh, how about Principle of the Powerless? I don't know that I've made a Hawkeye-style character, who's just highly skilled. I may not have actual powers, but I know about them and I can exploit the blind spots that other folks with powers have. That gives me an ability to get a bonus to Overcome actions, which is cool. And now I roll 3d8 and move on to power source! 2, 8, 3. I can pick any of those numbers, or 5, 10, or 11. So my options are: Training, Genetic, Mystical, Powered Suit, Tech Upgrades, or Supernatural. 

Well, I think Training is the obvious choice, here, since I'm all about the powerless. I get to assign 3 d8s to various "powers" (gadgets, skills, and so on in my case). Let's take...Gadgets, Intuition, and Agility. And then I get to pick two of three yellow powers, each based off one of those powers. Well, that was easy. I'll take Always Be Prepared, and I'll say that's based on my guy's Gadgets. He's got all kinds of gear and knickknacks that he's collected or made - powders to throw in people's faces, small sticky grenades that emit a burst of static, climbing hooks. And then under Agility, I'll take Flowing Fight, which lets me use one of my dice in a conflict to attack a second target. I'll call these powers Always Prepared and Never Surrounded, respectively. 

Next up, Archetype! I roll a d10 and 2d8, and I get to pick an extra d8 Quality from that list. I roll 10, 1, 6, which means I can take those numbers or 11, 16, or 7. So my options are: Speedster, Close Quarters Combat, Armored, Robot/Cyborg, Form-Changer. You know, while Close Quarters would be appropriate, I'm gonna go Speedster. 

I get the Speed power (doy), which I'll take at d8. I have two more d8s and a d10 to take powers and qualities here. I'll put a d8 into Vitality, a d8 in Close Quarters Combat, and my d10 into...hmm. Actually, no, I'll put my d10 into Vitality and a d8 into Swinging (that is, from ropes). 

Neat, now I get two green abilities and one yellow. OK, I'm gonna say that my guy has trained himself to the peak of physical perfection (a la Batman), and wears a special suit made of next-level kinetic energy absorbing fabric. That's the Vitality. I'm gonna take Always on the Move and say it keys off of Vitality. That allows him to attack and defend in the same action, and that's just the special shirt absorbing a blow. I'll rename that power to Take a Punch. 

Next, I'll take Non-Stop Assault, but call it Wrecking Ball. My guy can swing in on his cables (also made of that same material) and smash into dudes, either damaging them or knocking them off their pins. That's keyed to Swinging, obviously.

And now I get one yellow ability. Hmm. It doesn't say I have to attach it to one of the Speedster powers or qualities, so can I attach it to Intuition? I'll assume I can! I'll take Speedy Analysis, but attach to Intuition and call it Listen Up, Guys. 

OK, now I choose an Expertise Principle and then roll 2d10 for my personality. Ooh, let's make it the Principle of History. Groovy, moving on to Personality! 5 and 6 means I can take 5, 6, or 11. Sarcastic, Distant, or Stoic. Gotta go with Sarcastic here. I need to make up a quality and assign a d8 to it. I'll say that my guy recognizes, on some level, how silly all this is - people wearing colorful costumes and taking on code names to punch each other. Sure, he's doing it, too, and he secretly loves it, but at the same time, it's all very weird. I'll take the quality as This is Ridiculous d8. 

I get d8s across the board in green, yellow, and red, and when I'm Out, I can hinder an opponent by rolling...hmm. This is meant to be how I affect the story even if I'm not there, so I think This is Ridiculous actually makes a lot of sense. 

Now I get two red abilities (these are the big guns that only come out when the straits are dire). I can only take these for categories in which I have a power or category, but that's fine, there are a bunch I like. I'll take Calculated Dodge (I can take a point of damage to force someone to reroll an attack or effect on my), which I'll call Saw That Coming. And then I'll take Final Wrath, but I'll call it Empty the Bag of Tricks. Basically he just throws all of his gadgets at his foes, makes a really effective attack (and then takes a major twist because that's going to make things difficult). 

