Never Hike In the Snow by Jonny Numb

I’ll be honest: I was a bit hesitant to take a look at the Friday the 13^th fan film, Never Hike in the Snow.

For a while now, I’ve had a dismissive attitude toward “fan films” on a purely conceptual level. Why not channel your creative energy into something new instead of a character and scenario viewers are all too familiar with?

When I step back from this line of thinking, I realize I’m being more than a little hypocritical.

After all, I’ve championed many remakes which found innovative wrinkles in character or narrative to match – and, in some cases, elevate – their source material (Dennis Iliadis’ Last House on the Left is a prime example). The notion of a “remake” tends to be synonymous with “recycling”…but recycling need not be a bad thing. Like any other artistic venture, it all comes down to the handling of the material.

Furthermore, how many horror series have expended millions of dollars in the name of cynical profit while iconic characters get more and more degraded in the process?

Curious Perspective

With that in mind, I approached Never Hike in the Snow from a curious perspective.

But to back up a moment: like many others, I recently picked up the Scream Factory box set of the complete Friday the 13^th series, and promptly began a marathon rewatch (I’d seen the first 8 entries and the 2009 remake, but not the others). After all, while the films have a distinct summertime setting, they acquit themselves well as fall viewing, with atmospheric emphasis on night over day.

Having immersed myself back into the world of Jason Voorhees and the erratic nature of the sequels, I was instantly taken with Never Hike in the Snow, which begins with a tense, well-shot chase through the woods and, in true Friday the 13^thfashion, ends with a creative kill.

The Bloody Payoff

The story revolves around Diana Hill (Anna Campbell) and her son, Mark (Courtlan Gordon) who goes missing in the woods around Camp Crystal Lake. The Sheriff (Vincent Guastaferro) seems unconcerned with this development, while Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews, reprising his role from Jason Lives) insists that Jason’s back on the warpath. Of course, everybody watching knows he’s right.

Writer-director Vincente DiSanti brings a sense of polish and professionalism to the proceedings. There is genuine atmosphere and mood as the plot unfolds over the course of a fateful day, and certain aesthetic touches – night scenes lit by police-cruiser lights, for instance – convey a sense of isolation. The feeling that a killer could be lurking just outside the range of those lights is chilling indeed, and DiSanti exploits this to maximum effect.

That’s another thing: while later series entries suffered from bigger budgets and the need to place Jason front and center, Never Hike in the Snow has more in common with the first two films, which subsisted on Mrs. Voorhees and Jason as lesser-seen threats. This short may be light on kills, but the suspenseful buildup complements the bloody payoff. It returns Jason to his status as a savage boogeyman who’s inextricably bound to the nostalgia for Mother that keeps him prowling the ruins of his childhood campground.

Many of the Friday the 13^th sequel directors spoke of Paramount’s mandate for a “jump or kill” every couple minutes. The fact that Never Hike in the Snow is unbound to such mandates allows it the freedom to tell an actual story. As someone who admires creative kills but doesn’t find them particularly frightening, this is a refreshing approach to expanding the Jason mythos in a way the studio sequels never truly could. Looking forward to where the creative team takes this story next.

(Never Hike in the Snow is available on YouTube. If you like what you see, check out its 2017 precursor, Never Hike Alone.)