Years ago when I was still in school there was a television series called "Friday the 13th, The Series". I was all for horror serials but the name made me a little bit mad... I was already a convert to horror and well versed in the Friday the 13th horror movies (Part VI Jason Lives came out a year earlier, but we hadn't yet seen New Blood) so this seemed just a little bit too much like a name rip-off for my taste. I don't remember if I watched it when it was first-run or years later on the Sci-Fi Channel, but I do know that at some point I sat down and watched my first episode. Man, I thought it was awesome!

The premise of the series involves two cousins, Ryan (played by John D. Le May) and Micki (played by Louise Robey who inexplicably decided to go by simply "Robey"... like Cher or something... anyway) who meet each other for the first time when they visit an antique store that they jointly inherited from an uncle that neither of them had ever met. Not much for family reunions it seems.

After some quick set-up we learn that the antique store is filled with items cursed by the devil via a pact that Louis made with the evil one. Everyone who buys one of the cursed items ends up using it for dark and dastardly purposes and causes general death, destruction and mayhem. It appears that Louis started to feel guilty and backed out of the bargain of selling these items to unsuspecting patrons because part of the pact was for Louis' immortality and he is, well, dead. The family duo meet up with another guy named Jack Marshak (Chris Wiggins) that is some kind of witchy-poo occultist guy and the three of them set out to retrieve all of the cursed items and save humanity from the evil artifacts. Each new episode is the hunt for and retrieval of a new item from the store... which can be easier said than done as those antiques, while evil and harbingers of harm, also bestrow upon the owners some kind of longed-for benefit; The owners don't want to part with them.

So... the episodes from this series, which ran for three years, have recently become available on DVD and I received a small box of the Season 1 DVDs to give away in a contest for BHM. Plus... I got a copy for myself. I excitedly ripped open the box remembering those hours of fun years ago when I watched this series and started thinking... why not write some general thoughts about the episodes as I watch them?

Now, I've made a deal with myself... I can't watch a new episode until I've blogged about the previous one. This might mean that it takes me forever to watch all 26 episodes of Season one or it may mean that I'm going to be an extremely active blogger for the next couple of weeks. I'm also going to include links to the series on DVD on Amazon (via The BHM store "The Horror Shop") so that, if you want, you can get your own and comment on the blog entries as we go. Or, if there are a lot of folks that want to talk about them I'll start a group on The Ossuary for the series... or maybe you just want to read and get the lowdown... or maybe you just won't read any of it. It's gonna be fun for me anyway, so all is well.

Since I've already watched the first episode I'm going to launch right into it in a following blog post because I want to hurry up and watch the next one. A deal's a deal. So... off to the next post!

Oh, and if I did this right then clicking on the graphic below will bring you to the Amazon page for the first season... If the pic doesn't work then try the link below. If that doesn't work then I'm gonna have to figure it out...

Friday The 13th - The Series: The First Season