And now I get a retcon! I can go back and change things in a few different ways. Do I wish to do that? I think I do. I can swap dice between two powers or qualities, but I can also add any power I want at d6. Hang on, gotta check some things. Yeah, I'm gonna switch Gadgets and Vitality, so I've got a d10 in Gadgets. Seems like that's really his thing. 

Health: It's 8 + red status die (also 8) + maximum value of any of my Athletic powers (8), and a d8 roll. Rolled a 1, blah. That's 25. 

Cool, now I just gotta figure out who this guy is! I'll say that his name is Bede Bradshaw. Bede, named for the patron saint of historians, was the son of two in-the-field archaeologists and explorers. He learned very early on that he needed to make himself useful or get sent to boarding school, so he learned about history and started training his body so he could do the dangerous stuff his parents couldn't. He graduated from college, didn't quite finish a Masters, and went off to explore the ancient wonders of the world.

While he was doing that, he came across evidence that the ancient heroes of legend were pretty much the superheroes of their time - folks like Gilgamesh and Heracles may actually have existed, and they fulfilled roles much like Legacy and Absolute Zero did today. Bede, who has always had an interest in the history of super-heroes, started gathering gadgets used in exploration, survival, and spelunking and re-tooling them to be handy super-aides, figuring maybe he'd sell them. 

And then he went to a dig in the Middle East with his parents. Something they uncovered attracted the wrong kind of attention, and a superpowered thug called Grit showed up and started smashing things up, looking for "the emerald." Bede wrapped his scarf around his head, loaded up his bandolier belt and satchel with gadgets and tricks, made himself a makeshift swing-line with some ropes and beat the guy into submission by using his own strength against him. When he got back to the States, he saw the coverage of a "masked hero" taking on a supervillain...but that the "hero" had supposedly been there to disrupt the dig, since it was just another Western group trying to dig up and exploit the history there. 

Bede took the point, and refined his outfit - lots of greens, browns, and blacks. He kept the scarf, though, as he found it comfortable. He started calling himself "the Gadfly," and the name has mostly stuck, although he's the first to point out that it's more than a little pretentious. Mostly, Gadfly feels that being a superhero is less about having powers and more about being willing to put on the mask, but he's not interested in getting too serious or preachy, hence the pokey sarcasm he employs while out doing his thing. 

That'll do it!

Movie #646: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Friday the Thirteenth Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is probably the worst of the series, and that's saying something. It stars Kane Hodder, Jensen Daggett, Barbara Bingham, Peter Mark Richman, Scott Reeves, V. C. Dupree, and a very young Kelly Hu. 

Out on Crystal Lake, a couple of young idiots (Todd Caldecott and Tiffany Paulsen) are on a boat together, when Jason pops up and kills them, like he do. He rides the boat all the way to the dock at...some river, and then boards a cruise ship heading for the Big Apple. It's apparently some kind of post-graduation school trip, run by the tyrannical Mr. McCullough (Richman), and attended by some of his students and his niece/ward, Rennie (Daggett). Rennie's crush, Sean (Reeves), the son of the ship's captain (Warren Munson) is pretty clearly our Final Guy, and everyone else is pretty disposable. Indeed, Jason pops up and disposes of them (including poor Kelly Hu, alas). 

This goes on for a while, the ship sinks, Rennie, Sean, McCullough, Rennie's favorite teacher Colleen (Bingham), tough-guy student Julius (Dupree), and Rennie's dog Toby (the real hero here) take a lifeboat to a dock in New York that is inexplicably empty. They wander around a bit looking for a phone, get jumped by a couple of thugs (Sam Sarkar and Michael Benyaer). They kidnap Rennie and take her away to do unspeakable things, but Jason kills them, stalks the group, kills most of them, and eventually gets dissolved by the toxic waste that floods New York's sewers every night at midnight. You know, pretty obvious stuff. 

So, there's not much to say about this one that hasn't been said. It doesn't hold up even for this series - the subtitle doesn't really work because Jason spends very little time in Manhattan, and any menace his might have evaporates when he's in a city. There are a couple of things here that try to be interesting - Rennie was pushed into Crystal Lake as a child (by her uncle, who really is a dick) and was nearly drowned by Jason as a boy...except that would have been in the 80s or so, because remember this movie is set circa 2003, so Jason would have been an adult and very much into killing teenagers. So that doesn't make sense, nor does Jason's new ability to teleport everywhere, nor does his sudden interest in drawing out his kills so that only people who seem to want to die fall prey to him.

