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Picture this: You’re in a meeting room at your tech company, and two people are having what looks like the same conversation about the same design problem. One is talking about whether the team has the right skills to tackle it. The other is diving deep into whether the solution actually solves the user’s problem. Same room, same problem, completely different lenses.

This is the beautiful, sometimes messy reality of having both a Design Manager and a Lead Designer on the same team. And if you’re wondering how to make this work without creating confusion, overlap, or the dreaded “too many cooks” scenario, you’re asking the right question.

The traditional answer has been to draw clean lines on an org chart. The Design Manager handles people, the Lead Designer handles craft. Problem solved, right? Except clean org charts are fantasy. In reality, both roles care deeply about team health, design quality, and shipping great work. 

The magic happens when you embrace the overlap instead of fighting it—when you start thinking of your design org as a design organism.

The Anatomy of a Healthy Design Team

Here’s what I’ve learned from years of being on both sides of this equation: think of your design team as a living organism. The Design Manager tends to the mind (the psychological safety, the career growth, the team dynamics). The Lead Designer tends to the body (the craft skills, the design standards, the hands-on work that ships to users).

But just like mind and body aren’t completely separate systems, so, too, do these roles overlap in important ways. You can’t have a healthy person without both working in harmony. The trick is knowing where those overlaps are and how to navigate them gracefully.

When we look at how healthy teams actually function, three critical systems emerge. Each requires both roles to work together, but with one taking primary responsibility for keeping that system strong.

The Nervous System: People & Psychology

Primary caretaker: Design Manager
Supporting role: Lead Designer

The nervous system is all about signals, feedback, and psychological safety. When this system is healthy, information flows freely, people feel safe to take risks, and the team can adapt quickly to new challenges.

The Design Manager is the primary caretaker here. They’re monitoring the team’s psychological pulse, ensuring feedback loops are healthy, and creating the conditions for people to grow. They’re hosting career conversations, managing workload, and making sure no one burns out.

But the Lead Designer plays a crucial supporting role. They’re providing sensory input about craft development needs, spotting when someone’s design skills are stagnating, and helping identify growth opportunities that the Design Manager might miss.

Design Manager tends to:

• Career conversations and growth planning
• Team psychological safety and dynamics
• Workload management and resource allocation
• Performance reviews and feedback systems
• Creating learning opportunities

Lead Designer supports by:

• Providing craft-specific feedback on team member development
• Identifying design skill gaps and growth opportunities
• Offering design mentorship and guidance
• Signaling when team members are ready for more complex challenges

The Muscular System: Craft & Execution

Primary caretaker: Lead Designer
Supporting role: Design Manager

The muscular system is about strength, coordination, and skill development. When this system is healthy, the team can execute complex design work with precision, maintain consistent quality, and adapt their craft to new challenges.

The Lead Designer is the primary caretaker here. They’re setting design standards, providing craft coaching, and ensuring that shipping work meets the quality bar. They’re the ones who can tell you if a design decision is sound or if we’re solving the right problem.

But the Design Manager plays a crucial supporting role. They’re ensuring the team has the resources and support to do their best craft work, like proper nutrition and recovery time for an athlete.

Lead Designer tends to:

• Definition of design standards and system usage
• Feedback on what design work meets the standard
• Experience direction for the product
• Design decisions and product-wide alignment
• Innovation and craft advancement

Design Manager supports by:

• Ensuring design standards are understood and adopted across the team
• Confirming experience direction is being followed
• Supporting practices and systems that scale without bottlenecking
• Facilitating design alignment across teams
• Providing resources and removing obstacles to great craft work

The Circulatory System: Strategy & Flow

Shared caretakers: Both Design Manager and Lead Designer

The circulatory system is about how information, decisions, and energy flow through the team. When this system is healthy, strategic direction is clear, priorities are aligned, and the team can respond quickly to new opportunities or challenges.

This is where true partnership happens. Both roles are responsible for keeping the circulation strong, but they’re bringing different perspectives to the table.

Lead Designer contributes:

• User needs are met by the product
• Overall product quality and experience
• Strategic design initiatives
• Research-based user needs for each initiative

Design Manager contributes:

• Communication to team and stakeholders
• Stakeholder management and alignment
• Cross-functional team accountability
• Strategic business initiatives

Both collaborate on:

• Co-creation of strategy with leadership
• Team goals and prioritization approach
• Organizational structure decisions
• Success measures and frameworks

Keeping the Organism Healthy

The key to making this partnership sing is understanding that all three systems need to work together. A team with great craft skills but poor psychological safety will burn out. A team with great culture but weak craft execution will ship mediocre work. A team with both but poor strategic circulation will work hard on the wrong things.

Be Explicit About Which System You’re Tending

When you’re in a meeting about a design problem, it helps to acknowledge which system you’re primarily focused on. “I’m thinking about this from a team capacity perspective” (nervous system) or “I’m looking at this through the lens of user needs” (muscular system) gives everyone context for your input.

This isn’t about staying in your lane. It’s about being transparent as to which lens you’re using, so the other person knows how to best add their perspective.

Create Healthy Feedback Loops

The most successful partnerships I’ve seen establish clear feedback loops between the systems:

Nervous system signals to muscular system: “The team is struggling with confidence in their design skills” → Lead Designer provides more craft coaching and clearer standards.

Muscular system signals to nervous system: “The team’s craft skills are advancing faster than their project complexity” → Design Manager finds more challenging growth opportunities.

Both systems signal to circulatory system: “We’re seeing patterns in team health and craft development that suggest we need to adjust our strategic priorities.”

Handle Handoffs Gracefully

The most critical moments in this partnership are when something moves from one system to another. This might be when a design standard (muscular system) needs to be rolled out across the team (nervous system), or when a strategic initiative (circulatory system) needs specific craft execution (muscular system).

Make these transitions explicit. “I’ve defined the new component standards. Can you help me think through how to get the team up to speed?” or “We’ve agreed on this strategic direction. I’m going to focus on the specific user experience approach from here.”

Stay Curious, Not Territorial

The Design Manager who never thinks about craft, or the Lead Designer who never considers team dynamics, is like a doctor who only looks at one body system. Great design leadership requires both people to care about the whole organism, even when they’re not the primary caretaker.

This means asking questions rather than making assumptions. “What do you think about the team’s craft development in this area?” or “How do you see this impacting team morale and workload?” keeps both perspectives active in every decision.

When the Organism Gets Sick

Even with clear roles, this partnership can go sideways. Here are the most common failure modes I’ve seen:

System Isolation

The Design Manager focuses only on the nervous system and ignores craft development. The Lead Designer focuses only on the muscular system and ignores team dynamics. Both people retreat to their comfort zones and stop collaborating.

The symptoms: Team members get mixed messages, work quality suffers, morale drops.

The treatment: Reconnect around shared outcomes. What are you both trying to achieve? Usually it’s great design work that ships on time from a healthy team. Figure out how both systems serve that goal.

Poor Circulation

Strategic direction is unclear, priorities keep shifting, and neither role is taking responsibility for keeping information flowing.

The symptoms: Team members are confused about priorities, work gets duplicated or dropped, deadlines are missed.

The treatment: Explicitly assign responsibility for circulation. Who’s communicating what to whom? How often? What’s the feedback loop?

Autoimmune Response

One person feels threatened by the other’s expertise. The Design Manager thinks the Lead Designer is undermining their authority. The Lead Designer thinks the Design Manager doesn’t understand craft.

The symptoms: Defensive behavior, territorial disputes, team members caught in the middle.

The treatment: Remember that you’re both caretakers of the same organism. When one system fails, the whole team suffers. When both systems are healthy, the team thrives.

The Payoff

Yes, this model requires more communication. Yes, it requires both people to be secure enough to share responsibility for team health. But the payoff is worth it: better decisions, stronger teams, and design work that’s both excellent and sustainable.

When both roles are healthy and working well together, you get the best of both worlds: deep craft expertise and strong people leadership. When one person is out sick, on vacation, or overwhelmed, the other can help maintain the team’s health. When a decision requires both the people perspective and the craft perspective, you’ve got both right there in the room.

Most importantly, the framework scales. As your team grows, you can apply the same system thinking to new challenges. Need to launch a design system? Lead Designer tends to the muscular system (standards and implementation), Design Manager tends to the nervous system (team adoption and change management), and both tend to circulation (communication and stakeholder alignment).

The Bottom Line

The relationship between a Design Manager and Lead Designer isn’t about dividing territories. It’s about multiplying impact. When both roles understand they’re tending to different aspects of the same healthy organism, magic happens.

The mind and body work together. The team gets both the strategic thinking and the craft excellence they need. And most importantly, the work that ships to users benefits from both perspectives.

So the next time you’re in that meeting room, wondering why two people are talking about the same problem from different angles, remember: you’re watching shared leadership in action. And if it’s working well, both the mind and body of your design team are getting stronger.

As a solution builder for too many times, I can’t recall how many times I’ve seen promising ideas go from being heroes in a few weeks to being useless within months.

Financial goods, which is the area of my specialization, are no exception. It’s tempting to put as many features at the ceiling as possible and expect something sticks because people’s true, hard-earned money is on the line, user expectations are high, and crowded market. However, this strategy is a formula for disaster. Why? How’s why:

The perils of feature-first growth

It’s easy to get swept up in the enthusiasm of developing innovative features when you start developing a financial product from scratch or are migrating existing client journeys from papers or phone channels to online bank or mobile applications. You might be thinking,” If I can only put one more thing that solves this particular person problem, they’ll appreciate me”! But what happens if you eventually encounter a roadblock as a result of your security team’s negligence? don’t like it, right? When a battle-tested film isn’t as well-known as you anticipated, or when it fails due to unforeseen difficulty?

The concept of Minimum Viable Product ( MVP ) comes into play in this context. Even if Jason Fried doesn’t usually refer to this concept, his book Getting Real and his audio Redo frequently discuss it. An MVP is a product that offers only enough significance to your users to keep them interested without becoming too hard or frustrating to use. Although the idea seems simple, it requires a razor-sharp eye, a ruthless edge, and the courage to stand up for your position because it is easy to fall for” the Columbo Effect” when there is always” just one more thing …” to add.

The issue with most fund apps is that they frequently turn out to be reflections of the company’s internal politics rather than an encounter created specifically for the customer. This implies that the priority should be given to delivering as many features and functionalities as possible in order to satisfy the requirements and needs of competing internal departments as opposed to crafting a compelling value statement that is focused on what people in the real world actually want. These products may therefore quickly become a muddled mess of confusing, related, and finally unlovable client experiences—a feature salad, you might say.

The significance of the foundation

What’s a better course of action then? How may we create products that are user-friendly, firm, and, most importantly, stick?

The concept of “bedrock” comes into play in this context. Rock is the main feature of your solution that really matters to customers. It’s the fundamental building block that creates benefit and maintains relevance over time.

The rock must be in and around the standard servicing journeys in the retail banking industry, which is where I work. People only look at their existing account once every blue sky, but they do so daily. They purchase a credit card every year or two, but they at least once a month assess their stability and pay their bills.

The key is in identifying the main tasks that individuals want to complete and therefore relentlessly striving to make them simple, reliable, and trustworthy.

But how do you reach the foundation? By focusing on the” MVP” strategy, giving ease precedence, and working incrementally toward a clear value proposition. This means avoiding unnecessary functions and putting your customers first, and adding real value.

It also requires some nerve, as your coworkers might not always agree on your eyesight at first. And dubiously, occasionally it can even suggest making it clear to customers that you won’t be coming to their house and making their breakfast. Sometimes you need to use “opinionated user interface design” ( i .e., clumsy workaround for edge cases ) to test a concept or to give yourself some more time to work on something else.

Functional methods for creating reliable financial goods

What are the main learnings I’ve made from my own research and practice, then?

1. What trouble are you trying to solve first and foremost with a distinct “why”? Whom? Before beginning any construction, make sure your vision is completely clear. Make certain it also aligns with the goals of your business.
2. Avoid putting too many features on the list at after; instead, focus on getting that right first. Choose one that actually adds benefit, and work from that.
3. When it comes to financial items, clarity is often more important than difficulty. Eliminate unwanted details and concentrate solely on what matters most.
4. Accept constant iteration: Bedrock is not a fixed destination; it is a fluid process. Continuously collect customer comments, make product improvements, and advance in that direction.
5. Stop, glance, and talk: You must test your product frequently in the field rather than just as part of the shipping process. Use it for yourself. Move the A/B checks. User opinions on Gear. Talk to those who use it, and change things up correctly.

The “bedrock dilemma”

This is an intriguing conundrum: sacrificing some of the potential for short-term growth in favor of long-term stability is at play. But the reward is worthwhile because products built with a focus on bedrock will outlive and surpass their rivals over time and provide users with long-term value.

How do you begin your quest for rock, then? Take it slowly. Start by identifying the underlying factors that your customers actually care about. Focus on developing and improving a second, potent have that delivers real value. And most importantly, make an obsessive effort because, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, Alan Kay, or Peter Drucker ( whew! The best way to foretell the future is to make it, he said.

This article contains spoilers for Monster: The Ed Gein Story. Ryan Murphy and co.’s latest Monster has finally dropped on Netflix, and post-release, there’s been a bit of a commotion. Some of that commotion is expected: blurring the lines between fact and fiction is not uncommon in dramatic retellings of true crimes, and The Ed […]

The post Monster: The Ed Gein Story Ends by Reminding Us of a Much Better Show appeared first on Den of Geek.

