Friday the 13th - From Crystal Lake to Manhattan (DVD)

In time for Halloween Paramount Pictures Home Video has put together an ultimate scare treat with the Friday the 13th DVD Collection taking you from the beginning at Crystal Lake to Jason's rampage in Gotham City.

This collection gives you all 8 original Friday the 13th films before the franchise was taken over by New Line, which means you aren't getting Jason Goes to Hell or Jason X, but I doubt that will be bringing too many tears. Instead of tears you will be treated to all the gore and all the frights the classic films brought to audiences all throughout the 80s as they span from 1980 to '89 and are a true product of the 80s.

So what are the upsides? I think they are obvious as you will get two films on each disc giving you a collection of four discs of movies and a fifth disc with your collection of special features, features, which include some great looks at the Friday franchise.

Starting with an 8-part featurette, the highlight of the fifth disc, broken out into segments based on each film where you have the option to watch each one at a time or simply play all. Considering I had not seen all of these films up to this point it was nice to be able to watch the featurettes for each film I had seen and go back after watching the ones I hadn't seen. The featurettes go deep into the stories behind the franchise and also let you know that before Friday the 13th was what you know it to be today is all it was was a title in a Variety ad.

Next up is a "Secrets Behind the Gore" feature, which goes into a lot of the gruesome deaths Jason's victims experience and how they were done, and yes, the Kevin Bacon death is included.

Speaking of Kevin's death, you will get the extended version in the deleted scenes section, "Tales from the Cutting Room Floor." While several Friday fans will be upset that the extended deaths weren't thrown straight into the actual films this is satisfactory enough for the average viewer.

As for the movies themselves DVD enthusiasts will certainly be upset that none of these films have been remastered or enhanced. A few years ago when New Line released the Nightmare on Elm Street box set each film was digitally restored and presented with new transfers and 5.1 sound but here you are not getting anything more than you would on a VHS for the first five films with widescreen presentations and English Mono sound. On the sixth and eighth films you get English Ultra Stereo and finally on Part VII you get 5.1 sound.

However, you do get some commentary tracks on Parts III, VI, VII and VIII by select cast and crew, which should be a good listen on a couple of Saturday mornings.

Overall, I love this collection. Yeah, Part III, which was in 3D in the theaters isn't in 3D here, the transfers aren't digitally restored and the sound isn't DVD quality, but I can overlook all that just because these films are classics and just to have all eight of them at once is great!

One thing to consider is that for all eight films it is only going to run you about $55 at Amazon.com, which compared to the $87 price tag on the Elm Street collection you are certainly getting your money's worth and several nights of fun and frights.