Fortunately, the cinematic tour de force that is Freddy vs. Jason is coming up soon. 

My Grade: F
Rewatch Value: Medium-low

Next up: Jason Goes to Hell (alphabetically it should be Freddy vs. Jason, but I'll break alphabetical order for chronological order in a series)

Atlantis: Burning Crocodile Circuit Puzzle

After two missed sessions, back at it! Here's last time!

Our heroes cross the Lady's Wail, the violent current in front of the pyramid in the sunken city of Elapi. Imani swims across and ties a rope, and the others haul themselves through the water. Eithne winds up nearly losing her grasp, but Imani catches her and Thanos casts a spell and nudges them to the pyramid. 

There, Akala studies the ancient locks and, with the practiced ease of someone who's seen the inner mysteries of the universe, opens the doors. They enter, and find an immense room with crystal matrices and wires of copper and gold creating circuits of Vril energy. Thanos realizes that the circuits are incomplete, and that if they fix them, they could extend the force shields creating dry areas to the whole city.

The four of them work together to move the wires and the matrices, taking care not to cut power to the ones that already have it or to create a loop that would short the system. Thanos and Akala easily solve this puzzle, and the pyramid hums to life. 

As do the giant bronze scorpions that guard the place. 

The guardians rush forward and snap Eithne and Thanos in their claws, but Thanos grabs the wires and reroutes the Vril into the thing, disabling it. Eithne calls up ice and attempts to freeze the other one in place, but loses control of the spell and sends ice up the wall to one of the wires. It starts to flicker, and Akala hurriedly flies down and fixes it...but falls into a fugue state and starts flying in spirals. 

Imani takes Eithne's spear and hurls it at the scorpion, lodging it into the thing's plates and disabling it. She roars in triumph, and the heroes walk out of the pyramid to see the populace of Elapi coming to meet them, cheering for them. 

Akala starts talking to them about Vril and spirals (still not entirely out of the fugue state), Thanos collapses (his ribs are broken), and Imani starts bragging about her mighty battle with the guardians and recruiting any Elapians who'll listen to join her crusade to kill her mother-in-law. Also, she talks trash about Oshún, and some of the folks listen, while others look a bit horrified. 

Akala notices Enu, the Triton that was helping them out last time, trying to make eye contact. She talks to him and he tells her that Apep is trapped - he was in a crevasse when the water went away and now can't get out, but he'll manage eventually. Akala tells the others, but Imani and Thanos are injured too badly to go right then. Eithne stays with them, while Akala goes with Enu to see the situation. They find Apep, as promised, in a crevasse, snarling at the Tritons. Akala peeks over the edge and figures he must have swam in and the gotten stuck when the water receded...but then takes a step back and realizes that the ground here is soft, far too soft to hold the monster in place. She sends Enu back to the get the others to hurry, and keeps Apep talking. 

She asks why Apep is after Thanos, and he shows her the wound in his side and says that Thanos did it. She also asks about his habit of eating the hearts of sentient beings, and he responds that only sentient beings nourish him. He asks if Akala's heart is beating faster, and then says he'll find out soon enough - and leaps up with a roar. 

Apep grabs at her leg as she takes to the sky, but Imani blazes in like an avenging angel and smacks her out of the way. That means, unfortunately, that Apep bites into her chest, and she feels his poison coursing through her veins. She cracks his neck open with her mong, and Thanos rakes his arm with own claws and flings his blood at Apep. The blood burns him, and Apep tosses Imani away with a howl and rends Thanos with his talons. 

Akala flings her chakram at him, striking his wounded patch. Eithne sees this and and casts a spell at him, widening the wound. This much magic might have killed him anyway, but Imani charges in and slams her horns into his side. Apep's body explodes, and burning crocodile-monster blood rains down. Imani passes out. 

