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Last October, we dove into the careers of famous horror directors like Dario Argento, Tobe Hooper, and Wes Craven, and this year we're going in a different direction: Franchise town! This October we're going to be digging into some of the most skin-filled franchises in all of horror cinema, starting with probably the most famous and culturally relevant of them all, Friday the 13th.

The quintessential 80s franchise, Friday the 13th neatly spanned the 80s until being dragged into the 90s and eventually the new millennium. It went from being a reflection of the more conservative country America was in the 80s to a relic of a bygone era that feels oddly quaint now for its puritanical views on the consequences of sex and promiscuity.

It's also by far the most skin-filled franchise there is, so let's dig in, there's a lot to get through...

Friday the 13th (1980)

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

For a film that launched an entire franchise that's still culturally relevant nearly 40 years later, Friday the 13th is about as inauspicious a debut film as the slasher genre has. Among its contemporaries, it's also the only one not directed by a real deal filmmaker. Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, andTexas Chainsaw Massacre had three of the great horror directors of all time at the helm, but Friday's Sean S. Cunningham's career and cultural relevance didn't move far beyond this series.

While the teens in flicks like Halloween and Texas Chainsaw were certainly randy, there wasn't a direct correlation between promiscuity and murder in those films the way there is in this one. It's clear that the horny teens are the ones being targeted first and we later learn that it was a horny pair of neglectful teens that caused the death of killer Mrs. Voorhees' son Jason. In case you've forgotten or somehow weren't informed, yes, the killer in this entry turns out to be Jason's mom.Jason's pretty much a non-factor in the film until the jump scare ending, which is deliberately ripping off De Palma's Carrie from four years earlier.

Back to those horny teens, the first pair of teens we see sneaking off to get busy comes in the film's cold open set in 1959, the year after Jason's drowning death. There's no nudity fromDebra S. Hayes' Claudette before she and lover Barry are dispatched, but the present day—and yes, the film says "Present Day" not 1980—brings a glut of horny teens to take their place. Strip poker players Brenda (Laurie Bartram) and final girl Alice (Adrienne King) don't end up showing anything beyond the skimpy bikinis and underwear they're seen in, however Jeannine Taylor's Marcie is another story!

She's the frisky girlfriend to Kevin Bacon's speedo-wearing himbo Jack and the two sneak off to have sex around the 35 minute mark and we see Jeannine's ass as she begins to get undressed, followed by a look at her breasts as she enjoys Bacon's non-kosher delicacy...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

It is soon revealed that while they've been banging on the bottom bunk, their prankster buddy Ned (Mark Nelson) is dead on the top bunk, placed there by the killer after murdering him in another cabin—one of several huge inconsistencies when you later realize the killer is a woman in her mid-50s. Bacon then gets an arrow through the throat and poor Jeannine ends up with an axe buried in her face, but such is the price you pay for having sex in a Friday the 13th movie.

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

After the first film's box office success—it grossed almost $40 million against a budget of only $500,000—Paramount capitalized on the notion of churning out a new Friday the 13th movie every year, and it was producerPhil Scuderi who hit upon the notion of using Jason as the killer moving forward. Aggravated with this pitch, Cunningham left the franchise and Associate Producer on the first film Steve Miner stepped in to direct the next two films. Jason is indeed the killer this time around, though he has yet to adopt his signature hockey mask and spends most of his time concealing his disfigured face with a potato sack.

Poor Alice, the sole survivor of the first film, gets an icepick in her own head after discovering the severed head of Mrs. Voorhees in her fridge in the film's cold open, and we're off to the races with a more skin-filled adventure than the first time around. Like the first film, it takes a while to get to the nudity, which comes first courtesy of Kirsten Baker, who goes skinny dipping at the 46 minute mark...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

Our peeping tom killer also spies something he likes in the form of Lauren-Marie Taylor's bush as she changes panties in her cabin, directly in front of the screen door for all the world to see...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

Unlike the first film, all of the nudity here is POV, with this being the first film to indicate a direction correlation between Jason seeing them nude and then later killing them. These undertones would of course be ramped up in the sequel, for as the country moved further to the right in the Reagan-era, the link between promiscuity and death was less subtly presented to an ever-more conservative audience.Part 2 was in theaters less than a year after the first film April 30, 1981 compared to the first film's May 10, 1980 release date, and all the subsequent sequels would be Spring releases, compared with Halloween which released most of its films in October or late Summer, and Elm Street which bounced between Fall and late Summer.

There's also a shot in this film recycled into about four or five of the subsequent sequels where wheelchair-bound Mark takes a machete to the face and then falls backwards down the stairs from The Exorcist, it's just fun to see it originate here before it becomes played to death.

Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982)

A lot of what we think of when we think of a Friday the 13th movie really starts to come together here. With the franchise's love of constantlyre-delivering the same exposition on Jason's background, this is as good a place to start as any if you're looking to boil this franchise down to its essence. In fact, if you want to just watch, say, three of these movies, Parts 3, IV, and IV are probably the best of what the series has to offer.

Jason's iconichockey mask finally shows up in this entry, courtesy of prankster Shelly who gets sadly killed off-screen like another famous prankster in the first flick, Ned.The film was originally released in 3D, as the country was in the midst of a short-lived love of the technology, but it sadly leaves the yo-yo and other assorted 3D effects looking pretty stupid in 2D and high definition. The series does backslide a bit here in terms of skin, only giving us one nude scene from the lovely Tracie Savage, who bares her breasts in the shower. Tracie would go on to become an NBC news anchor in Los Angeles from the mid 90s to the early aughts...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

We learn earlier in the film that Tracie's character Debbie is pregnant gasp and unmarried double gasp, so of course she ends up with a knife in her chest moments later as she relaxes in a hammock. The series also got its first truly kick ass final girl in Dana Kimmell's Chris Higgins, who is at the lake house with the intention of confronting her demons and ends up literally confronting a demon. It's a shame they more or less dispose of her in favor of Tommy Jarvis, but for a minute there, it seemed like she might have been a legit Laurie Strode-type recurring heroine.

Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984)

For the first time, the studio took a two year break between films, firstly to reassess things and secondly to determine if the slasher genre was well and truly on its way out. In a move of enormous hubris—retrospectively, of course—Paramount decided that this would be the last film in the series and slapped the "The Final Chapter" subtitle on. Little did they know that subtitles would soon come to rule this franchise.If you're looking to boil the series down even further into the "if you can only watch one" territory, this is the one to watch. Exploitation master Joseph Zito (The Prowler) was at the helm and makeup effects wizard Tom Savini returned to the franchise one last time after doing gore effects on the first film.

This film features the introduction of Tommy Jarvis, played here as a child by Corey Feldman, who would become the pseudo-protagonist of the series, appearing in the next two films after this, although played by different actors. Thinking this was gonna be their last rodeo, they pulled out all the stops not only in terms of some great kills,Crispin Glover's amazing dance and even more amazing death scene, and most of all, the nudity. The sensationally stacked Judie Aronson strips off her top to go skinny dipping, later faking out final girl Trish Jarvis (Kimberley Beck) by floating out from under the dock pretending to be dead...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

She also meets twins Tina and Terri—played by real life twins Camilla More and Carey More—who join in the skinny dipping fun...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

After a killer house party, folks pair off to have sex including Crispin Glover and Camilla More, who gets chucked out a window by Jason not long after this...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

We also get to see Barbara Howard's buns pressed up against the shower door as she and her guy get busy in the shower. He doesn't make it out of the shower, but she does, only to end up with an axe in her chest...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

Despite Paramount's obvious intentions for this to be the last film, it had the highest opening weekend of any film in the franchise save the 2009 remake, and grossed more than Part 2 and only slightly less than Part 3, so they greenlit another sequel...

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

One of the weakest films in the franchise is this attempt to quasi-reboot things with a new killer that fails pretty spectacularly. After a cold opening featuring Corey Feldman reprising his role as Tommy Jarvis, the film jumps ahead in time roughly ten years and Tommy—now played by the cinematic equivalent of a wet sandwich, John Shepherd—is off to a halfway house. Long story short, the killings start up again but it's not Jason this time around, it's an ambulance driver named Roy who has taken the Jason iconography and used it to his own ends. There's the nugget of a good idea in the premise, but the film does nothing with it.

This is one of those cases of a film in this franchise that's worth only checking out here on Mr. Skin because it actually features some of the best nudity in the series. All-time series legend Debi Sue Voorhees may have caught the casting director's attention thanks to her surname, but her amazing topless sex scene in the woods is probably the single best topless scene in the franchise...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

Some of Tommy's other halfway house friends end up biting it as well like Juliette Cummins' Robin...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

And townie Lana, played by Rebecca Wood, also goes topless before getting the axe, literally...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

Future Juwanna Man star Miguel A. Núñez Jr. also shows up in the flick to serenade his girl with a knock-off version of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" while he takes a shit. In addition to that terrible song, the film also features one of the greatest New Wave songs ever on its soundtrack, "His Eyes" by Pseudo Echo, which serves as the soundtrack to poor goth girl Violet (Tiffany Helm)'s death...

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

Following the only skinless entry in the franchise, not to mention the most overtly comedic in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, was no small feat for this flick and while this is a lesser entry in Paramount's portion of the franchise, it's not as bad as the stuff that followed. Ostensibly pitched as Jason vs. Carrie, this flick originally began life as a Freddy vs Jason movie before negotiations between Paramount and New Line fell apart.

