Friday the 13th Part 2

Did You Know?

• The character of Ginny was originally intended to return for Friday the 13th Part III, but Amy Steel turned down the role due to other projects.
• Harry Manfredini's score for the film was released on vinyl by Waxwork Records in summer 2015.

Plot

Two months after the murders at Camp Crystal Lake, sole survivor Alice Hardy is recovering in her apartment. When she opens her refrigerator to feed her cat, she finds the severed head of Pamela Voorhees and is killed with an ice pick by an unknown intruder. In 1984, Paul Holt runs a training school for camp counselors on the shore of Crystal Lake. His assistant Ginny Field, along with trainees Sandra, Jeff, Scott, Terry, Mark, Vickie, Ted, and others, attend.

Around a campfire, Paul tells the legend of Jason Voorhees, a boy who drowned in 1957, whose mother Pamela went on killing sprees until Alice killed her. Paul says Jason survived and lives in the woods, but Ted scares everyone with a spear as a prank. That night, Crazy Ralph watches Ginny and Paul before being garroted from behind a tree. The next day, Jeff and Sandra sneak to Camp Crystal Lake and find a dog carcass but are caught by Deputy Winslow.

Winslow later chases a man in a burlap sack mask into the woods and is killed with a hammer claw. Paul offers the group a night in town; six stay behind. At a bar, Ginny speculates that if Jason witnessed his mother's death, he might have lost moral distinctions. Paul dismisses the idea.

Meanwhile, the killer attacks the camp: Scott has his throat slit with a machete while caught in a rope trap, Terry finds his body and is killed, Mark has a machete slammed into his face and falls down stairs, Jeff and Sandra are impaled with a spear while having sex, and Vickie is stabbed with a kitchen knife.

Production

After the success of Friday the 13th in 1980, Paramount Pictures acquired worldwide distribution rights and began planning a sequel. Frank Mancuso, Sr. wanted the film to be an event where teenagers would flock to theaters. Initial ideas involved using the Friday the 13th title for a series of unrelated films released annually. Phil Scuderi, one of the owners of Esquire Theaters, insisted that the sequel feature Jason Voorhees, Pamela's son, even though his appearance in the original was only meant as a joke.

Steve Miner, associate producer on the first film, supported the idea and directed the sequel. Miner used many of the same crew members from the first film. Cunningham expressed mixed feelings about the franchise, stating that the only thing reaching teen audiences at the time involved high levels of gore and graphic violence. Adrienne King, who played Alice Hardy, was pursued by an obsessed fan after the original film and wished her role to be as small as possible; her agent reportedly asked for a higher salary the studio could not afford.

Release

Friday the 13th Part 2 opened theatrically in North America on May 1, 1981, on 1,350 screens. It was released internationally in Argentina on October 29, 1981, in Sweden on November 2, 1981, and in France on January 13, 1982. Spiros Angelikas designed the official one-sheet poster, originally featuring a silhouette of a figure holding an axe and an image of Jason attacking a woman in a boat. Paramount opted not to use this design because it spoiled the reveal of Jason as the villain.

An advanced teaser poster with only the title on a black background was distributed, followed by a revised version that removed the lake attack image. The film was released on VHS and Betamax by Paramount Home Video in 1981, with a reissue in 1994. The first DVD release came on October 19, 1999, in a standard widescreen edition with only the theatrical trailer. A deluxe edition on DVD and Blu-ray in 2009 included documentary featurettes.

In 2011, it appeared in a four-disc DVD collection with the first, third, and fourth films. It was included in Blu-ray sets: Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection (2013) and Friday the 13th: The Ultimate Collection (2011, re-released 2018). In October 2020, Shout! Factory released a 40th Anniversary box set on Blu-ray with a 4K scan from the original camera negative and long-lost uncut footage.

A 4K UHD Blu-ray was released in the United States on October 1, 2024, as part of Paramount Scares: Volume 2, and a standalone 4K UHD edition followed on February 3, 2026, for the film's 45th anniversary.

Reception

Friday the 13th Part 2 earned $6,429,784 during its opening weekend in North America, out-grossing the first film's weekend total. It ultimately grossed $21.7 million on a $1.25 million budget, though its 7,813,948 admissions accounted for only 53% of the original film's ticket sales. It was the 35th highest-grossing film of 1981, competing with horror releases such as Omen III: The Final Conflict, The Evil Dead, The Howling, My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday to Me, Graduation Day, Halloween II, and The Burning.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a half-star review, calling it a cross between the Mad Slasher and Dead teenager genres and stating that his review would suffice for any Friday the 13th film. John Corry of The New York Times noted the film would frighten viewers but questioned whether it would be fright, nausea, or distaste, adding that it existed for no other purpose than to shock. Helen Verongos of The Clarion-Ledger described it as a cheap dimestore thriller aimed at adolescents, designed to be predictable.

Terry Lawson of the Dayton Journal Herald called it a special effects freak show for an audience immune to violence, exploitative and gratuitous. Jacqi Tully of the Arizona Daily Star praised the special effects and called Jason an effectively disgusting sight, summarizing the film as gross, scary, bloody, and violent. Howard Pousner of The Atlanta Constitution deemed the return of Jason a ludicrous arrangement.