The others manage to put the fire out and revive her, but she's badly hurt. Apep, however, is dead, the pyramid is powered on, and the people of Elapi are giving up their cultish ways, slowly but surely. Next time, we'll conclude this Great Work.

Character Creation: Eldritch Skies

Busy couple of weeks at work, plus I started playing X-Com 2 again and that game eats my life every time I replay it. 

The Game: Eldritch Skies
The Publisher: Battlefield Press
Degree of Familiarity: It's Savage Worlds, so I know the underlying system, but I haven't read the whole book so I'm sure there's some stuff I'll miss
Books Required: Eldritch Skies and some version of SW rules

The idea behind Eldritch Skies is a Lovecraft-inspired RPG that leans more toward sci-fi than horror. Takes place in the far future, humanity colonizing the stars, but then it turns out those stars might well be right, as it were. I think the premise is solid and the writing drawing the distinction between Lovecraft-as-horror and Lovecraft-as-sci-fi is really compelling. Sadly, much of the rest of the book is not so compelling, and I found myself just kind of hitting a wall when I tried to read it. It's not bad by any means, it just didn't hook me. 

Some other little niggles, too. The book says that you need d6s, but of course SWADE uses a full suite of dice. The book says that a particular chapter talks about "Cinematic Savage Worlds" rules differences, but all that chapter gives you is gear. 

Anydangway, I'm gonna make a character. First step, then, is race! Oh, wait, no, first step is "type," but I'm gonna stick to "Civilian," since that's a starting character. I think I'll stay human this time around. 

You know, since I'm playing X-Com, I think I'll make a psionic character. His name is Dieter Klass, and he's an older gent - sixties, beard, grey hair, distinguished bearing (picture Stephen Lang but less muscular). Looking ahead, that means I have to take the Hyperspatial Exposure Hindrance, which the book says makes the Arcane Background free, which...isn't really the way Edges & Hindrances work, especially since Hyperspatial Exposure at level 1 (which is the required level) is a Minor Hindrance. All right, well, let's just assume I know how the rules work, so I need to take that Hindrance as one of my Minors, so groovy. Smarts needs to be high because I'll use that for my powers. 

Indeed, moving on to Attributes. I'll put Smarts at d10, Spirit at d6, and Vigor at d6. That'll make Agility-based skills expensive, but life's like that. 

Speaking of Skillz, let's do those! I'll just g'head and dump 4 points into Psionics so I have a d10. I'll put a d4 in Piloting (assuming spacecraft). Better put a d8 in Notice, d6 in Persuasion, d4 in Stealth. That leaves me 4 more. How about a d6 in Repair, a d4 in Shooting, and a d4 in Taunt. 

Hindrances! I already have one Minor, so I want a Major and another Minor. Any good ones in Eldritch Skies? Not really. Secret, maybe, but I don't have a good idea for one. Oh, well, actually the book says that psychics get hired as business negotiators, so maybe Dieter did some things that got a lot of people very angry with him. If there are folks out willing to kill him, that's worth a Major. 

Just need another Minor, then. How about Stubborn? I can see ol' Dieter being a bit bull-headed. 

OK, so, I used my free Edge to take Arcane Background, so I've got four "points" yet. I shall use two and buy Agility up to d6, one to buy a d4 in Fighting (so my Parry is higher than 2), and the last one to buy a d4 in Knowledge (Corporate). 

Neat! Now powers. I have to take Psychic Sensitivity, but then I get two more. I'll take Confusion and Stun, so Dieter is pretty skilled at rendering people insensate, which I'm sure has helped him get away from people looking to harvest his organs. 

Derived stuff: I've got Charisma 0, Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 5.

Gear: Nah. I think that Dieter is probably a privately licensed psychic for hire, and went off-Earth after shit went south with his former employer. He knows he's a little old to be on the run, but out here between the stars he figures he's got a fighting chance. (And he does, at least a fighting chance of being eaten by a shoggoth.)

Slipstream: A Battle on the Lines

Tonight Slipstream yay! Last time here is. 

