Middle Age Punk and Them Damn Enchiladas

Not only is this the sole Friday the 13th of the year, it's also, canonically, Jason Voorhees birthday (1946, making him the same age, and a Boomer, as my father) as well as the 40th anniversary of Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, perhaps the most despised entry in the series, but a personal favorite of mine. Perhaps because it's so fucking sleazy and bonkers all at once, likely due to the director's long filmography of porno flicks.

The reason, likely, for the divisiveness is due in part that Jason isn't really Jason in this movie. Whoops. Sorry I spoiled the 40 year old, 5th entry in a massively popular movie series. He is, in fact, the father of a murdered summer camp child, showing up as an EMT in a blink-and-you'll miss him scene before launching his path of bloody, machete fueled murder. The real giveaway is that the triangles on the mask of this installment's Jason are blue, when they're traditionally red. Duh.

The real standout star of this flick is Demon, the van-living, wannabe rock star, with devil may care dietary decision making, those "damn" enchiladas being directly responsible for his untimely, and filthy death, in a roadside outhouse. He is the only non-Jason character who's name I remember from any of these movies, a series littered with unremarkable characters, meat for Jason's grinder, so to stand out effectively amongst that faceless corpse pile is a true credit to the actor, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., who also played, to great affect, Dee Jay, in the in equally criticized "Street Fighter" movie, Spider, one of the doomed punk rockers in the masterpiece "Return of the Living Dead," and, albeit the minor role of Mo Bitches in the sorely overlooked comic masterpiece, "Black Dynamite." I've only seen this dude in those four flicks and he nailed his performances every time, so as far as I'm concerned, he may be the greatest actor of all time.

So here's to Jason. Happy Birthday, yo! And to poor Demon. It's better to burn out than to fade away. Or, I guess, even better to not be stabbed to death by rusty sign posts in the shitter while suffering enchilada induced diarrhea.

Katatonia - "Nightmares as Extensions of the Waking State"They are Katatonia and they're here to make you sad and think about death and stuff, and they do, admirably, on this, appropriately, their 13th album.

Turnstile - "NEVER ENOUGH"THIS IS MY TURNSTILE REVIEW. ALL THE HYPE IS LEGIT. HARDCORE PUNK PURISTS CAN GET BENT.