Jason movies aren’t supposed to be good. Heck, they weren’t even supposed to be about Jason. Back in the late 1970s, producer Sean S. Cunningham saw the financial success of Halloween and an opportunity to cash in himself. So he took out an ad for a movie called Friday the 13th, riffing on the holiday theme of the John Carpenter film.

Only later did he come up with the idea of a whodunnit, in which a killer begins menacing counselors trying to reopen a camp years after a youth named Jason Voorhees drowned there. As everyone now knows, that killer was Jason’s mother Pamela Voorhees, who wanted to prevent Camp Crystal Lake from over operating again. The shock ending of that film, in which Jason emerges from the water to grab a final girl, was only tacked on because Cunningham wanted to copy the shock ending of Carrie.

Creativity wasn’t the goal. Money was. And, to that end, Cunningham and Paramount Pictures succeeded, as Friday the 13th was a massive hit, as were its first few sequels. And yet, somehow, creativity happened nonetheless. In the second movie, Jason took the spotlight, supplanting his mother. And midway through the third movie, Jason got his signature mask, fully becoming a horror icon.

As you might expect, that digressive path resulted in films of varying quality. Not all of the Friday the 13th movies are great, but they all offer something worth watching—if only the grisly death of some camp counselor of ill-repute.

12. Friday the 13th (2009)

Who, exactly, is the 2009 remake Friday the 13th for? One would think that a reboot of the series would try to clarify the franchise’s famously ambling and imprecise timeline to make things easier for new viewers. Instead, the opening 30 minutes of Friday the 13th (2009) try to compress the first three films into one prologue, complete with killer Pamela (portrayed here by Nana Visitor of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fame) and baghead Jason. The opening only confuses newcomers and feeds long-time fans insubstantial ‘member berries, pleasing no one–which accurately sums up the movie.

Which isn’t to say that the reboot doesn’t have its charms. Derek Mears is fantastic as a more feral Jason, trading dynamic energy for the usual slow-moving beast of previous films. The cast does a great job with its young adult jerks, and the movie pulls off a surprising final girl fake out. Still, Friday the 13th 2009 never shakes the feeling of being a fan film instead of a proper entry in the series.

11. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

For more than three and a half decades, people have been making fun of this movie for the fact that most of it takes place on a boat and the “New York” sections are actually Vancouver. And you know what? Jason Takes Manhattan deserves all that ridicule! Why give the eighth Friday the 13th entry that name if you’re never going to actually be in Manhattan (outside of some second unit stuff shot for the opening credits)?

Honestly, we could forgive a boat and we could forgive Canada if anything interesting happened in the movie. But, outside of a couple of cool kills, nothing does. Instead, Jason Takes Manhattan spends way too much time once again mythologizing the death of young Jason (which may or may not have happened, depending on the status of Fridays II, III, and IV). In the end, Jason Takes Manhattan succeeds at nothing: not drama, not horror, and not even taking Manhattan.

10. Friday the 13th Part III (1983)

Cunningham and Paramount knew that after the first two entries, Friday the 13th ran the risk of becoming rote and predictable. They knew they had to shake things up. However, they made perhaps the worst possible decision for the gimmick that would differentiate the series. They decided that Part III would be in 3-D.

Outside of that, everything in Part III covers familiar ground, from the group of counselors reopening the camp to the hicks who become early cannon fodder to a “shocker” ending, in which Pamela emerges from the lake to grab the final girl. And unless you’re using the flimsy blue and red 3D glasses that get distributed with modern releases, or unless you saw a special screening at a repertory theater, you’re watching all of this in 2-D, making the pointy bits annoying instead of compelling. At least Part III finally gives Jason his hockey mask. Outside of that, everything in this movie is a dud.

9. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

Like Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell doesn’t live up to a single part of its title. No, Jason doesn’t spend time in Hell in this movie. Instead, he’s skulking around a New Jersey town. No, it’s not the final Friday movie, as this list shows. Most shockingly of all, Jason isn’t even in Jason Goes to Hell, as he gets blown up by government agents in the cold open.

Instead, Jason Goes to Hell directly rips from The Hidden to introduce a bunch of nonsense lore about Jason being a demonic worm that can jump into other bodies. So instead of seeing Kane Hodder or any other big dude play Jason, we get to see Jason as character actors Richard Grant or Stephen Culp, hardly imposing figures. That said, Jason Goes to Hell commits so much to its absurd premise that it does provide some wacky fun for those who don’t get hung up on Friday the 13th lore.

8. Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Freddy is the winner of Freddy vs. Jason. Yes, we all know that New Line Cinema wanted to keep the actual outcome of their monster mash ambiguous, letting Jason behead the Nightmare on Elm Street monster, but having Freddy give the camera a knowing wink at the end. But there’s no question that Freddy vs. Jason is an okay Freddy movie and a terrible Jason movie.

Sure, Jason gets in some cool kills and there is a part where he rips off Freddy’s arms and attacks him with them. But outside of that, director Ronny Yu’s hyper fight style and reliance on digital effects suit Freddy much better than they do Jason and, to his credit, Robert Englund has a blast reprising his signature role. All in all, Freddy vs. Jason manages to be a functional monster mash with a pretty coherent story. But if you’re here for Jason, you’ll be pretty disappointed.

7. Friday the 13th (1980)

As discussed earlier, the first Friday the 13th is little more than a rip off of Halloween with a little bit of Carrie. It doesn’t even get to call itself the best camp slasher of the era, as The Burning comes out next year. Instead, it’s a pretty by-the-numbers whodunnit with none of the flash or style of the Italian Giallo that precede it.

And yet, Friday the 13th does have two marks in its favor. First, the movie has an absolute ringer in Betsy Palmer as Pamela Voorhees. She fully chews the scenery in her final scenes, convincingly pulling a reverse Norman Bates routine and channeling her son. Second, Friday the 13th has effects by Tom Savini, who gives the film a level of gore quality that, frankly, it doesn’t deserve. If the movie never went onto spawn any sequels, it would be remembered as a curio. Instead, it has to fall midway on a ranking in the franchise it started.

6. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985)

Paramount tried to keep its word. The studio really did kill Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part IV. And when box office receipts made it clear that they couldn’t just ignore this profitable franchise, Paramount tried to go back to the drawing board. A New Beginning is another whodunnit with a new person doing the killing. Is it Jason, back from the dead? Is it Tommy Jarvis, the troubled boy who was sent to a juvenile home after killing the killer in the previous entry?

No, it’s Roy, an ambulance driver we see once at the start of the movie, who goes on a killing spree after his annoying son is murdered by a teen with an anger problem. That massive flub aside–and it is a big one–A New Beginning is actually kinda fun. And it has an all-timer of a kill sequence, thanks to the ever-reliable Miguel Nuñez Jr., an outhouse, and some burritos.

5. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

The biggest knock against Freddy vs. Jason is that it learned nothing from the far superior seventh entry in the franchise, in which Freddy fights Carrie White. Okay, it’s not really Carrie White, but teen Tina (Lar Park Lincoln) does have the same psychokinetic powers and parent issues as the famous character from the Stephen King novel and Brian DePalma film. On the orders of her unscrupulous therapist, Tina goes to Camp Crystal Lake for isolated study, and inadvertently brings Jason back from his watery grave.

From there on, The New Blood gives Jason plenty of room to do what he does best. As so often happens with the top entries on this list, censors did cut down a lot of the movie, which diminishes the shock of its best kill scenes. But even if we don’t get all the bloody gory, there’s something triumphant in watching Jason shove a weed eater into the therapist’s face.

4. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

It wouldn’t be accurate to say that this list would not exist without Friday the 13th Part 2. But that statement isn’t totally inaccurate either. Part 2 took everything good about its predecessor and did it better, actually giving us Jason in the flesh and an excellent final girl in Ginny (Amy Steel).

Moreover, Part 2 is the first example of what the franchise actually becomes. A bunch of teens come to the camp, and Jason (wearing a burlap bag instead of the hockey mask that would be his trademark) kills them in inventive, gory ways. Between the pure energy of the kills and an actually intelligent final girl in Ginny, Part II makes a strong case for Friday the 13th as a reputable series.

3. Jason X (2001)

If Friday the 13th Part 2 says that Jason deserves respect, then Jason X suggests maybe he doesn’t. And that’s a good thing. Jason X belongs the the long and strange line of horror movies that send their killers to space, and while that model has mixed results when it comes to the Leprechaun or Pinhead, it works perfectly with Jason.

Well, mostly perfectly. Jason X wants so very badly to be a Kevin Williamson or Joss Whedon movie, and its characters–and there are so many characters–can’t say anything without dripping it in snark. Yet, these annoyances aside, it’s hard not to cheer when uber-Jason takes the stage or when he’s killing people with space-age weapons and chemicals.

2. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

Part VI: Jason Lives was Scream before Scream. Okay, okay, that’s going too far. But Part VI has a metatextual quality that both celebrates the ridiculousness of the franchise and locates it firmly within horror history. Jason Lives completes the Tommy Jarvis trilogy with yet another actor playing the part (Thom Matthews here), but it makes him into a proper Jason hunter and gives him a reason to accidentally resurrect the killer.

Better yet, the movie manages to balance clever quips with good kills. There’s, of course, the James Bond opening in which Jason throws a machete at the screen. But there’s also the pitch black joke when one kid, realizing that Jason is coming to get him, turns to another and asks, “So, what did you want to be when you grew up?” A genuinely smart Friday the 13th movie? Believe it or not, yes!

1. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

It took four movies for Friday the 13th to get it right. But, man, did it get it really right! The Final Chapter is the platonic ideal of a slasher movie. It’s lean, it has interesting victims, and it has some incredible and memorable kills. It even has a great kid performance from Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis at his youngest and awesome Savini effects.

The plot of The Final Chapter isn’t anything special. Again, we have teens coming to party at the campground, at the same time that single mom Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman) arrives with her kids Trish (Kimberly Beck) and Tommy. But that sparse plot leaves room for some great kills and for the teens to distinguish themselves. I mean, when you have Crispin Glover as a slasher movie teen, you don’t need any plot. Sparse and simple, The Final Chapter is what every Friday the 13th movie should be.

The post Friday the 13th Movies Ranked appeared first on Den of Geek.

Consstantine didn’t specifically ignite the box office when it first debuted in 2005, but it did pique some curiosity in a movie for fans of the favorite DC Comics detective’s occult adventures, which included one of the precious DC Comics detective’s adventures. Since then, Constantine has joined other DC superheroes]… ]

The first article on Den of Geek: Keanu Reeves Offers an Intriguing Constantine 2 Update was first published.

Jason videos aren&#8217, t supposed to be good. They weren’t actually supposed to be about Jason, hmm. Back in the late 1970s, maker Sean S. Cunningham saw the economic achievements of Halloween and an opportunity to cash in himself. In response, he ran an advertisement for a film called Friday the 13th that was a riff on the John Carpenter movie’s holiday design.

Only later did he come up with the idea of a whodunnit, in which a criminal begins menacing lawyers trying to restart a camp times after a junior named Jason Voorhees drowned it. As everyone is well aware, Jason&#8217, Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s family, wanted to stop Camp Crystal Lake from reopening. The shock end of that picture, in which Jason emerges from the water to get a last lady, was only tacked on because Cunningham wanted to copy the shock ending of Carrie.

Creativity wasn’t the end aim, either. Cash was. And to accomplish that, Cunningham and Paramount Pictures succeeded, as Friday the 13th was a huge hit, as were its second some sequels. And still, apparently, imagination happened yet. In the next film, Jason stepped up and replaced his mother. And midway through the next movie, Jason got his name face, entirely becoming a dread image.

As you might have guessed, those movies had varying levels of quality as a result of this prolix course. Not all of the Friday the 13th shows are wonderful, but they all offer something for watching—if just the terrible death of some camp counsellor of ill-repute.

12. Friday the 13th ( 2009 )

Who specifically is the target of the 2009 version of Friday the 13th? One would assume that a reboot of the collection may try to clarify the franchise&#8217, s reportedly wandering and vague timeline to make things easier for fresh viewers. Instead, Friday the 13th ( 2009 )’s first 30 minutes attempt to condense the first three movies into a single prologue, complete with killer Pamela ( portrayed by Nana Visitor of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ) and baghead Jason. The opening only confuses newcomers and feeds long-time fans insubstantial &#8216, member berries, pleasing no one&#8211, which accurately sums up the movie.

Which is not to say that the reboot lacks charm, though. Derek Mears is fantastic as a more feral Jason, trading dynamic energy for the usual slow-moving beast of previous films. The film pulls off a surprising final girl fake out and does a great job with its young adult jerks. Still, Friday the 13th 2009 never shakes the feeling of being a fan film instead of a proper entry in the series.

11. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan ( 1989 )

People have been making fun of this film for more than three and a half decades because the majority of it is shot on a boat and the majority of the New York and Vancouver sections. And you know what? Jason Takes Manhattan deserves all the sneering praise! Why give the eighth Friday the 13th entry that name if you &#8217, re never going to actually be in Manhattan (outside of some second unit stuff shot for the opening credits )?