Our heroes, recall, have been found by Officer Ioptis and his ship, the Dead Jellyfish. The heroes leap to their battle stations! Iris pilots the ship and fires their nose-weapon, a weighted net, but the Jellyfish deftly moves out of the way. They fire their nose cannon, a devastating heat ray, but misses, and Oola uses her Deflection machinery to protect the ship. Figuring that maybe she can disable their nose gun, she fires a magnetic grapple, but the pirates respond in kind, firing several more. The pirates start slipping along the cables towards the characters' ship, and the heroes rush out to meet them. Iris, as is her usual way, shouts her battle cry, while Zeenia uses her protective coloration to turn invisible and Oola just tries to avoid harm. 

Oola attempts to put a pirate to sleep, but he fights through it and rushes her. She scrambles back in the ship, and two pirates follow her. Iris zaps a pirate off his line with her ray gun, but now she faces Ioptis himself! 

Zeenia, meanwhile, slithers along the mag cable and tosses a pirate out into the ether, and the boards their ship and does the same thing to the two guys left behind to man it. She gets on their radio-phone and informs them that she has their ship...

But over on their ship, two of the pirates have captured Oola and hold her up in a window. Ioptis, who has been trading blows with Iris, steps back and gestures. Iris sees this and considers surrendering...but no. She is Iris Blue of the Daikini Valkyrie, daughter of Orchid Blue! She leaps through the ether, smashes in the window, dodging ray-gun fire and knocks the pirate away!

Zeenia disconnects the mag cables from the Jellyfish and then slips back along the last cable toward Ioptis. They fight, but Ioptis seems to have practiced against tentacle swarms because Zeenia can't land a blow. Inside the ship, Oola wriggles free of her bonds and hides, but the pirates best Iris and blast her into unconsciousness. Oola tries to rescue her, but the pirates spot her and train their guns on her, and it seems like the pirates have hostages again...

But then outside, Zeenia slips behind Ioptis and cuts the mag-cable, setting him adrift. Oola points that out to the pirates, and, seeing as they're well and truly out of their depth, they call it a draw. The pirates (with some effort) withdraw to their ship, Oola heals Iris, and Zeenia takes the helm and manages to blow the ship even further into the Graveyard. Once Iris is up and about, she gets them out, but it takes hours, by which point the pirates have surely withdrawn to whatever wretched hive of scum and villainy they came from to plan their revenge. 

The characters manage to touch down on Hosbec, where they turn over their cargo and sell the stuff they found in the Graveyard, turning a tidy profit. Their next stop is likely to be Avia...but first they need a drink.

Movie #645: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Friday the Thirteenth Part VII: The New Blood is the next up in our cavalcade of murder and mayhem, starring Lar Park Lincoln, Kevin Blair, Susan Blu, Terry Kiser, and for the first time of four, Kane Hodder as Jason. 

Young Tina Shepherd (Jennifer Banko) loses control of her budding telekinetic powers and topples a dock onto her drunken, abusive father (John Otrin), killing him. In the process, she disturbs the resting place of Jason Vorhees, but that doesn't become relevant until years later. 

After those years later (which, by the way, would put most of the events of The New Blood in 2003 or so, which is bananas), Tina (Lincoln) returns to Crystal Lake with her mother (Blu) and her psychiatrist Dr. Crews (Kiser), ostensibly to cope with the guilt of killing her father. In fact, Dr. Crews is testing the notion of amping up Tina's fear and trauma so her powers manifest themselves, which is great, except that Tina manages to free Jason from his watery prison. As luck would have it, there's a fresh group of meat teens next door intending to have a surprise party, so Jason has something to do when he shows up (that is, kill 'em all). Tina winds up using her Carrie-like powers to toss Jason around and set him on fire and so on, but is unable to stop him killing...basically everyone in a mile radius, except for Nick (Blair), the hunky young man who plays the role of Hapless Male Sidekick (a venerable and time-honored institution in this series). 

Lots of gratuitous sex and nudity here again, and much like the previous couple of installments everyone is on the chopping block. What I did find interesting, though, was that the censors made the filmmakers cut a few seconds off each death, with the effect that they seemed truncated and, pardon the term, choppy. 

