Friday the 13th: The Series episode review — 1.8 — Shadow Boxer

Original air date: November 21, 1987
Director: Timothy Bond
Writer: Josh Miller

Rating: 6/10

This is a fairly bad episode for most of its run, but it breaks away from the conventions of the series in a satisfying way towards the end, which makes it fall somewhere in the middle of the first eight episodes, I think.

The cursed object here is a pair of boxing gloves that allows the owner to win whilea shadow punches someone else to death. It’s really weird, and if it sounds like it’s the least frightening thing ever, well it kind of is. But the opening scene is actually able to make it seem pretty threatening.

But when we see the shadow attack Micki and Jack and the two of them are combatting it with light, it’s frankly embarrassing.

Where this episode gets good then is in the falling action, basically. Micki expresses frustrationthat though they have the gloves, the boxer, Tommy Dunn (David Ferry), will never face justice because they couldn’t possibly prove that he was behind some random murders.

At first it was kind of weird because the character drama came out of nowhere, but when Tommy breaks into the shop to threaten Micki with a knife in demand for the gloves, I’m like oh, okay.

And it’s a demented performance from Ferry, who previously hadn’t been too interestingin the episode. It’s a really good performance from Louise Robey as Micki, who is incredibly convincing.

And the whole thing is concluded in a pretty satisfying and clever way, too. Were the rest of the episode like this ending, it’d probably be my favourite so far.