Customer Reviews

Friday The 13th - The Series: The First Season

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Unfortunately the title made people believe that this had something to do with Jason, promiscuous teenagers, and Camp Crystal Lake. In truth, it had absolutely nothing to do with it.

This Canadian-made suspense drama's plot consisted of an antique dealer who made a deal with Satan to sell cursed artifacts. The artifacts all brought the bearer some great benefit, but at a terrible price. When his conscience finally caught up with him, however, the devil turned on him and captured his soul. His co-worker, along with his nephew and his cousin (played by Robey - one of the hottest redheads to ever grace our TV screens), set out to reclaim all the artifacts and return them to a secured and consecrated vaults where the artifacts can do no more harm.

Each episode deals with the team trying to reclaim a new artifact. There are some truly incredible moments of drama in this series showing how people can be seduced by evil, even though they have the purest hearts or intentions.

Seasons 1 & 2 are incredible, and the finale to season 2 blew me away more than any episode of any TV show. Season 3 saw the departure of one of the lead characters, which many see as the "Jump The Shark" moment, but the other two characters and the new actor still do an admirable job after loosing a key character.

The whole series is available elsewhere online - just do a search and you can find the whole collection, region-free, for under $50. It's well worth it for any sci-fi, suspense, or horror fans. (FYI - The show is not gory - it gets its impact from a very Hitchcock-like use of lighting and misdirection).

Buy it - you'll love it.

With all the shows released mere weeks after the original has aired, I couldn't figure out why a cult-fan favourite like F13 the series was still unavailable decades after the original airing of the show!! Add to that the stinkers that HAVE been release on DVD and it made the situation extra perplexing!

So I was thrilled to see that, after years of waiting, F13 the series will finally be released on DVD!! My best friend and I have been watching the show since it originally aired in 1987, when we were 10 years old! In fact, we were obsessed enough with the show to maintain a website about it 20 years later! :-D

The plot goes something like this: Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to get rich by selling cursed antiques. After breaking the pact with the devil, he is killed, and Micki and Ryan inherit the store. They don't know about its accursed past, or the cursed antiques in the downstairs vault. Consequently, they sell off most of the vault's contents before finally discovering the awful truth. Once the dark secret revealed by Jack Marshack, Lewis Vendredi's old friend, the trio sets out to collect all of the cursed antiques and put them back into the vault where they cannot harm anyone ever again.

The show follows the lives of Micki, Ryan, Jack, and (primarily in Season 3) Johnny as they attempt to hunt down cursed antiques. It is a weird and fantastic show that is fun, campy, and creepy all at the same time! The characters are great together, the plots are generally really imaginative, and it is easy to get sucked into the atmosphere! Happy viewing fellow fans! We've waited so long!

Unfortunately, people have been reviewing the show rather than the product. Obviously, someone who will buy this will do so because they liked the show. I won't waste time describing the series, but I will comment on the quality of the DVDs.

The video quality is abysmal. It looks as if someone taped the episodes from a (non-digital) TV broadcast onto VHS, and then transferred the VHS onto a DVD. I've seen a bootleg version of the series that was taped during a F13th marathon and it was no worse than these DVDs. The images are grainy and fuzzy and the colors are faded, imprecise, and far too dark. I have shows on DVD that were taped in the 1950s and the images are crisp and the colors vibrant. There's just no excuse for shoddy work like this.

Fans will still want this because there are no options, but CBS Studios and Paramount should hang their heads in shame at this blatant display of incompetence and disregard for quality.

The one star is for how piss-poor the transfer is on this DVD set. We paid 40 dollars for what is basically a bootleg copy! I mean, the episodes on YOUTUBE look better than this!

Paramount, you sold us a shoddy product. Please step up and show us that you care about what you put out, product-wise, to the public and fix this error. We paid you our hard earned money for DVD quality and got second generation VHS.

For the first official DVD release of FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES (UK title: FRIDAY'S CURSE), I was expecting a bit much, I guess. And seeing the lack of bonus features, though disheartening, I could understand. Others have already lambasted the picture quality of the set, so I won't go there. What I *WILL* say is that Paramount had the opportunity to "do right" by F13 fans and came up nearly empty.

Where do I begin? Does everyone who watched in the 1980s remember the "saga sell" that started each episode? "Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques..." It was edited out for airings on Sci-Fi Channel etc. Well, apparently they didn't have space for it here, either, because that 30-second opening montage is missing. Whatever happened to "complete" episodes?

I would have liked seeing the original "next week" promos, or the "Friday's Curse" alternate tites. What we have here is nothing short of insulting--a total of 40-odd seconds of 2 promos with the trademark F13 headstone erupting out of the ground, and a brief sales promotion. Who was really clamoring for these non-bonuses?

Sorry to be a stick in the mud, but I was hoping for more. Everyone, send a letter to Paramount and tell them how shafted you feel by every aspect of this set, and urge them to do better with Season Two (which probably won't even be complete because of Vanity's urging that the episode "Mesmer's Bauble" not be transmitted in the U.S., which will hamper music rights).

Sad, Paramount, very sad. Shame on you!

~G.

