Hi, Mom!
Last night, Friday the 13th, my teenager and I watched Kevin Bacon get an arrow through the throat under the stars. As a part of the Coolidge Corner Theatre’s After Midnite film series, the theatre, in conjunction with the Trustees of Reservations, presented a double-feature in the open air. At Rocky Woods Reservation in Medfield, Massachusetts, cinephiles brought lawn chairs and blankets and gathered in forty-degree weather to watch Friday the 13th and Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI, in the woods. There were bonfires and hot cocoa and popcorn and Jason. Yes, I said Jason, and not just on the screen. As part of Rocky Woods’ transformation from a lovely park full of hiking trails and a pond (where I skated as a child) to Camp Crystal Lake, the Coolidge arranged for the big man himself to show up for photo ops and to menace the audience.
What a trip! A Boston Burger Company food truck made burgers and fries for the audience of Jason devotees who devoured them and the films. We laughed at the ever-fashionable cutoffs and suspenders and jumped at the axes to the face and other creative bits of violence and had a great time. I’m impressed with how smoothly everything ran and with how good the film looked at an outdoor venue on a windy night with real leaves falling in front of the screen. Whoever came up with this idea needs a raise. What an entertaining night!
My teen getting a trim from the master.
Since I wrote this in November of 2015, the Coolidge has held three (?) other screenings of different Friday the 13th films at Rocky Woods and I’ve been to nearly all of them. One may have been cancelled because of a rainstorm that would have made Noah consider postponing. They’ve all been fun, well-organized, and full of enthusiastic and congenial fans hanging together in the woods where they huddle under blankets to watch a psychopath kill some campers. It’s a sweet night.
Prowler Needs a Jump 
Leave a Reply