Friday the 13th Part 2 remains one of the best in the longrunning F13 slasher series, a perfect companion to the original, and one of the best horror sequels ever.

Directed by Steve Miner, this one stars our favorite F13 heroine, Amy Steel. Tom Savini passed on it, so the special make-up effects were created by Carl Fullerton. Watch Friday the 13th Part 2 and see Jason Voorhees stalk and kill his victims before he donned a hockey mask!

Alice (Adrienne King), having recently dispatched of Mrs. Voorhees, is having nightmares. She remembers the night she found all of her friends murdered, and how she stumbled into the older woman. She soon found out who was behind the massacre at Camp Crystal Lake.

So began a deadly cat and mouse chase, culminating with the young girl picking up Mrs. Voorhees' machete and decapitating the murderess. Resting the next morning on a boat in the lake, the dead woman's disfigured son Jason yanked Alice down into the water. When she awoke in the hospital, there was no trace of the boy.

Alice wakes up and the phone rings. It's her mother calling to check up on her. She reassures her mom that she's okay and then goes into the shower. Something makes her nervous, and she cuts her shower short. The phone rings again but there's no one there. She sees that one of the windows is open and picks up a knife. She walks towards it and a stray cat jumps in.

Frightened, she asks the animal if it wants something to eat. Alice opens the refrigirator and finds the head of Mrs. Voorhees. She screams, but just then someone grabs her from behind and sticks an icepick into her temple. (Ouch!) This great setup happens even before the credits.

Young people are arriving at a counselor training center near Crystal Lake. Jeff (Bill Randolph) and Sandra (Marta Kober) stop at a gas station to call their friend Ted for directions. Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) is at it again, and tells them that they're doomed.

Just then, the couple's truck is towed away, but it turns out to be a prank by Ted (Stu Charno). They pick him up and drive off to the camp. On the way there, the road is blocked by a fallen tree. The three get out to remove it, and Sandra finds a sign fall Camp Crystal Lake. Ted tell her not to ask about it. Meanwhile, someone is watching them...

At the center, the lead trainer Paul (John Furey), tells the assembled group what to look forward to. The group includes Mark (Tom McBride), who's confined to a wheelchair, and Vickie (Lauren-Marie Taylor), a girl who has a crush on him.

Ginny (Amy Steel), Paul's girlfriend, arrives late much to his annoyance. That night, the counselors are sitting around a campfire. Paul tells them the story about "Camp Blood" and how Jason saw his mother killed and sought revenge. He tells them about how the boy, now a grown man, killed Alice and that her body was never found.

Jason is still out there, Paul tells the group. Just then, Ted jumps out of the darkness and nearly scares everyone to death. It was just to show them that everything is fine and there's nothing out there, Paul tells them. He reminds them that Camp Crystal Lake is off limits.

Later, everyone is relaxing in the main cabin. Scott (Russell Todd) is flirting with Terry (Kirsten Baker), while Sandra tells Jeff that there must be some truth to the legend and that she wants to see Camp Blood.

Ginny goes to her own cabin and finds Paul there. As they're making out, Crazy Ralph is watching them. Suddenly someone in the tree above puts a wire around the old man's neck and strangles him, drawing blood.

The next morning during their training, Ginny senses someone lurking about. Muffin, the camp dog, runs right into the figure. Sandra is still curious and insists on going to the other camp. (Hunter: Okay, so this might not be the brightest idea, but I'm pretty inquisitive myself and I might want to go too!)

She and Jeff wander off and find a slaughtered animal they believe to be a dog. They're stopped in their tracks by a police officer (Jack Marks) who takes them back to Paul.

As he's driving away, the officer catches a glimpse of someone running into the woods. He gets out of his car and chases the figure into an old abandoned cabin. As he's searching the place, Jason (Warrington Gillette) comes up from behind and strikes him with the claw end of a hammer.

That night, most of the counselors go into town for a night of drinking. Jeff, Sandra, Terry, Scott, Vickie and Mark stay behind. It's a full moon and Terry decides to go skinny dipping in the lake.