Sincerely, if anything interesting happened in the movie, we could forgive a boat and we could forgive Canada. But, outside of a couple of cool kills, nothing does. Jason Takes Manhattan instead spends way too much time mythologizing the tragic passing of a young Jason ( which, depending on the status of Fridays II, III, and IV ), again. In the end, Jason Takes Manhattan succeeds at nothing: not drama, not horror, and not even taking Manhattan.

10. Friday the 13th Part III ( 1983 )

After the first two entries, Friday the 13th ran the risk of becoming predictable and rote. Cunningham and Paramount were aware of this. They knew they had to shake things up. However, they made the most imprecise choice possible regarding the gimmick, which would set the series apart. They decided that Part III would be in 3-D.

Everything in Part III is well-known, from the group of counselors reopening the camp to the hicks who turn into early cannon fodder to the shocking ending in which Pamela emerges from the lake to grab the final girl. And unless you &#8217, re using the flimsy blue and red 3D glasses that get distributed with modern releases, or unless you saw a special screening at a repertory theater, you &#8217, re watching all of this in 2-D, making the pointy bits annoying instead of compelling. Jason receives his hockey mask at the end of Part III. Outside of that, everything in this movie is a dud.

9. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday ( 1993 )

Like Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell falls short of the title’s intended use. No, Jason does n&#8217, t spend time in Hell in this movie. He&#8217 is instead scurrying through a small town in New Jersey. No, it &#8217, s not the final Friday movie, as this list shows. The most shocking of all is Jason, who isn’t even mentioned in Jason Goes to Hell when he is blown up by government agents in the cold air.

Instead, Jason Goes to Hell directly rips from The Hidden to introduce a bunch of nonsense lore about Jason being a demonic worm that can jump into other bodies. So Jason is cast as Richard Grant or Stephen Culp, not as imposing as Kane Hodder or any other big-boy actor, which is not what we get. That said, Jason Goes to Hell commits so much to its absurd premise that it does provide some wacky fun for those who don&#8217, t get hung up on Friday the 13th lore.

8. Freddy vs. Jason ( 2003 )

Freddy wins the Freddy vs. Jason game. Yes, we all know that New Line Cinema wanted to keep the actual outcome of their monster mash ambiguous, letting Jason behead the Nightmare on Elm Street monster, but having Freddy give the camera a knowing wink at the end. However, it is unquestionable that Freddy vs. Jason is both a good and bad Jason movie.

Sure, Jason gets in some cool kills and there is a part where he rips off Freddy &#8217, s arms and attacks him with them. However, Ronny Yu&#8217, the director, does much better with Freddy than Jason, and Robert Englund is fantastic reprising his signature role. All in all, Freddy vs. Jason manages to be a functional monster mash with a pretty coherent story. However, you’ll be disappointed if you’re here for Jason.

7. The 13th of September ( 1980 )

As discussed earlier, the first Friday the 13th is little more than a rip off of Halloween with a little bit of Carrie. Because The Burning is coming out next year, it doesn’t even get to call itself the best camp slasher of the era. Instead, it &#8217, s a pretty by-the-numbers whodunnit with none of the flash or style of the Italian Giallo that precede it.

However, Friday the 13th receives two favorable marks. First, the movie has an absolute ringer in Betsy Palmer as Pamela Voorhees. In her final scenes, she convincingly pulls a reverse Norman Bates routine and channels her son, fully chewing on the scenery. Second, Friday the 13th has effects by Tom Savini, who gives the film a level of gore quality that, frankly, it does n&#8217, t deserve. It would be remembered as a curio if the film didn’t produce any sequels. Instead, it has to fall midway on a ranking in the franchise it started.

6. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning ( 1985 )

Paramount made an effort to keep its word. The studio really did kill Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part IV. Paramount attempted to return to the drawing board when box office receipts made it clear that they couldn’t just ignore this profitable franchise. A New Beginning is another whodunnit with a new person doing the killing. Has Jason come back from the dead? Is it Tommy Jarvis, the troubled boy who was sent to a juvenile home after killing the killer in the previous entry?

No, it’s Roy, an ambulance driver who appears once in the first scene of the film, who commits murder after his obnoxious son is killed by a young, angry teen. That massive flub aside&#8211, and it is a big one&#8211, A New Beginning is actually kinda fun. Additionally, it has an all-timer of a kill sequence thanks to the ever-reliable Miguel Nuez Jr., an outhouse, and some burritos.

5. The New Blood ( 1988 ): Friday the 13th Part VII

The biggest knock against Freddy vs. Jason is that it learned nothing from the far superior seventh entry in the franchise, in which Freddy fights Carrie White. Okay, it’s not really Carrie White, but teen Tina ( Lar Park Lincoln ) does share the same psychokinetic powers and parent issues as the well-known character from the Stephen King novel and Brian DePalma movie. On the orders of her unscrupulous therapist, Tina goes to Camp Crystal Lake for isolated study, and inadvertently brings Jason back from his watery grave.

Jason has plenty of room to do what The New Blood does best from there. As so often happens with the top entries on this list, censors did cut down a lot of the movie, which diminishes the shock of its best kill scenes. There is something triumphant in watching Jason shove a weed eater into the therapist&#8217, s face, even if we don&#8217, t get all the bloody gory.

4. Part 2 of Friday the 13th ( 1981 )

It would n&#8217, t be accurate to say that this list would not exist without Friday the 13th Part 2. However, that statement isn’t entirely accurate either. Part 2 took everything good about its predecessor and did it better, actually giving us Jason in the flesh and an excellent final girl in Ginny ( Amy Steel ).

Additionally, Part 2 is the first illustration of what the franchise actually becomes. A bunch of teens come to the camp, and Jason ( wearing a burlap bag instead of the hockey mask that would be his trademark ) kills them in inventive, gory ways. Part II makes a strong case for Friday the 13th as a reputable series in addition to the pure energy of the kills and an actually intelligent final girl in Ginny.

3. Jason X ( 2001 )

If Friday the 13th Part 2 says that Jason deserves respect, then Jason X suggests maybe he does n&#8217, t. And that &#8217, s a good thing. Jason X belongs to the long, strange line of horror films that transport their killers to space. Although Jason’s interpretation of the Leprechaun or Pinhead has mixed results, Jason’s suitability is admirable.

Well, mostly perfectly. There are so many characters, and Jason X wants so badly to be a Kevin Williamson or Joss Whedon movie, and he can’t say anything without dripping it in snark. Yet, these annoyances aside, it &#8217, s hard not to cheer when uber-Jason takes the stage or when he&#8217, s killing people with space-age weapons and chemicals.

2. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives ( 1986 )

Jason Lives was Scream before Scream in Part VI. Okay, okay, that &#8217, s going too far. However, Part VI has a metatextual quality that both acknowledges the absurdity of the franchise and firmly places it in horror history. Jason Lives completes the Tommy Jarvis trilogy with yet another actor playing the part ( Thom Matthews here ), but it makes him into a proper Jason hunter and gives him a reason to accidentally resurrect the killer.

Even better, the film strikes a balance between clever jokes and effective kills. There&#8217, s, of course, the James Bond opening in which Jason throws a machete at the screen. However, there is a pitch-black joke that occurs when one child realizes that Jason is coming to get him and asks,” So, what did you want to be when you were growing up?” &#8221, A genuinely smart Friday the 13th movie? Believe it or not, yes!

1. The final chapter of Friday the 13th ( 1984 )

It took four movies for Friday the 13th to get it right. But man, did it actually get it right? The Final Chapter is the platonic ideal of a slasher movie. It has interesting victims, is lean, and some incredible and unforgettable kills. It even has a great kid performance from Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis at his youngest and awesome Savini effects.

The Final Chapter‘s story isn’t particularly interesting. Again, we have teens coming to party at the campground, at the same time that single mom Mrs. Jarvis ( Joan Freeman ) arrives with her kids Trish ( Kimberly Beck ) and Tommy. However, that skewed plot allows for some excellent kills and for the teenagers to stand out. I mean, when you have Crispin Glover as a slasher movie teen, you don&#8217, t need any plot. The Final Chapter is what every Friday the 13th movie should be, sparse and straightforward.

The post Friday the 13th Movies Ranked appeared first on Den of Geek.

Trailers appear in this post for Peacemaker period 2 event 7. Earth-X Auggie Smith ( Robert Patrick ) isn’t a Nazi. In the final season of Peacemaker’s next time, Chris Smith must take into account the possibility that Earth-X may be the home of his beloved father and [ …] [ …].. Those unexpected twists arrived late in that episode.

The article James Gunn Weighs in on Controversial Peacemaker Character appeared second on Den of Geek.

Jason shows aren’t supposed to be good, either. Heck, they weren&#8217, t actually supposed to be about Jason. Producer Sean S. Cunningham saw the economic achievements of Halloween as an opportunity to funds in himself in the late 1970s. But he took out an ad for a film called Friday the 13th, riffing on the holiday theme of the John Carpenter picture.

Only afterwards did he develop the concept of a whodunnit, in which a criminal begins threatening lawyers trying to restart a station after a youngster named Jason Voorhees perished there. As people now knows, that criminal was Jason&#8217, s family Pamela Voorhees, who wanted to prevent Camp Crystal Lake from over running again. The shocking end of that movie, in which Jason emerges from the water to get a final woman, was simply added because Cunningham wanted to imitate Carrie‘s shocking end.

Creativity was n&#8217, t the target. Wealth was a. And, to that end, Cunningham and Paramount Pictures succeeded, as Friday the 13th was a large hit, as were its first few sequel. But, imagination still manifested in some way. In the next video, Jason took the spotlight, supplanting his family. And Jason completely transformed into a scary icon just before the next film’s release.

As you might anticipate, that prolix journey resulted in pictures of varying quality. Even though not all of the Friday the 13th movies are excellent, they all have something to watch, if not the terrible death of a notorious station counselor.

12. Friday the 13th ( 2009 )

Who, exactly, is the 2009 remake Friday the 13th for? One would assume that a reboot of the line would attempt to understand the franchise’s notoriously rambunctious and inaccurate timeline to make things simpler for fresh viewers. Instead, the opening 30 minutes of Friday the 13th ( 2009 ) try to compress the first three films into one prologue, complete with killer Pamela ( portrayed here by Nana Visitor of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fame ) and baghead Jason. The beginning just confounds newcomers and feeds long-standing fans insubstantially, which accurately sums up the film.

Which is n&#8217, t to say that the reboot does n&#8217, t have its charms. As a more wild Jason, Derek Mears excels as the slow-moving beast of his past movies, with dynamic power. The solid does a great job with its young child jerks, and the film pulls off a surprising last child false up. Even so, Friday the 13th 2009 always manages to feel like a true episode of the series.

11. Fourth Friday, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan ( 1989 )

For more than three and a half years, people have been making fun of this movie for the fact that most of it takes place on a ship and the &#8220, New York &#8221, parts are actually Vancouver. What do you know, exactly? Jason Takes Manhattan deserves all that scorn! If you &#8217, re never going to really get in Manhattan (outside of some second unit thing shot for the opening credits ), why give the seventh Friday the 13th passage that name?

Actually, we could pardon a boat and we could pardon Canada if anything exciting happened in the film. Everything else, aside from a few great kills, does. Instead, Jason Takes Manhattan spends way too much time once again mythologizing the death of young Jason ( which may or may not have happened, depending on the status of Fridays II, III, and IV ). Jason Takes Manhattan ultimately succeeds without a hitch: it’s not a play, a dread, or even a takedown.

10. Third Part of Friday the 13th ( 1983 )

Cunningham and Paramount knew that after the first two comments, Friday the 13th ran the risk of becoming rote and predictable. They were aware that they had to alter issues. Nevertheless, they made perhaps the worst possible choice for the fad that would distinguish the series. Part III will be in 3-D, they decided.

Outside of that, whatever in Piece III covers common earth, from the class of counselors reopening the camp to the hicks who become early cannon fodder to a &#8220, shocker&#8221, ending, in which Pamela emerges from the lake to get the ultimate girl. And you’re watching all of this in 2-D, making the pointy bits annoying instead of compelling, unless you’re using the flimsy blue and red 3D glasses that are distributed with contemporary releases. At least Part III finally gives Jason his hockey mask. Besides that, everything in this film is a dud.

9. The final Friday of Jason Goes to Hell ( 1993 )

Like Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell does n&#8217, t live up to a single part of its title. No, Jason doesn’t spend any time in Hell in this film. Instead, he&#8217, s skulking around a New Jersey town. No, as this list indicates, this is not the last Friday film. Most shockingly of all, Jason is n&#8217, t even in Jason Goes to Hell, as he gets blown up by government agents in the cold open.

Instead, Jason Goes to Hell directly rips from The Hidden to dispel the myth that Jason is a demonic worm capable of jumping into other bodies. So instead of seeing Kane Hodder or any other big dude play Jason, we get to see Jason as character actors Richard Grant or Stephen Culp, hardly imposing figures. Despite this, Jason Goes to Hell commits so much to its absurd premise that it does offer some wacky entertainment for those who don’t feel hung up on Friday the 13th lore.

8. Jason vs. Freddy ( 2003 )

Freddy is the winner of Freddy vs. Jason. Yes, we all know that New Line Cinema wanted to keep the actual storyline of their monster mash ambiguous, with Freddy giving the camera a knowing nod at the end of the film. Jason was allowed to behead the Nightmare on Elm Street monster. But there&#8217, s no question that Freddy vs. Jason is an okay Freddy movie and a terrible Jason movie.