Like the show, but dvds are only average quality. Even so, they are better than any of the bootleg copies I've seen. Paramount figures that they can release a mediocre product, yet still make a bundle of cash because of fan demand. And they're correct. By the way, I tried to order this show once, and the site turned out to be a gang of scammers, an identity theft ring run out of Canada. They operate numerous interconnected sites that claim to sell complete dvd sets, but don't fall for it...your credit rating could be permanently damaged. Spread the word! Here are the ones I've been able to locate thus far, in alphabetical order: allmyfavoriteshows.com, americandvd.tv, cddvdforall.com, dvdavenue.tv, dvdcollections.tv, dvdcraze.tv, dvddiesel.com, dvddonkey.com, dvdigniter.com, dvdmediastar.com, e-mediastore.com, empiricalfilm.tv, internationalfilm.tv, mymediaoutlet.net, powerdvdstore.com, raredvds.tv, superbdvdsets.com, thebestdamntvshows.tv, thedvdplanet.org, themediadepot.tv, todvdornottodvd.com, toptvondvd.com, tvaddicts.tv, tvboxset.com, tvdvdland.com, tvdvdmania.com, tvdvdmania.tv, tvdvdplanet.com, tvdvdstore.net, tvdvdworld.tv, tvmilk.com, tvondisc.com, tvpast.com, tvshowmonster.com, ultimatedvdshop.com

They also have some seller aliases on Ebay. These are the ones I know of: greyhare68, *FLASHHASH*, shoot.john, huntyoudown

Don't let these crooks scam you like they did me (and so many others).

EDIT: two new scam sites. They are: dvdclassicsonline.com, kxzentertainment.com

I have been waiting patiently for many, many years for Paramount to bring this series to DVD. I pre-ordered early as soon as Amazon listed it, and waited patiently. What I got was sheer disappointment.
Shame on you, Paramount! You gave us a shoddy product with high end pricing. Don't get me wrong, the packaging is clever (I especially like all 6 DVDs in a single-disc size case) But the artwork (or lack thereof) is pathetic. My eight year old could do better with his crayons and a magazine. The Picture Quality is no better than my twenty year old VHS copies I recorded from C-Band Satellite (Which even has more special features, promos, than this DVD release!) There has been no remastering for the Video or sound. Turn the volume way up because the mono soundtrack leaves a lot to be wanted. (My old VHS are even STEREO sound . . . go figure?)
I am overall very disappointed with the product that Paramount has given us long time fans. Shame on you, Paramount! We would have been so much better off if someone like Anchor Bay got the rights. At least we could have expected a remastered picture and sound.
- - - UPDATE 10/16/2008 - - -
The SciFi Channel HD is airing the program in HD. the picture, although still 4:3 is ***excellent***. So, obviously somewhere there exists high quality versions of the show. Paramount just doesnt care enough about fans to give us the good stuff.

A beloved cult series from the minute it debuted, Friday the 13th: The Series was not based or tied into the long running series of slasher films featuring Jason Voorhees, but instead was a Hitchcockian-style supernatural series that featured some truly horrifying moments to behold. Cousins Micki (Louise Robey) and Ryan (John D. LeMay, who would actually go on to star in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday) come to inherit an antiques shop from their uncle (who had made a deal with the devil), only to learn that the shop's antiques are cursed. Eventually, they meet the knowledgable Jack Marshak (Chris Wiggins) who assists the cousins in tracking down the objects over the course of this debut season. What really helped Friday the 13th: The Series so great was the atmosphere that the show managed to conjure on a consistent basis. The stories may seem kind of cliche as the season opens, but there are some inventive twists and creepy turns that will definitely hold your interest. Guest stars on this first season included R.G. Armstrong (as the cousin's late uncle) and an 8-year old Sarah Polley (both in the pilot episode), as well as Ray Walston, Carrie Snodgress, David Proval, and Postal's Zack Ward; and also featured horror great David Cronenberg helming the excellent episode "Faith Healer" to boot. All in all, it's nice to finally have Friday the 13th: The Series on DVD, although it would have been nice if Paramount would have included some sort of extras on the set. Still, Friday the 13th: The Series is finally here, and it is still definitely worth adding to your collection.

Oh, I'm so happy! I *loved* this show! I can't wait to see it again. As someone else pointed out, it gets so frustrating when so much dreck gets released on DVD, but the good stuff (like this) gets passed over.

I've preordered my copy; now I just have to wait (and patiently, no less)...

Thanks Paramount!

I'm very glad to be able to finally purchase this series on DVD! I have waited years and so many times I came close to purchasing bootleg versions - glad I did not because now I have heard of identity theft problems involving those bootleg sellers. Thanks very much to the studio for finally releasing it, longtime fans such as myself are grateful without a doubt.

I recently completed viewing the entire 1st season set. First, the pro's. The episodes are on a menu, that's great because I've heard some series like the new Sarah Connor series are not. All of the disks played without any issues - also, something that is not universally guaranteed, since I've had tvdvd disks that were bad (wouldn't play or some episodes had glitches). No problems at all with the playback. I like the thin-style case (regular dvd size case) which cleverly holds six disks - would love to see that case become the new standard for box sets. Now, the cons. This isn't the best dvd transfer I've seen. Picture quality is not that great, tends to be dark and lean towards the red/orange end of the spectrum. I'm guessing a certain amount of that is intentional in the original. Also, take into account that we are spoiled in the modern hi-def age... this level of picture quality was once considered "acceptable". Also it may be that this series wasn't highly regarded in it's day and probably wasn't stored under ideal conditions - who would think that 20 years later there would still be diehard fans waiting to watch it on hi-def 21st century tv sets?

All in all, I had a great time watching these stories again, some for the first time (I didn't get the chance to see all the original broadcasts). The quibbles about picture quality and even audio at times, pale in comparison to the delight I experienced in getting to enjoy the stories of occult mayhem and the quest to recover the cursed objects. I hope the studio will follow up with a quick release of the remaining seasons on dvd so I can complete the collection. But in doing so, I hope there will be time and money to devote to improving the quality as much as humanly possible. I think that the enthusiasm for season one will show them that there is indeed a tangible market for this series.