I did like the makeup and costume effects on Jason, at least while he was still in his mask - his flesh rotting away and his bones visible were nicely creepy. And then they went and screwed it up by removing the mask and showing his purple, bug-eyed, alien-mask lookin' mug in the last few scenes, but hey, can't have everything. 

We have, of course, well and truly crested any real fear or dread this series managed to cook up and gone full schlock - this movie is the origin of the "Jason beats a girl in a sleeping bag against a tree" thing, which gets referenced again in Jason X. It does mean, though, that it's fun to yell at the movie, and I fully expect the next one to be even worse.

My Grade: D
Rewatch Value: Medium-low

Next up: Friday the Thirteenth Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Movie #644: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

Friday the Thirteenth Part VI: Jason Lives is, as the name implies, the sixth installment of the franchise and the first that sees Jason as explicitly supernatural. It stars Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, Dan Bradley, C.J. Graham, David Kagen, Renée Jones, Darcy DeMoss, Kerry Noonan, Nancy McLoughlin, and in his film debut, Tony Goldwyn. 

Tommy Jarvis (Mathews) returns to Crystal Lake, now renamed Forest Green, to dig up the body of Jason Vorhees (Bradley and then Graham; Bradley left the production some ways into filming) and burn it. He winds up going into one of his patented rage fits and stabbing Jason's corpse with a metal fence post, which is conveniently struck by lightning. That's enough to bring Jason back as a kind of immortal zombie, and he spends the rest of the movie hacking his way through camp counselors, policemen, and just random passers-by until Tommy and the sheriff's daughter Megan (Cooke) manage to chain him to an anchor and sink him in Crystal Lake. 

That's a terse summary of the movie, but as far as content goes it's not much different than the rest of the series. The tone, however, is a marked change. There are explicit fourth wall breaks, more humor and action-oriented content, and since Jason is no longer human in the slightest, the movie changes from "people fighting a killer who's extremely tough" to "people fighting an inhuman monster that does not give a shit for your bullets." The thing I find most indicative of the tonal shift, though, is this bit at the beginning, when Jason dons his mask and then does a take to the camera and we get the James Bond thing where he walks across our field of vision, and then turns and slashes at us. 

We tend to associate this kind of meta-humor with Scream, but it's not like there were no examples prior to the 90s, and Jason Lives did it pretty well. This movie was also a return to form after A New Beginning, which not only had a much meaner vibe to it but had no Jason at all, and any chance of doing this franchise without him was pretty much gone as of Part II. 

My Grade: B-
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Friday the Thirteenth Part VII: The New Blood

Cairn: A Hauke So Gud

Here's last time! Now's this time! 

The fuzzy animals were sleeping, except for Ratatosk. Ratatosk is still coming down off the enervating powder, and so is zipping about making sleeping draught. And then screaming from outside!

Ratatosk runs outside and sees Cairn citizens running about yelling in fear. A shadow falls across the town - Ashfeather has come to Cairn. Ratatosk tosses a smoke bomb and helps some folks get to cover, and manages to keep his terror of the Dire daggerbeak under control. 

The others wake up and rush out to help. Russelet and Snootabur fire arrows at it, and Rumdiggle summons up the spirit of the ripper and grows huge and bristly. Russelet yells to the others to lure it into a blind, and for Snootabur to get to a high point to use the rope arrows he fashioned. Snootabur does, but then sees the hawk and succumbs to the fear, curling up into a spiky ball. 

Ratatosk lures the hawk and flings sneezing powder in its face, but Ashfeather catches him in his talons and rends him. Rumdiggle jumps on the hawk's back to keep it from flying away, and Russelet yells encouragement to Snootabur, giving her the strength to uncurl herself. They both fire their arrows and entangle Ashfeather, and Snootabur, still smarting from the talon wounds, zips around tying up the hawk. Snootabur leaps down from the top of the Town Hall with the Cairn flag and puts it over Ashfeather's head, which takes the fight out of him considerably. 