Jason does some cool kills, but one scene features him attacking Freddy with his arms. But outside of that, director Ronny Yu&#8217, s hyper fight style and reliance on digital effects suit Freddy much better than they do Jason and, to his credit, Robert Englund has a blast reprising his signature role. Overall, Freddy vs. Jason is a good monster mashup with a solid plot. But if you &#8217, re here for Jason, you &#8217, ll be pretty disappointed.

7. Friday the 13th ( 1980 )

The 13th Friday is essentially a rip-off of Halloween with a little Carrie, as previously mentioned. It does n&#8217, t even get to call itself the best camp slasher of the era, as The Burning comes out next year. It’s a pretty by-the-numbers whodunnit, with none of the flash or style of the Italian Giallo that came before it.

And yet, Friday the 13th does have two marks in its favor. Betsy Palmer as Pamela Voorhees is the absolute ringer in the movie, first. She fully chews the scenery in her final scenes, convincingly pulling a reverse Norman Bates routine and channeling her son. Second, Tom Savini’s effects give the movie a level of gore quality that, to be honest, it doesn’t deserve. If the movie never went onto spawn any sequels, it would be remembered as a curio. Instead, it must place it midway in the franchise it launched.

6. A New Beginning ( 1985 ) Friday the 13th Part V

Paramount tried to keep its word. Jason Voorhees was actually killed by the studio in Friday the 13th Part IV. And when box office receipts made it clear that they couldn&#8217, t just ignore this profitable franchise, Paramount tried to go back to the drawing board. Another whodunnit involves a brand-new killer killing in” A New Beginning.” Is it Jason, back from the dead? Is it Tommy Jarvis, the troubled boy who was taken to a juvenile facility after the murderer was killed in the previous entry?

No, it &#8217, s Roy, an ambulance driver we see once at the start of the movie, who goes on a killing spree after his annoying son is murdered by a teen with an anger problem. A New Beginning is actually a lot of fun, despite the massive flub, which is a big one. And it has an all-timer of a kill sequence, thanks to the ever-reliable Miguel Nuñez Jr., an outhouse, and some burritos.

5. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood ( 1988 )

The biggest detriment to Freddy vs. Jason is that it learned nothing from the far superior seventh installment of the franchise, in which Freddy fights Carrie White. Okay, it &#8217, s not really Carrie White, but teen Tina ( Lar Park Lincoln ) does have the same psychokinetic powers and parent issues as the famous character from the Stephen King novel and Brian DePalma film. On the orders of her dishonest therapist, Tina travels to Camp Crystal Lake to study alone, and unintentionally rescues Jason from his salty grave.

From there on, The New Blood gives Jason plenty of room to do what he does best. The majority of the film was cut down, which lessens the shock of its best kill scenes, as happens frequently with the best entries on this list. But even if we don&#8217, t get all the bloody gory, there&#8217, s something triumphant in watching Jason shove a weed eater into the therapist&#8217, s face.

4. Friday the 13th Part 2 ( 1981 )

Without Friday the 13th Part 2, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that this list wouldn’t exist. But that statement is n&#8217, t totally inaccurate either. Part 2 improved upon everything that was good about its predecessor, including adding a fantastic final girl in Ginny ( Amy Steel ) and Jason in the flesh.

Moreover, Part 2 is the first example of what the franchise actually becomes. A group of teenagers arrive at the camp, and Jason ( who is not wearing the typical hockey mask ) kills them in creative, bloody ways. Between the pure energy of the kills and an actually intelligent final girl in Ginny, Part II makes a strong case for Friday the 13th as a reputable series.

3. Jason X ( 2001 )

If Jason in Friday’s 13th Part 2 claims that he deserves respect, Jason X suggests that he doesn’t, which is a good thing. Jason X belongs the the long and strange line of horror movies that send their killers to space, and while that model has mixed results when it comes to the Leprechaun or Pinhead, it works perfectly with Jason.

Mostly, but mostly, perfectly. Jason X wants so very badly to be a Kevin Williamson or Joss Whedon movie, and its characters &#8211, and there are so many characters &#8211, can&#8217, t say anything without dripping it in snark. Even with these minor annoyances, it &#8217 ;s difficult not to cheer when uber-Jason takes the stage or when he&#8217, slaying people with space-age weapons and chemicals.

2. Jason Lives, Part VI of Friday the 13th, 1986

Part VI: Jason Lives was Scream before Scream. Okay, that &#8217 is going too far. But Part VI has a metatextual quality that both celebrates the ridiculousness of the franchise and locates it firmly within horror history. With the addition of another actor ( Thom Matthews in this role ), Jason Lives completes the Tommy Jarvis trilogy, giving him a legitimate reason to unintentionally resurrect the killer.

Better yet, the movie manages to balance clever quips with good kills. The James Bond opening, in which Jason throws a machete at the screen, is, of course, there. But there&#8217, s also the pitch black joke when one kid, realizing that Jason is coming to get him, turns to another and asks, &#8220, So, what did you want to be when you grew up? A genuinely smart Friday the 13th movie, &#8221? Believe it or not, yes!

1. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter ( 1984 )

For Friday the 13th, it took four movies to get it right. But, man, did it get it really right! The Final Chapter is a slasher movie with a platonic ideal. It&#8217, s lean, it has interesting victims, and it has some incredible and memorable kills. Even Corey Feldman’s excellent performance as Tommy Jarvis in his youngest Savini effects is included in the film.

The plot of The Final Chapter is n&#8217, t anything special. Teenagers are also partying at the campground when single mother Mrs. Jarvis ( Joan Freeman ) arrives with her kids Trish ( Kimberly Beck ) and Tommy. But that sparse plot leaves room for some great kills and for the teens to distinguish themselves. You don’t need any plot when Crispin Glover plays a teen in a slasher movie, after all. Sparse and simple, The Final Chapter is what every Friday the 13th movie should be.

The first post Friday the 13th Movies Ranked was posted on Den of Geek.

Ridley Scott hasn’t used much of a sensor in his entire career. Now, the same is also real. It’s one of the items we kind of adore about him! The legendary director of Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator turned up to give a talk at the BFI Southbank last week and certainly didn’t hold back when discussing the state ]… ]

The article Legendary director” Most of it Is Shit”- Offers Harsh Verdict on Hollywood first appeared on Den of Geek.

Jason shows aren&#8217, t supposed to be good. They weren’t actually supposed to be about Jason, hmm. Back in the late 1970s, supplier Sean S. Cunningham saw the economic achievements of Halloween and an opportunity to cash in himself. In response, he ran an advertisement for a film called Friday the 13th that was a riff on the John Carpenter movie’s holiday theme.

Only later did he come up with the idea of a whodunnit, in which a criminal begins menacing lawyers trying to restart a camp times after a junior named Jason Voorhees drowned it. All now knows that Jason’s family Pamela Voorhees, who wanted to stop Camp Crystal Lake from reopening, was the killer. The shock end of that picture, in which Jason emerges from the water to get a last lady, was only tacked on because Cunningham wanted to copy the shock ending of Carrie.

Creativity wasn’t the end aim, either. Cash was. And to accomplish that, Cunningham and Paramount Pictures succeeded, as Friday the 13th was a huge hit, as were its second some sequels. And still, apparently, imagination happened yet. In the next film, Jason stepped up and replaced his mother. And midway through the next movie, Jason got his name face, entirely becoming a dread image.

As you might have guessed, those movies had varying levels of quality as a result of this prolix approach. Not all of the Friday the 13th shows are wonderful, but they all offer something for watching—if just the terrible death of some camp counsellor of ill-repute.

12. Friday the 13th ( 2009 )

Who accurately is the target of the 2009 version of Friday the 13th? One may think that a reboot of the collection may try to clarify the franchise&#8217, s reportedly wandering and vague timeframe to make things easier for fresh viewers. Instead, the opening 30 minutes of Friday the 13th ( 2009 ) attempt to condense the first three movies into a single prologue, complete with killer Pamela ( portrayed by Nana Visitor of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ) and baghead Jason. The beginning just confuses visitors and feeds long-time fans ephemeral &#8216, part berries, pleasing no one&#8211, which accurately sums up the film.

Which is not to say that the reboot has no charms. Derek Mears is fantastic as a more feral Jason, trading dynamic energy for the usual slow-moving beast of previous films. The film pulls off a surprising final girl fake out thanks to the excellent acting by the cast of young adult jerks. Still, Friday the 13th 2009 never shakes the feeling of being a fan film instead of a proper entry in the series.

11. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan ( 1989 )

People have been making fun of this film for more than three and a half decades because the majority of it is shot on a boat and the majority of the New York and Vancouver sections are actually in the water. And you know what? All that mockery belongs to Jason Takes Manhattan, though! Why give the eighth Friday the 13th entry that name if you &#8217, re never going to actually be in Manhattan (outside of some second unit stuff shot for the opening credits )?

Sincerely, if something interesting happened in the movie, we could forgive the boat and Canada. But, outside of a couple of cool kills, nothing does. Jason Takes Manhattan instead spends way too much time once more mythologizing the death of a young Jason ( which may or may not have happened, depending on the status of Fridays II, III, and IV ). In the end, Jason Takes Manhattan succeeds at nothing: not drama, not horror, and not even taking Manhattan.

10. Friday the 13th Part III ( 1983 )

After the first two entries, Friday the 13th ran the risk of becoming predictable and rote. Cunningham and Paramount were aware of this. They knew they had to shake things up. However, they made the most imprecise choice possible regarding the gimmick, which would set the series apart. They decided that Part III would be in 3-D.

Everything in Part III is well-known, from the counselors ‘ reopening the camp to the hicks who turn into early cannon fodder to the shocking ending where Pamela emerges from the lake to grab the final girl. And unless you &#8217, re using the flimsy blue and red 3D glasses that get distributed with modern releases, or unless you saw a special screening at a repertory theater, you &#8217, re watching all of this in 2-D, making the pointy bits annoying instead of compelling. Jason receives his hockey mask at the end of Part III. Outside of that, everything in this movie is a dud.

9. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday ( 1993 )

Jason Goes to Hell, like Jason Takes Manhattan, falls short of the title’s expectations. No, Jason does n&#8217, t spend time in Hell in this movie. He&#8217 is instead scurrying around a town in New Jersey. No, it &#8217, s not the final Friday movie, as this list shows. The most shocking of all is Jason, who isn’t even mentioned in Jason Goes to Hell when he is blown up by government agents in the cold air.

Instead, Jason Goes to Hell directly rips from The Hidden to introduce a bunch of nonsense lore about Jason being a demonic worm that can jump into other bodies. So instead of seeing Kane Hodder or any other big men play Jason, we instead see Jason as Richard Grant or Stephen Culp, who are hardly imposing actors. That said, Jason Goes to Hell commits so much to its absurd premise that it does provide some wacky fun for those who don&#8217, t get hung up on Friday the 13th lore.

8. Freddy vs. Jason ( 2003 )

In Freddy vs. Jason, Freddy triumphs. Yes, we all know that New Line Cinema wanted to keep the actual outcome of their monster mash ambiguous, letting Jason behead the Nightmare on Elm Street monster, but having Freddy give the camera a knowing wink at the end. However, it is unquestionably a bad Jason movie and a good Freddy movie.

Sure, Jason gets in some cool kills and there is a part where he rips off Freddy &#8217, s arms and attacks him with them. However, other than that, director Ronny Yu&#8217’s hyper fight style and reliance on digital effects suit Freddy much better than Jason, and Robert Englund has a blast reprising his signature role. All in all, Freddy vs. Jason manages to be a functional monster mash with a pretty coherent story. However, if you’re here for Jason and are willing to pay a premium, you’ll be disappointed.

7. Friday the 13th ( 1980 ) )

As discussed earlier, the first Friday the 13th is little more than a rip off of Halloween with a little bit of Carrie. Because The Burning is coming out next year, it doesn’t even get to call itself the best camp slasher of the era. Instead, it &#8217, s a pretty by-the-numbers whodunnit with none of the flash or style of the Italian Giallo that precede it.

Nonetheless, Friday the 13th does receive two marks in its favor. First, the movie has an absolute ringer in Betsy Palmer as Pamela Voorhees. In her final scenes, she convincingly channels her son and pulls a reverse Norman Bates routine. Second, Friday the 13th has effects by Tom Savini, who gives the film a level of gore quality that, frankly, it does n&#8217, t deserve. It would be remembered as a curio if the film didn’t produce any sequels. Instead, it has to fall midway on a ranking in the franchise it started.

6. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning ( 1985 )

Paramount made an effort to keep its word. The studio really did kill Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part IV. And when box office receipts made it clear that they couldn’t just ignore this lucrative franchise, Paramount attempted to return to the drawing board. A New Beginning is another whodunnit with a new person doing the killing. Is it Jason who has come back from the dead? Is it Tommy Jarvis, the troubled boy who was sent to a juvenile home after killing the killer in the previous entry?

No, it’s Roy, an ambulance driver who appears once in the first scene of the film, who commits murder after his obnoxious son is killed by a young, angry teen. That massive flub aside&#8211, and it is a big one&#8211, A New Beginning is actually kinda fun. Additionally, it has an all-timer of a kill sequence thanks to the ever-reliable Miguel Nuez Jr., an outhouse, and some burritos.

