Metacritic reviews

By now, everyone knows what to expect from this kind of movie, but what’s surprising is how the low-budget rawness, cheap film stock bubbling over with grain, and washed-out lighting schemes give the film a kind of base in reality.

No one will mistake this for Quality Cinema, and it's marred by a confusing, murky ending. But there are some good thrills along the way.

Horror fans will probably delight in seeing yet another group of sexy, teen camp counselors gruesomely executed by yet another unknown assailant, but the enthusiasm will dampen once they recognize too many of the same twists and turns used in the original.

FRIDAY the 13th Part II will frighten you, at least for moments, although it will be a close-run thing whether it will be fright, nausea or simple distaste that gets to you first. The movie exists for no other purpose than to shock. The plot is an excuse for joining together horrors, all of the sado-masochist kind, and the acting is rudimentary at best. It probably will make a fortune. [4 May 1981, p.C1]

Miner doesn't linger over the multiple throat-slashings and skull-splittings. Comparatively speaking, he seems less bloodthirsty than the directors of Friday the 13th, The Exterminator or Mother's Day, to name only a few competitors of grosser gruesomeness. [13 May 1981, p.B6]

Somehow, this one's even worse than the first. Called a sequel, it's basically the same movie, except that this time a different cast of teenagers gets killed in the usual, very graphic manner.

The same covey of kids assemble at a summer camp to meet their predictable fate. Once again, their thespian talents defy assessment, since most hang around just long enough to take off the limited clothes of the American teen-ager and take on the limited role of the bloody victim - both acts performed just once, always in that order. [04 May 1981]

This movie is a cross between the Mad Slasher and Dead teenager genres; about two dozen movies a year feature a mad killer going berserk, and they're all about as bad as this one.