The Knights gather around the hawk, and discuss what to do. Rumdiggle isn't interested in killing a bound foe, but Russelet keeps an arrow trained on it - it's Dire, and a merciful death might be the only option. Ratatosk casts Speak to the Small and finds that Ashfeather wants animals to fear it, and presently feels humiliated and angry. The Knights hear a mob approaching - the citizenry of Cairn is here, and they're afraid and angry.

Keeble Brownberry, the Lord Mayor of Cairn, scampers over and talks with the Knights. Ratatosk gives a very Luis-like recounting of the last couple of days, culminating in passing out from blood loss. The others fill in the gaps, and Keeble tells them that he'll support whatever they want to do, provided they get rid of the hawk one way or another. They agree, and Keeble tells the citizens that the Traveling Knights have captured the Dire daggerbeak and they're going to make sure it never bothers Cairn again. Folks disperse, and the Knights decide to call in Whisper Greenleaf, the priest of the Lodge of the Bright Ones. 

She tells them that Dire animals can be saved, but they have to choose to walk that path. She can cast a ritual to open a conversation and make Ashfeather more receptive, but it won't force him to be redeemed and communicating with him is hard. Rumdiggle gets her lute and prepares to sing Ashfeather back to balance, if possible.

Whisper casts the ritual, and Rumdiggle sings a song of balance and harmony, the natural majesty of the hawk as opposed to the violent fear he's inspiring. It works - Ratatosk confirms that Ashfeather is still in Discord, but is no longer Dire

The Knights take Ashfeather out to the Shady Forest and let him go, and he takes to the sky. Whether or not he manages to completely shake off the Disharmony is up to him now.

Movie #643: Friday the Thirteenth: A New Beginning

Friday the Thirteenth: A New Beginning is the fifth installment in the franchise, and stars all of the old familiar faces you've come to know and love! Nah, I'm kidding, it's a whole new roster of meat for the grinder: Melanie Kinnaman, John Shepherd, Shavar Ross, Juliette Cummins, Carol Locatell, Ron Sloan, Tiffany Helm, Dick Wieand, and To Morga. There's a lot more, but I don't want to be flipping back and forth between this and the wiki all day. 

After three movies taking place right on each other's heels, we now jump forward in time some years. Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman in a cameo, Shepherd in this movie) has been institutionalized for much of his life after chopping Jason Vorhees all to meat after Jason killed his mother and everyone else in the zip code in the last movie. He's sent to live at a home for disturbed youths run by Pam (Kinnaman) and Matt (Richard Young), and chock full of angry, disturbed teens that you just know are going to murdered in gruesome new ways. (OK, not so much "new.")

It becomes pretty clear early on that Pam is our Final Girl, although she's an adult, not a teen. Likewise, we have Reggie (Ross), a young boy whose grandfather (Vernon Washington) works at the group home, who follows the usual path of being a kid in these movies (that is, he survives, but his entire family is gruesomely murdered). 

The plot, such as it is, has one of the kids at the home (Mark Venturini) snapping and hacking up another one (Dominick Brascia) with an ax. Shortly thereafter, a masked killer (Morga) starts knocking off everyone he runs into. Said killer is obviously assumed (by the audience) to be Jason, but in fact it's Roy (Dieand), the unassuming EMT who it turns out was the murdered boy's secret father WHAAAAT.

OK, so this movie is terrible. Everything that gave the first couple of installments some heart is gone. We spend almost no time with the supporting cast, and when we do it's long enough to see some titties before the blades go in. Likewise, these people are terrible to each other, the worst of them being Ethel (Locatell) and her unpleasant, loud son Junior (Sloan), whom Roy has no reason to kill other than they're both awful and we as the audience would like to see them beheaded/stabbed and left in soup. It's not really even worthwhile to talk about acting or script, because both have descended so far into the mire at this point that the movie is best served as snark-fodder.

With that said, John Shepherd does his very best to portray Tommy Jarvis as what's left of the sweet, nerdy kid from the last movie. He sells Tommy being violent by impulse, if not by nature, and he does it with very few lines because Tommy only talks when you push him. He's probably better than this movie deserves. 

Next time, we get to see another actor playing him, and shit gets overtly supernatural for the first time!

My Grade: D-
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: Friday the Thirteenth Part VI: Jason Lives