5. The New Blood ( 1988 ): Friday the 13th Part VII

The biggest knock against Freddy vs. Jason is that it learned nothing from the far superior seventh entry in the franchise, in which Freddy fights Carrie White. Okay, it’s not really Carrie White, but teen Tina ( Lar Park Lincoln ) does share the same psychokinetic powers and parent issues as the well-known character from the Stephen King novel and Brian DePalma movie. On the orders of her unscrupulous therapist, Tina goes to Camp Crystal Lake for isolated study, and inadvertently brings Jason back from his watery grave.

From there, Jason has plenty of room to do what he does best in The New Blood. As so often happens with the top entries on this list, censors did cut down a lot of the movie, which diminishes the shock of its best kill scenes. There is something triumphant in watching Jason shove a weed eater into the therapist’s face, even if we don’t get all the bloody gory.

4. Part 2 of Friday the 13th ( 1981 )

It would n&#8217, t be accurate to say that this list would not exist without Friday the 13th Part 2. However, that statement isn’t entirely accurate either. Part 2 took everything good about its predecessor and did it better, actually giving us Jason in the flesh and an excellent final girl in Ginny ( Amy Steel ).

Additionally, Part 2 provides the first illustration of what the franchise actually becomes. A bunch of teens come to the camp, and Jason ( wearing a burlap bag instead of the hockey mask that would be his trademark ) kills them in inventive, gory ways. Part II makes a strong case for Friday the 13th as a reputable series in addition to the pure energy of the kills and an actually intelligent final girl in Ginny.

3. Jason X ( 2001 )

If Friday the 13th Part 2 says that Jason deserves respect, then Jason X suggests maybe he does n&#8217, t. And that &#8217, s a good thing. Jason X belongs to the long and odd line of horror films that transport their murderers to space. Although that approach has had mixed results with the Leprechaun or Pinhead, it still works well with Jason.

Well, mostly perfectly. There are so many characters, and Jason X wants so badly to be a Kevin Williamson or Joss Whedon movie, and he can’t say anything without dripping it in snark. Yet, these annoyances aside, it &#8217, s hard not to cheer when uber-Jason takes the stage or when he&#8217, s killing people with space-age weapons and chemicals.

2. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives ( 1986 )

Jason Lives was Scream before Scream in Part VI. Okay, okay, that &#8217, s going too far. However, Part VI has a metatextual quality that both acknowledges the absurdity of the franchise and firmly places it in horror history. Jason Lives completes the Tommy Jarvis trilogy with yet another actor playing the part ( Thom Matthews here ), but it makes him into a proper Jason hunter and gives him a reason to accidentally resurrect the killer.

Even better, the film strikes a balance between clever jokes and effective kills. There&#8217, s, of course, the James Bond opening in which Jason throws a machete at the screen. However, there is also the pitch black joke when one child realizes that Jason is coming to get him and asks,” So, what did you want to be when you were growing up?” &#8221, A genuinely smart Friday the 13th movie? Believe it or not, yes!

1. The final chapter of Friday the 13th ( 1984 )

It took four movies for Friday the 13th to get it right. But man, did it actually get it right? The Final Chapter is the platonic ideal of a slasher movie. It has interesting victims, lean, and some incredible and unforgettable kills. It even has a great kid performance from Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis at his youngest and awesome Savini effects.

The Final Chapter‘s story isn’t particularly interesting. Again, we have teens coming to party at the campground, at the same time that single mom Mrs. Jarvis ( Joan Freeman ) arrives with her kids Trish ( Kimberly Beck ) and Tommy. However, that skewed plot allows for some excellent kills and for the teens to stand out. I mean, when you have Crispin Glover as a slasher movie teen, you don&#8217, t need any plot. The Final Chapter is the 13th movie’s perfect Friday, simple, and sparse.

The post Friday the 13th Movies Ranked appeared first on Den of Geek.

It became challenging to evaluate Marvel films alone around Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While any number of punters could roll up at the theater, see the latest installment of their favorite superhero’s adventures and leave happy, having experienced callbacks, Marvel Comics references, and fan-pleasing moments, your average critic might have ]… ]

On Den of Geek, the first article Marvel Star claimed that MCU films are for fans and no detractors.

Jason shows aren&#8217, t supposed to be good. They weren’t actually supposed to be about Jason, hmm. Back in the late 1970s, maker Sean S. Cunningham saw the economic achievements of Halloween and an opportunity to cash in himself. In response, he ran an advertisement for a film called Friday the 13th that riffed on the John Carpenter movie’s holiday theme.

Only later did he come up with the idea of a whodunnit, in which a criminal begins menacing lawyers trying to restart a camp times after a junior named Jason Voorhees drowned it. As everyone is aware of, Jason&#8217’s family Pamela Voorhees, who wanted to stop Camp Crystal Lake from reopening, was the criminal. The shock end of that picture, in which Jason emerges from the water to get a last lady, was only tacked on because Cunningham wanted to copy the shock ending of Carrie.

Creativity wasn’t the end objective. Cash was. And to achieve that, Cunningham and Paramount Pictures were successful, with Friday the 13th being a huge hit as well as its primary some sequels. And still, apparently, imagination happened yet. Jason replaced his mother in the next film, taking the lead. And midway through the next movie, Jason got his name face, entirely becoming a dread image.

As you might have guessed, those films had varying levels of quality as a result of this digressive course. Not all of the Friday the 13th movies are great, but they all offer something worth watching—if only the grisly death of some camp counselor of ill-repute.

12. Friday the 13th ( 2009 )

Who exactly is the target of the 2009 remake of Friday the 13th? One would think that a reboot of the series would try to clarify the franchise&#8217, s famously ambling and imprecise timeline to make things easier for new viewers. Instead, Friday the 13th ( 2009 )’s first 30 minutes attempt to condense the first three movies into a single prologue, complete with killer Pamela ( portrayed by Nana Visitor of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ) and baghead Jason. The opening only confuses newcomers and feeds long-time fans insubstantial &#8216, member berries, pleasing no one&#8211, which accurately sums up the movie.

Which is not to say that the reboot lacks charm, though. Derek Mears is fantastic as a more feral Jason, trading dynamic energy for the usual slow-moving beast of previous films. The film pulls off a surprising final girl fake out and does a great job with its young adult jerks. Still, Friday the 13th 2009 never shakes the feeling of being a fan film instead of a proper entry in the series.

11. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan ( 1989 )

People have been making fun of this film for more than three and a half decades because the majority of it is shot on a boat and the majority of the New York and Vancouver sections are actually in the water. And you know what? Jason Takes Manhattan deserves all the sneering praise! Why give the eighth Friday the 13th entry that name if you &#8217, re never going to actually be in Manhattan (outside of some second unit stuff shot for the opening credits )?

Sincerely, if anything interesting happened in the movie, we could forgive a boat and we could forgive Canada. But, outside of a couple of cool kills, nothing does. Jason Takes Manhattan instead spends way too much time once more mythologizing the death of a young Jason ( which may or may not have happened, depending on the status of Fridays II, III, and IV ). In the end, Jason Takes Manhattan succeeds at nothing: not drama, not horror, and not even taking Manhattan.

10. Friday the 13th Part III ( 1983 )

After the first two entries, Friday the 13th ran the risk of becoming predictable and rote. Cunningham and Paramount were aware of this. They knew they had to shake things up. They made the gimmick that would set the series apart, perhaps the most disastrous one. They decided that Part III would be in 3-D.

Everything in Part III is well-known, from the group of counselors reopening the camp to the hicks who turn into early cannon fodder to the shocking ending in which Pamela emerges from the lake to grab the final girl. And unless you &#8217, re using the flimsy blue and red 3D glasses that get distributed with modern releases, or unless you saw a special screening at a repertory theater, you &#8217, re watching all of this in 2-D, making the pointy bits annoying instead of compelling. Part III at least finally reveals Jason his hockey mask. Outside of that, everything in this movie is a dud.

9. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday ( 1993 )

Jason Goes to Hell, like Jason Takes Manhattan, falls short of the title’s expectations. No, Jason does n&#8217, t spend time in Hell in this movie. He&#8217 is instead scurrying around a town in New Jersey. No, it &#8217, s not the final Friday movie, as this list shows. The most shocking of all is Jason, who isn’t even mentioned in Jason Goes to Hell when he is blown up by government agents in the cold air.

Instead, Jason Goes to Hell directly rips from The Hidden to introduce a bunch of nonsense lore about Jason being a demonic worm that can jump into other bodies. So instead of seeing Kane Hodder or any other big men play Jason, we instead see Jason as Richard Grant or Stephen Culp, who are hardly imposing actors. That said, Jason Goes to Hell commits so much to its absurd premise that it does provide some wacky fun for those who don&#8217, t get hung up on Friday the 13th lore.

8. Freddy vs. Jason ( 2003 )

Freddy wins the Freddy vs. Jason game. Yes, we all know that New Line Cinema wanted to keep the actual outcome of their monster mash ambiguous, letting Jason behead the Nightmare on Elm Street monster, but having Freddy give the camera a knowing wink at the end. However, it is unquestionably a bad Jason movie and a good Freddy movie.

Sure, Jason gets in some cool kills and there is a part where he rips off Freddy &#8217, s arms and attacks him with them. However, Ronny Yu&#8217, the director, does much better with Freddy than Jason, and Robert Englund is fantastic reprising his signature role. All in all, Freddy vs. Jason manages to be a functional monster mash with a pretty coherent story. However, you’ll be disappointed if you’re here for Jason.

7. The 13th of September ( 1980 )

As discussed earlier, the first Friday the 13th is little more than a rip off of Halloween with a little bit of Carrie. Because The Burning is coming out next year, it doesn’t even get to call itself the best camp slasher of the era. Instead, it &#8217, s a pretty by-the-numbers whodunnit with none of the flash or style of the Italian Giallo that precede it.

Nonetheless, Friday the 13th does receive two marks in its favor. First, the movie has an absolute ringer in Betsy Palmer as Pamela Voorhees. In her final scenes, she convincingly channels her son and pulls a reverse Norman Bates routine. Second, Friday the 13th has effects by Tom Savini, who gives the film a level of gore quality that, frankly, it does n&#8217, t deserve. It would be remembered as a curio if the film never did lead to any sequels. Instead, it has to fall midway on a ranking in the franchise it started.

6. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning ( 1985 )

Paramount made an effort to keep its word. The studio really did kill Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part IV. Paramount attempted to return to the drawing board when box office receipts made it clear that they couldn’t just ignore this profitable franchise. A New Beginning is another whodunnit with a new person doing the killing. Has Jason come back from the dead? Is it Tommy Jarvis, the troubled boy who was sent to a juvenile home after killing the killer in the previous entry?

No, it’s Roy, an ambulance driver who appears once at the beginning of the film, who commits murder after his obnoxious son is killed by a teenager with an anger issue. That massive flub aside&#8211, and it is a big one&#8211, A New Beginning is actually kinda fun. And it has a kill sequence that lasts forever thanks to the reliable Miguel Nuez Jr., an outhouse, and some burritos.

5. The New Blood ( 1988 ): Friday the 13th Part VII

The biggest knock against Freddy vs. Jason is that it learned nothing from the far superior seventh entry in the franchise, in which Freddy fights Carrie White. Okay, it’s not really Carrie White, but teen Tina ( Lar Park Lincoln ) does share the same psychokinetic powers and parent issues as the well-known character from the Stephen King novel and Brian DePalma movie. On the orders of her unscrupulous therapist, Tina goes to Camp Crystal Lake for isolated study, and inadvertently brings Jason back from his watery grave.

From there, The New Blood gives Jason plenty of room to concentrate on what he does best. As so often happens with the top entries on this list, censors did cut down a lot of the movie, which diminishes the shock of its best kill scenes. There is something triumphant in watching Jason shove a weed eater into the therapist’s face, even if we don’t get all the bloody gory.

4. Part 2 of Friday the 13th ( 1981 )

It would n&#8217, t be accurate to say that this list would not exist without Friday the 13th Part 2. However, that statement isn’t entirely accurate either. Part 2 took everything good about its predecessor and did it better, actually giving us Jason in the flesh and an excellent final girl in Ginny ( Amy Steel ).

Additionally, Part 2 is the first illustration of what the franchise actually becomes. A bunch of teens come to the camp, and Jason ( wearing a burlap bag instead of the hockey mask that would be his trademark ) kills them in inventive, gory ways. Part II makes a strong case for Friday the 13th as a reputable series in addition to the pure energy of the kills and Ginny’s intelligent final girl.

3. Jason X ( 2001 )

If Friday the 13th Part 2 says that Jason deserves respect, then Jason X suggests maybe he does n&#8217, t. And that &#8217, s a good thing. Jason X belongs to the long, strange line of horror films that transport their killers to space. Although Jason’s interpretation of the Leprechaun or Pinhead has mixed results, Jason’s suitability is admirable.

Well, mostly perfectly. There are so many characters, and Jason X wants so badly to be a Kevin Williamson or Joss Whedon movie. He also can’t say anything without dripping it in snark. Yet, these annoyances aside, it &#8217, s hard not to cheer when uber-Jason takes the stage or when he&#8217, s killing people with space-age weapons and chemicals.

2. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives ( 1986 )

Jason Lives ‘ first appearance in Part VI was Scream. Okay, okay, that &#8217, s going too far. However, Part VI has a metatextural quality that both acknowledges the franchise’s absurdity and situates it firmly in horror history. Jason Lives completes the Tommy Jarvis trilogy with yet another actor playing the part ( Thom Matthews here ), but it makes him into a proper Jason hunter and gives him a reason to accidentally resurrect the killer.

Better yet, the film strikes a balance between clever jokes and effective kills. There&#8217, s, of course, the James Bond opening in which Jason throws a machete at the screen. However, there is a pitch-black joke that occurs when one child realizes that Jason is coming to get him and asks,” So, what did you want to be when you were growing up?” &#8221, A genuinely smart Friday the 13th movie? Believe it or not, yes!

1. The final chapter of Friday the 13th ( 1984 )

It took four movies for Friday the 13th to get it right. But man, did it actually get it right? The Final Chapter is the platonic ideal of a slasher movie. It has interesting victims, is lean, and some incredible and unforgettable kills. It even has a great kid performance from Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis at his youngest and awesome Savini effects.

The Final Chapter‘s story isn’t anything special, either. Again, we have teens coming to party at the campground, at the same time that single mom Mrs. Jarvis ( Joan Freeman ) arrives with her kids Trish ( Kimberly Beck ) and Tommy. However, that skewed plot allows for some excellent kills and for the teenagers to stand out. I mean, when you have Crispin Glover as a slasher movie teen, you don&#8217, t need any plot. The Final Chapter is the 13th movie’s perfect Friday, simple, and sparse.

The post Friday the 13th Movies Ranked appeared first on Den of Geek.

The Black Phone and V/H/S/8 5 have clues in this post. In two days, the history of the Grabber continues, as Black Phone 2 comes to venues on October 17. Someone who doesn’t want to wait until that point you pique their interest by seeing a completely different film. Before casting Ethan Hawke as the Grabber, Mason ]…]

The Forgotten VHS Entry That’s a Black Phone Sequel initially appeared on Den of Geek.

Jason shows aren&#8217, t supposed to be good. They weren’t actually supposed to be about Jason, hmm. Back in the late 1970s, supplier Sean S. Cunningham saw the economic achievements of Halloween and an opportunity to cash in himself. In response, he ran an advertisement for a film called Friday the 13th that riffed on the John Carpenter movie’s trip theme.

Only later did he come up with the idea of a whodunnit, in which a criminal begins menacing lawyers trying to restart a camp times after a junior named Jason Voorhees drowned it. As everyone is well aware, Jason&#8217, Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s family, wanted to stop Camp Crystal Lake from reopening. The shock end of that picture, in which Jason emerges from the water to get a last lady, was only tacked on because Cunningham wanted to copy the shock ending of Carrie.

Creativity wasn’t the end objective. Cash was. And to accomplish that, Cunningham and Paramount Pictures succeeded, as Friday the 13th was a huge hit, as were its second some sequels. And yet, apparently, imagination happened yet. In the next film, Jason stepped up and replaced his family. And midway through the next movie, Jason got his name face, entirely becoming a dread image.

As you might have guessed, that prolix way produced movies of varying quality. Not all of the Friday the 13th shows are wonderful, but they all offer something for watching—if just the terrible death of some camp counsellor of ill-repute.

12. Friday the 13th ( 2009 )

Who specifically is the 2009 version of Friday the 13th for? One may think that a reboot of the collection may try to clarify the franchise&#8217, s notably wandering and vague timeframe to make things easier for fresh viewers. Instead, Friday the 13th ( 2009 )’s first 30 minutes attempt to condense the first three movies into a single prologue, complete with killer Pamela ( portrayed by Nana Visitor of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ) and baghead Jason. The beginning just confuses visitors and feeds long-time enthusiasts ephemeral &#8216, part berries, pleasing no one&#8211, which accurately sums up the film.

Which is not to say that the reboot lacks its charms, which isn’t. Derek Mears is fantastic as a more feral Jason, trading dynamic energy for the usual slow-moving beast of previous films. The film pulls off a surprising final girl fake out and does a great job with its young adult jerks. Still, Friday the 13th 2009 never shakes the feeling of being a fan film instead of a proper entry in the series.

11. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan ( 1989 )

People have been making fun of this film for more than three and a half decades because the majority of it is shot on a boat and the majority of the New York and Vancouver sections. And you know what? All that mockery belongs to Jason Takes Manhattan, though! Why give the eighth Friday the 13th entry that name if you &#8217, re never going to actually be in Manhattan (outside of some second unit stuff shot for the opening credits )?

Sincerely, if anything interesting happened in the movie, we could forgive a boat and we could forgive Canada. But, outside of a couple of cool kills, nothing does. Jason Takes Manhattan instead spends way too much time once more mythologizing the death of a young Jason ( which may or may not have happened, depending on the status of Fridays II, III, and IV ). In the end, Jason Takes Manhattan succeeds at nothing: not drama, not horror, and not even taking Manhattan.

10. Friday the 13th Part III ( 1983 )

After the first two entries, Friday the 13th ran the risk of becoming predictable and rote. Cunningham and Paramount were aware of this. They knew they had to shake things up. They made the gimmick that would set the series apart, perhaps the most disastrous one. They decided that Part III would be in 3-D.

Everything in Part III is well-known, from the group of counselors reopening the camp to the hicks who turn into early cannon fodder to the shocking ending in which Pamela emerges from the lake to grab the final girl. And unless you &#8217, re using the flimsy blue and red 3D glasses that get distributed with modern releases, or unless you saw a special screening at a repertory theater, you &#8217, re watching all of this in 2-D, making the pointy bits annoying instead of compelling. Part III at least finally reveals Jason his hockey mask. Outside of that, everything in this movie is a dud.

9. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday ( 1993 )

Jason Goes to Hell, like Jason Takes Manhattan, falls short of the title’s expectations. No, Jason does n&#8217, t spend time in Hell in this movie. Instead, he&#8217 is scurrying around a town in New Jersey. No, it &#8217, s not the final Friday movie, as this list shows. The most shocking of all is Jason, who isn’t even mentioned in Jason Goes to Hell when he is blown up by government agents in the cold air.

Instead, Jason Goes to Hell directly rips from The Hidden to introduce a bunch of nonsense lore about Jason being a demonic worm that can jump into other bodies. So instead of seeing Kane Hodder or any other big men play Jason, we instead see Jason as Richard Grant or Stephen Culp, who are hardly imposing actors. That said, Jason Goes to Hell commits so much to its absurd premise that it does provide some wacky fun for those who don&#8217, t get hung up on Friday the 13th lore.

8. Freddy vs. Jason ( 2003 )

Freddy wins the Freddy vs. Jason game. Yes, we all know that New Line Cinema wanted to keep the actual outcome of their monster mash ambiguous, letting Jason behead the Nightmare on Elm Street monster, but having Freddy give the camera a knowing wink at the end. However, it is unquestionable that Freddy vs. Jason is both a good and bad Jason movie.

Sure, Jason gets in some cool kills and there is a part where he rips off Freddy &#8217, s arms and attacks him with them. However, other than that, director Ronny Yu&#8217’s hyper fight style and reliance on digital effects suit Freddy much better than they do Jason, and Robert Englund has a blast reprising his signature role. All in all, Freddy vs. Jason manages to be a functional monster mash with a pretty coherent story. However, if you &#8217, are here for Jason, you &#8217 will be pretty disappointed.

7. The 13th of September ( 1980 )

As discussed earlier, the first Friday the 13th is little more than a rip off of Halloween with a little bit of Carrie. Because The Burning is coming out next year, it doesn’t even get to call itself the best camp slasher of the era. Instead, it &#8217, s a pretty by-the-numbers whodunnit with none of the flash or style of the Italian Giallo that precede it.

However, Friday the 13th receives two favorable marks. First, the movie has an absolute ringer in Betsy Palmer as Pamela Voorhees. In her final scenes, she convincingly pulls a reverse Norman Bates routine and channels her son, fully chewing on the scenery. Second, Friday the 13th has effects by Tom Savini, who gives the film a level of gore quality that, frankly, it does n&#8217, t deserve. It would be remembered as a curio if the film didn’t produce any sequels. Instead, it has to fall midway on a ranking in the franchise it started.

6. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning ( 1985 )

Paramount made an effort to keep its word. The studio really did kill Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part IV. Paramount attempted to return to the drawing board when box office receipts made it clear that they couldn’t just ignore this profitable franchise. A New Beginning is another whodunnit with a new person doing the killing. Is it Jason who has come back from the dead? Is it Tommy Jarvis, the troubled boy who was sent to a juvenile home after killing the killer in the previous entry?

No, it’s Roy, an ambulance driver who appears once at the beginning of the film, who commits murder after his obnoxious son is killed by a teenager with an anger issue. That massive flub aside&#8211, and it is a big one&#8211, A New Beginning is actually kinda fun. Additionally, it has an all-timer of a kill sequence thanks to the ever-reliable Miguel Nuez Jr., an outhouse, and some burritos.

5. The New Blood ( 1988 ) is the title of Friday the 13th Part VII.

The biggest knock against Freddy vs. Jason is that it learned nothing from the far superior seventh entry in the franchise, in which Freddy fights Carrie White. Okay, it’s not really Carrie White, but teen Tina ( Lar Park Lincoln ) does share the same psychokinetic powers and parent issues as the well-known character from the Stephen King novel and Brian DePalma movie. On the orders of her unscrupulous therapist, Tina goes to Camp Crystal Lake for isolated study, and inadvertently brings Jason back from his watery grave.

From there, Jason has plenty of room to do what he does best in The New Blood. As so often happens with the top entries on this list, censors did cut down a lot of the movie, which diminishes the shock of its best kill scenes. There is something triumphant in watching Jason shove a weed eater into the therapist’s face, even if we don’t get all the bloody gory.

4. Part 2 of Friday the 13th ( 1981 )

It would n&#8217, t be accurate to say that this list would not exist without Friday the 13th Part 2. However, that statement isn’t entirely accurate either. Part 2 took everything good about its predecessor and did it better, actually giving us Jason in the flesh and an excellent final girl in Ginny ( Amy Steel ).

Additionally, Part 2 provides the first illustration of what the franchise actually becomes. A bunch of teens come to the camp, and Jason ( wearing a burlap bag instead of the hockey mask that would be his trademark ) kills them in inventive, gory ways. Part II makes a strong case for Friday the 13th as a reputable series in addition to the pure energy of the kills and an actually intelligent final girl in Ginny.

3. Jason X ( 2001 )

If Friday the 13th Part 2 says that Jason deserves respect, then Jason X suggests maybe he does n&#8217, t. And that &#8217, s a good thing. Jason X belongs to the long and odd line of horror films that transport their murderers to space. Although that approach has had mixed results with the Leprechaun or Pinhead, it still works well with Jason.

Well, mostly perfectly. There are so many characters, and Jason X wants so badly to be a Kevin Williamson or Joss Whedon movie, and he can’t say anything without dripping it in snark. Yet, these annoyances aside, it &#8217, s hard not to cheer when uber-Jason takes the stage or when he&#8217, s killing people with space-age weapons and chemicals.

2. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives ( 1986 )

Jason Lives was Scream before Scream in Part VI. Okay, okay, that &#8217, s going too far. However, Part VI has a metatextual quality that both acknowledges the absurdity of the franchise and firmly places it in horror history. Jason Lives completes the Tommy Jarvis trilogy with yet another actor playing the part ( Thom Matthews here ), but it makes him into a proper Jason hunter and gives him a reason to accidentally resurrect the killer.

Better yet, the film strikes a balance between clever jokes and effective kills. There&#8217, s, of course, the James Bond opening in which Jason throws a machete at the screen. However, there is a pitch-black joke that occurs when one child realizes that Jason is coming to get him and asks,” So, what did you want to be when you were growing up?” &#8221, A genuinely smart Friday the 13th movie? Believe it or not, yes!

1. The final chapter of Friday the 13th ( 1984 )

It took four movies for Friday the 13th to get it right. But man, did it actually get it right? The Final Chapter is the platonic ideal of a slasher movie. It has interesting victims, lean, and some incredible and unforgettable kills. It even has a great kid performance from Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis at his youngest and awesome Savini effects.

The Final Chapter‘s story isn’t anything special, either. Again, we have teens coming to party at the campground, at the same time that single mom Mrs. Jarvis ( Joan Freeman ) arrives with her kids Trish ( Kimberly Beck ) and Tommy. However, that skewed plot allows for some excellent kills and for the teenagers to stand out. I mean, when you have Crispin Glover as a slasher movie teen, you don&#8217, t need any plot. The Final Chapter is the 13th movie of Friday, which is simple and sparse.

The post Friday the 13th Movies Ranked appeared first on Den of Geek.

Jason videos aren’t supposed to be good. Heck, they weren’t actually supposed to be about Jason. Producer Sean S. Cunningham saw the economic achievements of Halloween as an opportunity to funds in himself in the late 1970s. But he took out an ad for a movie called Friday the 13th, riffing on the trip ]…]

On Den of Geek, the second post Friday the 13th Movies Ranked appeared.

Jason shows aren&#8217, t supposed to be good. They weren’t actually supposed to be about Jason, hmm. Producer Sean S. Cunningham saw the economic achievements of Halloween as an opportunity to money in himself in the late 1970s. In response, he ran an advertisement for a film called Friday the 13th that was a riff on the John Carpenter movie’s holiday theme.

