Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (2013)

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I wasn't blown away by the Friday 13th franchise, I think they were ground breaking and positively genre defining but none of them exactly blew me away.I recently watched the Friday 13th documentary His Name Was Jason (2009) and wasn't exactly impressed with what I saw.How can a person like myself who found the franchise lackluster enjoy a documentary about the material? Well, I did. This documentary is so in depth, so thorough that I was positively fascinated. Giving around 30 minutes of stories, background and factoids about each movie the documentary stands at over 5 and a half hours so isn't swift viewing.With countless interviews from the creators and cast to unseen footage and deleted scenes this is one of the most competently made fan service documentaries I've ever seen and is a must watch for any fans or even just horror addicts like myself.Want to know why some of the movies were so cut? Interested to find out why Kane Hodder didn't play Jason in Freddy Vs Jason? Eager to discover which movies succeeded and which bombed? This documentary covers these questions and so much more.Brilliant viewing and that's coming from someone who as mentioned doesn't consider the franchise as critically acclaimed as most others.The Good: Corey Feldmans opening and closer Essential viewing for fans of the series Extremely in depth The Bad: Uses the same interview segments as His Name Was Jason (2009) Some key figures weren't interviewed Things I Learnt From This Documentary: You can make a good documentary about anything if you just handle it right Across all 12 movies and a total of 120 potential points on IMDb they only garnered 63 from me

Director Daniel Farrands surpasses His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th, with Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th. This like the 2010 film, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy and Farrands offers again an in depth and comprehensive documentary.It discusses each of the twelve films, from the original to the 2009 remake, as well as the television series. It's also narrated and book-ended by Corey Feldman (who is also interviewed). It features candid interviews with key individuals in the franchise's history and the expected clips and glimpses of deleted and alternative scenes. It also looks at their post release reception and impacts. If you've done a lot of reading on the making of the Friday the 13th this will offer few surprises and at nearly 7 hours long it may be too much for the casual documentary viewer. But for Friday the 13th completists, horror film enthusiast and fans of the series this is a must see.

In my opinion - For anyone (in their right mind) to actually sit through nearly 7 hours of watching this ridiculously redundant and preposterously repetitive "Friday The 13th" documentary would certainly have to be a bona-fide masochist of the highest order. I mean, 7 hours!!?? Like, talk about milking a subject to absolute death.If you ask me - I think this "Crystal Lake Memories" documentary could've easily been reduced to a running time of, maybe, 2.5 hours, at best. It seemed to me like just about everyone and their dog appeared in this documentary gushing and paying glowing lip-service to a horror movie franchise that, since 1980, has spawned 12 mind-numbingly predictable sequels in all. And, unfortunately, at this point, there seems to be no end in sight for more of this nonsense.Yes. I will admit that I watched most of this documentary in fast-forward mode. But, hey, with that said, when I did stop the rush of images to hear what anyone was babbling about, it was just the same old, tired bull from start to finish. And I knew I hadn't missed anything worthwhile at all.Let's face it - This documentary is strictly for hard-core fans only!P.S. - I thought it was really hilarious that actress Betsy Palmer, who played Jason's murderous mother in the original Friday The 13th, was the only one in this documentary who had the guts to come forward and say that she couldn't understand this horror film's lasting appeal. She was the only one and I applaud her for that.

I just saw the whole thing last night and here are my thoughts.This is a must have F13 DOC for all the die hard fans.2 DVD's and 2 blu rays in which we get the whole story of the franchise splited in 14 chapters running from 20 to 40 minutes each chapter.As u can imagine we begin with part 1 (long night at camp blood) and we end with the remake film.in more detailDVD 1 and BLU RAY 1 have 7 chapters full of cast interviews and thoughts of the movies plus a lot of scenes from the movies some of them presented in their deleted // extended form.1) LONG NIGHT AT CAMP BLOOD2) PART 23) PART 34) FINAL CHAPTER5) A NEW BEGINNING6) JASON LIVES7) F13 THE TV SERIESDVD 2 and BLU RAY 2 have the rest chapters from part 7 to part 12 plus a bonus chapter containing more interviews from the cast members....IN more detail8) THE NEW BLOOD9) JASON TAKES MANHATTAN 10) JASON GOES TO HELL 11) JASON X 12) FREDDY vs JASON 13) THE REMAKE 14) REFLECTIONS ON WATERAlso we have an intro narrative by corey feldman who also appears at the very end of the project closing in a great way that project.As i said this effort is great but not complete.Unfortunately the alice cooper's videos from part 6 are absent from one more official F13 DVD release and what is strange is that we also don't get the 12 F13 trailer park which they should have been included in this specific release (although they are separate available).Apart from that this is a must have for all die hard f13 fans as we all get to see for the first time all 9 actors (and their stundmen) who played JASON all over the years plus we get to see most of the cast from the movies including scenes of those who could not make it to appear alive in this DOC.good work guys and now it's time for a HELLRAISER and a CHILD'S PLAY complete doc after those we had of JASON, FREDDY and MYERS.