When she emerges, she sees that Scott has taken her clothing. He gives most of them back to her, and as Terry tries to get her skimpy t-shirt back, Scott steps into a trap.

He suddenly finds himself strung up on a tree by his ankles. Terry goes back to her room to get a knife to cut the rope. Scott sees someone approach him with a machete, and Jason cuts his neck open with it.

Terri returns and finds Scott dead. As she tries to get away, she runs right into the killer.

At the bar, Ginny wonders about the Jason legend and imagines what he would be like today. (She's a child psychology major.) He could be "some kind of out of control psychopath, a frightened retard, or a child trapped in a man's body," she says. Paul and Ted just laugh at her.

Meanwhile, the hormones of the two couples at the camp are raging. Vickie comes on strong to Mark and goes to her room to change. While Mark waits for her on the porch, Jason strikes him in the face with the machete, sending the poor guy down a nearby flight of stairs.

Jeff and Sandra are in an upstairs room. Jason enters the cabin and finds them. While Jeff is on top of her, Sandra looks up in time to see Jason plunge a spear through the both of them. Vickie returns to the cabin and enters their room. Thinking they're under the cover, she approaches the bed. Jason suddenly sits up and cuts her leg, then stabs her to death.

Back at the bar, Ginny and Paul decide to leave early. They find Jeff and Sandra's bed covered with blood. (Hunter: A refreshing change of pace, since the crime scene is usually cleaned up quickly.) The lights go out and the two head back downstairs.

Ginny is sure there's someone in the room with them, and sure enough, Jason leaps out at Paul. The two men struggle and Jason appears to get the upper hand. He then goes after Ginny, who runs and hides in the kitchen.

Jason breaks through the door with a pitchfork, and Crazy Ralph's body falls out of a closet. The feisty young woman jumps out of the window and makes it to her car, which of course won't start.

Jason pierces the roof and tries to grab her, but Ginny kicks the car door open and knocks him to the ground. She hides around a bush and when Jason comes around, she kicks him where it hurts (Go, Ginny!)

Back at the cabin, she crawls under the bed. A rat comes right up to her and she mangages to hold her in her scream.

But she can't however hold something else and...wets the floor. When she gets out from under the bed, Jason strikes at her but misses. Ginny fights back, first with a chainsaw and then with a chair.

She finds an old shack in the woods, unaware that it's Jason's home. She sees Mrs. Vorhees' decaying head on a table, and thinking fast, she puts the woman's old sweater on. As Jason approaches her, she pretends to be his mother and tells him that he did good and to kneel before her.

Just as she's about to hit him with the machete, Jason sees the head behind her and the ruse is over. He cuts her leg with a pickax and as he's about to strike her again, Paul appears. Again the two men struggle. Ginny picks up the machete and hits Jason in his neck, finally bringing him down.

Ginny and Paul go back to their room. Hearing a noise outside, Paul goes towards the door slowly, while Ginny holds a pitchfork nervously. When he opens the door, they see that it's only Muffin the. As the little dog runs towards her, Jason suddenly crashes through the window behind Ginny and pulls her out. Did it really happen? The next morning, Ginny is loaded onto an ambulance and cries out for Paul, but he's nowhere to be found...

Hunter: I love this movie. The style matches the first film so well that I sometimes confuse the two. (Which one has the strip monopoly again?) Jason is very scary in this. I particularly like the scene where Ginny is in the old shack and you can see Jason through the window running towards the house. Nice touch!

Jason's mask is great too...sort of a potato sack with an opening for one eye. Finally, two words: Amy Steel. She's a woman after my heart! We don't have anyone as natural as her in today's horror films. Where have you gone Amy Steel, a nation turns it's lonely eyes to you...

Jason: A more than worthy sequel to the original. In the tradition of the "Body Count" fever of Bava's Bay of Blood, this has all the prerequisite murder sequences...and then some! But...it has something else, something modern in the way of Amy Steel, by far the best horror heroine to date.

She's sweet, smart and tough in the extended finale and chase sequence with Jason, fighting back, kicking him, hitting him, reacting without thinking or crying. She's incredible. To this testament, it's appropriate that, like Jamie Lee Curtis, she survives this one...