Only later did he come up with the idea of a whodunnit, in which a criminal begins menacing lawyers trying to restart a camp times after a junior named Jason Voorhees drowned it. As everyone is aware of, Jason&#8217’s family Pamela Voorhees, who wanted to stop Camp Crystal Lake from reopening, was the killer. The shock end of that picture, in which Jason emerges from the water to get a last lady, was only tacked on because Cunningham wanted to copy the shock ending of Carrie.

Creativity wasn’t the end objective. Income was. And to achieve that, Cunningham and Paramount Pictures were successful, with Friday the 13th being a huge hit as well as its earliest some sequels. And still, apparently, imagination happened yet. Jason replaced his mother in the next film, taking the lead. And midway through the next movie, Jason got his name face, entirely becoming a dread image.

As you might have guessed, those pictures had varying levels of quality as a result of this prolix approach. Not all of the Friday the 13th shows are wonderful, but they all offer something for watching—if just the terrible death of some camp counsellor of ill-repute.

12. Friday the 13th ( 2009 )

Who accurately is the 2009 version of Friday the 13th for? One may think that a reboot of the collection may try to clarify the franchise&#8217, s reportedly wandering and vague timeframe to make things easier for fresh viewers. Instead, Friday the 13th ( 2009 )’s first 30 minutes attempt to condense the first three movies into a single prologue, complete with killer Pamela ( portrayed by Nana Visitor of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ) and baghead Jason. The beginning just confuses visitors and feeds long-time enthusiasts ephemeral &#8216, part berries, pleasing no one&#8211, which accurately sums up the film.

Which is not to say that the reboot lacks charm, though. Derek Mears is fantastic as a more feral Jason, trading dynamic energy for the usual slow-moving beast of previous films. The film pulls off a surprising final girl fake out thanks to the excellent acting by the cast of young adult jerks. Still, Friday the 13th 2009 never shakes the feeling of being a fan film instead of a proper entry in the series.

11. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan ( 1989 )

People have been making fun of this film for more than three and a half decades because the majority of it is shot on a boat and the majority of the New York and Vancouver sections are actually in the water. And you know what? Jason Takes Manhattan deserves a lot of mockery! Why give the eighth Friday the 13th entry that name if you &#8217, re never going to actually be in Manhattan (outside of some second unit stuff shot for the opening credits )?

Sincerely, we could forgive a boat and Canada if anything interesting happened in the movie. But, outside of a couple of cool kills, nothing does. Jason Takes Manhattan instead spends way too much time mythologizing the tragic passing of a young Jason ( which, depending on the status of Fridays II, III, and IV ), again. In the end, Jason Takes Manhattan succeeds at nothing: not drama, not horror, and not even taking Manhattan.

10. Friday the 13th Part III ( 1983 )

After the first two entries, Friday the 13th ran the risk of becoming predictable and rote. Cunningham and Paramount were aware of this. They knew they had to shake things up. They made the gimmick that would set the series apart, perhaps the most disastrous one. They decided that Part III would be in 3-D.

Everything in Part III is well-known, from the group of counselors reopening the camp to the hicks who turn into early cannon fodder to the &#8220, shocker &#8221, ending in which Pamela emerges from the lake to grab the final girl. And unless you &#8217, re using the flimsy blue and red 3D glasses that get distributed with modern releases, or unless you saw a special screening at a repertory theater, you &#8217, re watching all of this in 2-D, making the pointy bits annoying instead of compelling. Jason receives his hockey mask at the end of Part III. Outside of that, everything in this movie is a dud.

9. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday ( 1993 )

Like Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell falls short of the title’s intended use. No, Jason does n&#8217, t spend time in Hell in this movie. He&#8217 is instead scurrying around a town in New Jersey. No, it &#8217, s not the final Friday movie, as this list shows. Most shocking of all, Jason isn’t even in Jason Goes to Hell when he is blown up by government agents in the cold open.

Instead, Jason Goes to Hell directly rips from The Hidden to introduce a bunch of nonsense lore about Jason being a demonic worm that can jump into other bodies. So Jason is cast as Richard Grant or Stephen Culp, not as imposing as Kane Hodder or any other big-boy actor, which is not what we get. That said, Jason Goes to Hell commits so much to its absurd premise that it does provide some wacky fun for those who don&#8217, t get hung up on Friday the 13th lore.

8. Freddy vs. Jason ( 2003 )

Freddy wins the Freddy vs. Jason game. Yes, we all know that New Line Cinema wanted to keep the actual outcome of their monster mash ambiguous, letting Jason behead the Nightmare on Elm Street monster, but having Freddy give the camera a knowing wink at the end. However, it is unquestionably a bad Jason movie and a good Freddy movie.

Sure, Jason gets in some cool kills and there is a part where he rips off Freddy &#8217, s arms and attacks him with them. However, other than that, director Ronny Yu&#8217’s hyper fight style and reliance on digital effects suit Freddy much better than Jason, and Robert Englund has a blast reprising his signature role. All in all, Freddy vs. Jason manages to be a functional monster mash with a pretty coherent story. However, if you’re here for Jason and are willing to pay a premium, you’ll be disappointed.

7. 1980’s Friday the 13th

As discussed earlier, the first Friday the 13th is little more than a rip off of Halloween with a little bit of Carrie. The Burning will be released the following year, so it doesn’t even get to call itself the best camp slasher of all time. Instead, it &#8217, s a pretty by-the-numbers whodunnit with none of the flash or style of the Italian Giallo that precede it.

However, Friday the 13th receives two favorable marks. First, the movie has an absolute ringer in Betsy Palmer as Pamela Voorhees. In her final scenes, she convincingly pulls a reverse Norman Bates routine and channels her son, chewing on the scenery. Second, Friday the 13th has effects by Tom Savini, who gives the film a level of gore quality that, frankly, it does n&#8217, t deserve. If the film didn’t produce any sequels, it would be remembered as a curio. Instead, it has to fall midway on a ranking in the franchise it started.

6. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning ( 1985 )

Paramount made an effort to keep its word. The studio really did kill Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part IV. Paramount attempted to return to the drawing board when box office receipts made it clear that they couldn’t just ignore this profitable franchise. A New Beginning is another whodunnit with a new person doing the killing. Is it Jason who has come back from the dead? Is it Tommy Jarvis, the troubled boy who was sent to a juvenile home after killing the killer in the previous entry?

No, it &#8217 is not Roy, an ambulance driver we only see once at the beginning of the film, who commits murder after his obnoxious son is killed by a teenager with an anger issue. That massive flub aside&#8211, and it is a big one&#8211, A New Beginning is actually kinda fun. And it has a kill sequence that lasts forever thanks to the reliable Miguel Nuez Jr., an outhouse, and some burritos.

5. The New Blood ( 1988 ) is the title of Friday the 13th Part VII.

The biggest knock against Freddy vs. Jason is that it learned nothing from the far superior seventh entry in the franchise, in which Freddy fights Carrie White. Okay, it’s not really Carrie White, but teen Tina ( Lar Park Lincoln ) does share the same psychokinetic powers and parent issues as the well-known character from the Stephen King novel and Brian DePalma movie. On the orders of her unscrupulous therapist, Tina goes to Camp Crystal Lake for isolated study, and inadvertently brings Jason back from his watery grave.

From there, Jason has plenty of room to do what he does best in The New Blood. As so often happens with the top entries on this list, censors did cut down a lot of the movie, which diminishes the shock of its best kill scenes. There is something triumphant in watching Jason shove a weed eater into the therapist’s face, even if we don’t get all the bloody gory.

4. Part 2 of Friday the 13th ( 1981 )

It would n&#8217, t be accurate to say that this list would not exist without Friday the 13th Part 2. However, that statement isn’t entirely accurate either. Part 2 took everything good about its predecessor and did it better, actually giving us Jason in the flesh and an excellent final girl in Ginny ( Amy Steel ).

Additionally, Part 2 provides the first illustration of what the franchise actually becomes. A bunch of teens come to the camp, and Jason ( wearing a burlap bag instead of the hockey mask that would be his trademark ) kills them in inventive, gory ways. Part II makes a strong case for Friday the 13th as a reputable series in addition to the pure energy of the kills and an actually intelligent final girl in Ginny.

3. Jason X ( 2001 )

If Friday the 13th Part 2 says that Jason deserves respect, then Jason X suggests maybe he does n&#8217, t. And that &#8217, s a good thing. Jason X belongs to the long and odd line of horror films that transport their murderers to space. Although that approach has had mixed results with the Leprechaun or Pinhead, it still works well with Jason.

Well, mostly perfectly. There are so many characters, and Jason X wants so badly to be a Kevin Williamson or Joss Whedon movie, and he can’t say anything without dripping it in snark. Yet, these annoyances aside, it &#8217, s hard not to cheer when uber-Jason takes the stage or when he&#8217, s killing people with space-age weapons and chemicals.

2. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives ( 1986 )

Jason Lives was Scream before Scream in Part VI. Okay, okay, that &#8217, s going too far. However, Part VI has a metatextual quality that both acknowledges the absurdity of the franchise and firmly places it in horror history. Jason Lives completes the Tommy Jarvis trilogy with yet another actor playing the part ( Thom Matthews here ), but it makes him into a proper Jason hunter and gives him a reason to accidentally resurrect the killer.

Even better, the film strikes a balance between clever jokes and effective kills. There&#8217, s, of course, the James Bond opening in which Jason throws a machete at the screen. However, there is also the pitch black joke when one child realizes that Jason is coming to get him and asks,” So, what did you want to be when you were growing up?” &#8221, A genuinely smart Friday the 13th movie? Believe it or not, yes!

1. The final chapter of Friday the 13th ( 1984 )

It took four movies for Friday the 13th to get it right. But man, did it actually get it right? The Final Chapter is the platonic ideal of a slasher movie. It has interesting victims, is lean, and some incredible and unforgettable kills. It even has a great kid performance from Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis at his youngest and awesome Savini effects.

The Final Chapter‘s plot isn’t anything special, either. Again, we have teens coming to party at the campground, at the same time that single mom Mrs. Jarvis ( Joan Freeman ) arrives with her kids Trish ( Kimberly Beck ) and Tommy. However, that skewed plot allows for some excellent kills and for the teens to stand out. I mean, when you have Crispin Glover as a slasher movie teen, you don&#8217, t need any plot. The Final Chapter is what every Friday the 13th movie should be, sparse and straightforward.

On Den of Geek, the second post Friday the 13th Movies Ranked appeared.

Although I’m not sure when I first heard this statement, it has over the centuries stuck in my mind. How do you generate solutions for scenarios you can’t think? Or create items that are functional on products that have not yet been created?

Flash, Photoshop, and flexible style

When I first started designing sites, my go-to technology was Photoshop. I set about making a layout that I would eventually fall content into a 960px cloth. The growth phase was about attaining pixel-perfect reliability using set widths, fixed levels, and absolute placement.

All of this was altered by Ethan Marcotte’s speak at An Event Apart and the subsequent article in A Checklist Off in 2010. I was sold on reactive style as soon as I heard about it, but I was even terrified. The pixel-perfect models full of special figures that I had formerly prided myself on producing were no longer good enough.

My first encounter with reactive style didn’t help my fear. My second project was to get an active fixed-width website and make it reactive. You can’t really put responsiveness at the end of a job, which I learned the hard way. To make smooth design, you need to prepare throughout the style stage.

A new way to style

Making flexible or smooth websites has always been about removing restrictions and creating content that can be viewed on any system. It relies on the use of percentage-based design, which I immediately achieved with local CSS and power groups:

.column-span-6 { width: 49%; float: left; margin-right: 0.5%; margin-left: 0.5%;}.column-span-4 { width: 32%; float: left; margin-right: 0.5%; margin-left: 0.5%;}.column-span-3 { width: 24%; float: left; margin-right: 0.5%; margin-left: 0.5%;}

Therefore with Sass but that I could use @includes to re-use repeated blocks of code and transition to more semantic premium:

.logo { @include colSpan(6);}.search { @include colSpan(3);}.social-share { @include colSpan(3);}

Media concerns

The next ingredient for flexible design is press queries. Without them, regardless of whether the content remained readable, would shrink to fit the available space. ( The exact opposite issue developed with the introduction of a mobile-first approach. )

Media concerns prevented this by allowing us to add breakpoints where the design could adapt. Like most people, I started out with three breakpoints: one for desktop, one for tablets, and one for mobile. Over the years, I added more and more for phablets, wide screens, and so on. 

For years, I happily worked this way and improved both my design and front-end skills in the process. The only problem I encountered was making changes to content, since with our Sass grid system in place, there was no way for the site owners to add content without amending the markup—something a small business owner might struggle with. This is because each row in the grid was defined using a div as a container. Adding content meant creating new row markup, which requires a level of HTML knowledge.

String premium was a mainstay of early flexible design, present in all the frequently used systems like Bootstrap and Skeleton.

 
1 of 7
 
2 of 7
 
3 of 7
 
4 of 7
 
5 of 7
 
6 of 7
 
7 of 7

Another difficulty arose as I moved from a design firm building websites for tiny- to medium-sized companies, to larger in-house teams where I worked across a collection of related sites. In those positions, I began to work more frequently with recyclable parts.

Our rely on multimedia queries resulted in parts that were tied to frequent window sizes. If the goal of part libraries is modify, then this is a real problem because you can just use these components if the devices you’re designing for correspond to the viewport sizes used in the pattern library—in the process never really hitting that “devices that don’t already occur” goal.