Paramount proceeded with their basic framework involving billionaire land developers covering upCrystal Lake's murderous past and just made a telekinetic teen named Tina (Lar Park Lincoln) Jason's antagonist this time around. It's also fun to see a non-mustachioed Terry Kiser here just a year prior to playing the title character in Weekend at Bernie's, playing Tina's crooked doctor.

36 minutes into the flick we get our first nude scene courtesy of the gorgeous Heidi Kozak, who strips down to go skinny dipping, as women in this franchise are always wont to do, though she ends up getting pulled underwater and drowned...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

We also get a nice look at Elizabeth Kaitan's breasts after she and her boyfriend David have sex, though she gets chucked out a window—as women in this franchise are also wont to do—not long after...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

While there's really not much else to write home about here, including a third act showdown that reeks of having its budget slashed, there's also the amazing sleeping bag kill, which is probably my favorite kill in the entire franchise.

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

The first Paramount-era came to a close with the 1980s and this lackluster effort with a titular promise the film fails to deliver on until the final fifteen minutes of the film. Mostly it's just Jason and a bunch of horny teens on a boat, and frankly the teens aren't even all that horny this time around. Thankfully the film's cold open has some nudity from Tiffany Paulsen, before she and her boyfriend meet the wrong end of a harpoon...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

The only nudity on Jason's boat trip to Manhattan comes courtesy of Sharlene Martin's Tamara, whose buns can be seen after she showers and before she gets shanked with a shard of mirror by Jason...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

Unsurprisingly, the film was the biggest financial failure in the franchise until that point, grossing only $14 million compared with the relatively paltry $19 million haul of the last two movies. Paramount's time with the franchise was at an end—for now—as Jason moved over to the house that Freddy built.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

With Jason now at New Line, the franchise took a few years to get revived and this seriously lackluster effort was the result of a four year hiatus. This film tries desperately hard to create a new magical mythology for Jason Voorhees and the Voorhees family that reeks of the same "trying to make sense of it all" problem that plagued the Halloween movies for a while. The film also features one of the dumbest cold openings in the franchise with an FBI sting being run by FBI agent Julie Michaels, who strips down to get in the tub in the opening scene as a set-up to lure Jason to the booby-trapped room...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

When the action eventually moves back to Crystal Lake, we get a nice look at Kathryn Atwoodtopless in the woods on a camping trip...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

Michelle Clunie also goes topless for some tent sex, meeting a bloody end not long after...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

Of course, the entire film exists only for a set-up just before the end credits teasing a showdown between Misters Vorhees and Krueger, though it would take New Line an entire decade to get these two horror heavyweights to square off.

Jason X (2001)

New Line dusted off the franchise for this first entry of the new millennium which is basically an expensive Jason Voorhees fan film that finds the slasher in the future and in space to boot. Beginning in the then-far off year of 2010 before jumping ahead to the year 2455, where humans now live on the cleverly named Earth 2 thanks to the pollution that has made the original planet earth uninhabitable.

The circumstances under which Jason Voorhees ends up terrorizing horny future teens are almost too ridiculous to describe, but the future in this film features a Holodeck-like technology that allows the future society to put Jason in a Crystal Lake simulation complete with topless temptresses Kaye Penaflor and Tania Maro on hand to get Jason's killer instincts flowing...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

There's also a weird android character named KM14 played by Lisa Ryder, who shows that her breasts have no nipples...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Sorry kids, but we're gonna hold off on this one until we cover the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise in two weeks. Tune in then or, if it's after October 18, click here to read that article.

Friday the 13th (2009)

The franchise returned to Paramount—though New Line and Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes also helped bring this reboot to the screen—with this borderline unwatchable attempt to revitalize things for a new generation. It's an abject failure in almost every respect, having no distinct look of its own—thanks to having remake director extraordinaire Marcus Nispel at the helm.

The film features two cold openings before the story proper begins nearly thirty minutes into the movie. The best thing about the second cold open is that it features America Olivo going briefly topless before getting dispatched along with all of her friends...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

The story jumps forward six weeks and we're introduced to another group of horny teens including Willa Ford, who does some topless waterskiing before ending up dead with a machete driven into her head...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

Of course, the film's best nudity—and probably the only rival to Debi Sue Voorhees for best breasts in the franchise—comes courtesy of Julianna Guill, who bares her breasts in bed with her beau before being dispatched by Jason herself...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the 'Friday the 13th' Franchise

The franchise has since languished with no signs of being revived anytime soon—another reboot has been in development hell since 2012. It's probably just a franchise that never should've left the 80s, and I hope that any future attempts to reboot the franchise again should set it in the 80s. Or just let it die. There's been enough great kills, enough great nudity, and probably enough to tide us all over until the end of time.

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Non-nude images via IMDb