Then there’s the problem of space. Media concerns allow components to adapt based on the viewport size, but what if I put a component into a sidebar, like in the figure below?

Container queries: our savior or a false dawn?

Container queries have long been touted as an improvement upon media queries, but at the time of writing are unsupported in most browsers. There are workarounds for JavaScript, but they can lead to dependencies and compatibility issues. The basic theory underlying container queries is that elements should change based on the size of their parent container and not the viewport width, as seen in the following illustrations.

One of the biggest arguments in favor of container queries is that they help us create components or design patterns that are truly reusable because they can be picked up and placed anywhere in a layout. This is an important step in moving toward a form of component-based design that works at any size on any device.

In other words, responsive layouts are to be replaced by responsive components.

Container queries will help us move from designing pages that respond to the browser or device size to designing components that can be placed in a sidebar or in the main content, and respond accordingly.

My issue is that layout is still used to determine when a design needs to adapt. This approach will always be restrictive, as we will still need pre-defined breakpoints. For this reason, my main question with container queries is, How would we decide when to change the CSS used by a component?

The best place to make that choice is probably a component library that is disconnected from context and real content.

As the diagrams below illustrate, we can use container queries to create designs for specific container widths, but what if I want to change the design based on the image size or ratio?

In this example, the dimensions of the container are not what should dictate the design, rather, the image is.

Without having strong cross-browser support for them, it’s difficult to say for certain whether container queries will be a success story. Responsive component libraries would definitely evolve how we design and would improve the possibilities for reuse and design at scale. However, we might always need to modify these elements to fit our content.

CSS is changing

Whilst the container query debate rumbles on, there have been numerous advances in CSS that change the way we think about design. The days of fixed-width elements measured in pixels and floated div elements used to cobble layouts together are long gone, consigned to history along with table layouts. Flexbox and CSS Grid have revolutionized layouts for the web. We can now create elements that wrap onto new rows when they run out of space, not when the device changes.

.wrapper { display: grid; grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, 450px); gap: 10px;}

The repeat() function paired with auto-fit or auto-fill allows us to specify how much space each column should use while leaving it up to the browser to decide when to spill the columns onto a new line. Similar things can be achieved with Flexbox, as elements can wrap over multiple rows and “flex” to fill available space. 

.wrapper { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; justify-content: space-between;}.child { flex-basis: 32%; margin-bottom: 20px;}

You don’t need to wrap elements in container rows, which is the biggest benefit of all of this. Without rows, content isn’t tied to page markup in quite the same way, allowing for removals or additions of content without additional development.

This is a big step forward when it comes to creating designs that allow for evolving content, but the real game changer for flexible designs is CSS Subgrid.

Remember the days of crafting perfectly aligned interfaces, only for the customer to add an unbelievably long header almost as soon as they’re given CMS access, like the illustration below?

Subgrid allows elements to respond to adjustments in their own content and in the content of sibling elements, helping us create designs more resilient to change.

.wrapper { display: grid; grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, minmax(150px, 1fr)); grid-template-rows: auto 1fr auto; gap: 10px;}.sub-grid { display: grid; grid-row: span 3; grid-template-rows: subgrid; /* sets rows to parent grid */}

CSS Grid allows us to separate layout and content, thereby enabling flexible designs. Meanwhile, Subgrid allows us to create designs that can adapt in order to suit morphing content. Subgrid is only supported by Firefox at the time of writing, but the above code can be implemented behind an @supports feature query.

Intrinsic layouts

I’d be remiss not to mention intrinsic layouts, a term used by Jen Simmons to describe a mix of contemporary and traditional CSS features used to create layouts that respond to available space.

Responsive layouts have flexible columns using percentages. Intrinsic layouts, on the other hand, use the fr unit to create flexible columns that won’t ever shrink so much that they render the content illegible.

frunits is a statement that says I want you to distribute the extra space in this manner, but never that it should be smaller than the content inside.

—Jen Simmons,” Designing Intrinsic Layouts”

Additionally, intrinsic layouts can mix and match both fixed and flexible units, letting the content choose how much space is taken up.

What makes intrinsic design stand out is that it not only creates designs that can withstand future devices but also helps scale design without losing flexibility. Without having the same breakpoints or the same amount of content as in the previous implementation, components and patterns can be lifted and reused.

We can now create designs that adapt to the space they have, the content within them, and the content around them. We can create responsive components using an intrinsic approach without relying on container queries.

Another 2010 moment?

This intrinsic approach should in my view be every bit as groundbreaking as responsive web design was ten years ago. It’s another instance of “everything changed,” in my opinion.

But it doesn’t seem to be moving quite as fast, I haven’t yet had that same career-changing moment I had with responsive design, despite the widely shared and brilliant talk that brought it to my attention.

One possible explanation for that might be that I now work for a sizable company, which is significantly different from the role I held as a design agency in 2010: In my agency days, every new project was a clean slate, a chance to try something new. Nowadays, projects use existing tools and frameworks and are often improvements to existing websites with an existing codebase.

Another possibility is that I’m now more prepared for change. In 2010 I was new to design in general, the shift was frightening and required a lot of learning. Additionally, an intrinsic approach isn’t exactly all-new; it’s about applying existing skills and CSS knowledge in a unique way.

You can’t framework your way out of a content problem

Another reason for the slightly slower adoption of intrinsic design could be the lack of quick-fix framework solutions available to kick-start the change.

Ten years ago, responsive grid systems were everywhere. With a framework like Bootstrap or Skeleton, you had a responsive design template at your fingertips.

Because having a selection of units is a hindrance when creating layout templates, intrinsic design and frameworks do not work together quite as well. The beauty of intrinsic design is combining different units and experimenting with techniques to get the best for your content.

And then there are design tools. We probably all used Photoshop templates for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices at some point in our careers to drop designs in and demonstrate how the site would look at each of the three stages.

How do you do that now, with each component responding to content and layouts flexing as and when they need to? Personally, I’m a big fan of this kind of design in the browser.

The debate about “whether designers should code” is another that has rumbled on for years. When designing a digital product, we should, at the very least, design for a best- and worst-case scenario when it comes to content. It’s not ideal to implement this in a graphics-based software package. In code, we can add longer sentences, more radio buttons, and extra tabs, and watch in real time as the design adapts. Still in use? Is the design too reliant on the current content?

Personally, I look forward to the day intrinsic design is the standard for design, when a design component can be truly flexible and adapt to both its space and content with no reliance on device or container dimensions.

Content should come first

Content is not constant. After all, to design for the unanticipated or unexpected, we must take into account changes in content, like in our earlier Subgrid card illustration, which allowed the cards to modify both their own content and that of their sibling components.

Thankfully, there’s more to CSS than layout, and plenty of properties and values can help us put content first. Subgrid and pseudo-elements like ::first-line and ::first-letter help to separate design from markup so we can create designs that allow for changes.

Instead of dated markup tricks like this —

 First line of text with different styling...

—we can target content based on where it appears.

.element::first-line { font-size: 1.4em;}.element::first-letter { color: red;}

Much bigger additions to CSS include logical properties, which change the way we construct designs using logical dimensions (start and end) instead of physical ones (left and right), something CSS Grid also does with functions like min(), max(), and clamp().

This flexibility allows for directional changes according to content, a common requirement when we need to present content in multiple languages. In the past, this was often achieved with Sass mixins but was often limited to switching from left-to-right to right-to-left orientation.

Directional variables must be set in the Sass version.

$direction: rtl;$opposite-direction: ltr;$start-direction: right;$end-direction: left;

These variables can be used as values—

body { direction: $direction; text-align: $start-direction;}

—or as real estate.

margin-#{$end-direction}: 10px;padding-#{$start-direction}: 10px;

However, now we have native logical properties, removing the reliance on both Sass ( or a similar tool ) and pre-planning that necessitated using variables throughout a codebase. These properties also start to break apart the tight coupling between a design and strict physical dimensions, creating more flexibility for changes in language and in direction.

margin-block-end: 10px;padding-block-start: 10px;

There are also native start and end values for properties like text-align, which means we can replace text-align: right with text-align: start.

Like the earlier examples, these properties help to build out designs that aren’t constrained to one language, the design will reflect the content’s needs.

Fluid and fixed

We briefly covered the power of combining fixed widths with fluid widths with intrinsic layouts. The min() and max() functions are a similar concept, allowing you to specify a fixed value with a flexible alternative. 

For min() this means setting a fluid minimum value and a maximum fixed value.

.element { width: min(50%, 300px);}

The element in the figure above will be 50 % of its container as long as the element’s width doesn’t exceed 300px.

For max() we can set a flexible max value and a minimum fixed value.

.element { width: max(50%, 300px);}

Now the element will be 50 % of its container as long as the element’s width is at least 300px. This means we can set limits but allow content to react to the available space.

The clamp() function builds on this by allowing us to set a preferred value with a third parameter. Now we can allow the element to shrink or grow if it needs to without getting to a point where it becomes unusable.

.element { width: clamp(300px, 50%, 600px);}

This time, the element’s width will be 50 % of its container’s preferred value, with no exceptions for 300px and 600px.

With these techniques, we have a content-first approach to responsive design. We can separate content from markup, meaning the changes users make will not affect the design. By making plans for unanticipated changes in language or direction, we can begin to future-proof designs. And we can increase flexibility by setting desired dimensions alongside flexible alternatives, allowing for more or less content to be displayed correctly.

First, the circumstances

Thanks to what we’ve discussed so far, we can cover device flexibility by changing our approach, designing around content and space instead of catering to devices. But what about that last bit of Jeffrey Zeldman’s quote,”… situations you haven’t imagined”?

It’s a completely different design process for someone using a mobile phone and moving through a crowded street in glaring sunshine from a person using a desktop computer. Situations and environments are hard to plan for or predict because they change as people react to their own unique challenges and tasks.

This is why making a choice is so crucial. One size never fits all, so we need to design for multiple scenarios to create equal experiences for all our users.

Thankfully, there is a lot we can do to provide choice.

Responsible design is important.

” There are parts of the world where mobile data is prohibitively expensive, and where there is little or no broadband infrastructure”.

On a 50 MB budget, I spent a day surfing the web.

Chris Ashton

One of the biggest assumptions we make is that people interacting with our designs have a good wifi connection and a wide screen monitor. However, in the real world, our users may be commuters using smaller mobile devices that may experience drops in connectivity while traveling on trains or other modes of transportation. There is nothing more frustrating than a web page that won’t load, but there are ways we can help users use less data or deal with sporadic connectivity.

The srcset attribute allows the browser to decide which image to serve. This means we can create smaller ‘cropped’ images to display on mobile devices in turn using less bandwidth and less data.

The preload attribute can also help us to think about how and when media is downloaded. It can be used to tell a browser about any critical assets that need to be downloaded with high priority, improving perceived performance and the user experience. 

There’s also native lazy loading, which indicates assets that should only be downloaded when they are needed.

With srcset, preload, and lazy loading, we can start to tailor a user’s experience based on the situation they find themselves in. What none of this does, however, is allow the user themselves to decide what they want downloaded, as the decision is usually the browser’s to make. 

So how can we put users in control?

The return of media inquiries

Media concerns have always been about much more than device sizes. They allow content to adapt to different situations, with screen size being just one of them.

We’ve long been able to check for media types like print and speech and features such as hover, resolution, and color. These checks allow us to provide options that suit more than one scenario, it’s less about one-size-fits-all and more about serving adaptable content.

The Level 5 spec for Media Queries is still being developed as of this writing. It introduces some really exciting queries that in the future will help us design for multiple other unexpected situations.

For instance, there is a light-level feature that enables you to alter a user’s style when they are in the sun or the darkness. Paired with custom properties, these features allow us to quickly create designs or themes for specific environments.

@media (light-level: normal) { --background-color: #fff; --text-color: #0b0c0c; }@media (light-level: dim) { --background-color: #efd226; --text-color: #0b0c0c;}

Another key feature of the Level 5 spec is personalization. Instead of creating designs that are the same for everyone, users can choose what works for them. This is achieved by using features like prefers-reduced-data, prefers-color-scheme, and prefers-reduced-motion, the latter two of which already enjoy broad browser support. These features tap into preferences set via the operating system or browser so people don’t have to spend time making each site they visit more usable. 

Media concerns like this go beyond choices made by a browser to grant more control to the user.

Expect the unexpected

In the end, we should always anticipate that things will change. Devices in particular change faster than we can keep up, with foldable screens already on the market.

We can design for content, but we can’t do it the same way we have for this constantly changing landscape. By putting content first and allowing that content to adapt to whatever space surrounds it, we can create more robust, flexible designs that increase the longevity of our products.

A lot of the CSS discussed here is about moving away from layouts and putting content at the heart of design. There is a lot more we can do to adopt a more intrinsic approach, from responsive components to fixed and fluid units. Even better, we can test these techniques during the design phase by designing in-browser and watching how our designs adapt in real-time.

When it comes to unexpected circumstances, we need to make sure our goods are usable when people need them, whenever and wherever that may be. We can move closer to achieving this by involving users in our design decisions, by creating choice via browsers, and by giving control to our users with user-preference-based media queries.

Good design for the unexpected should allow for change, provide choice, and give control to those we serve: our users themselves.