Never Hike Alone 2 is a direct sequel to the Friday the 13th fan films Never Hike Alone and Never Hike in the Snow by Womp Stomp Studios.
Picking up directly from the events of Never Hike Alone, Tommy Jarvis has all but given up on his search for the long lost Jason Voorhees before receiving an emergency call to pick up injured hiker, Kyle McLeod. Setting into motion a blood-soaked conclusion to their decades-long rivalry.
Caught between the chaos is Dr. Diana Hill, still searching for answers to her son's disappearance in Never Hike in the Snow, and the ever stubborn Sheriff Rick Cologne.
Premiering on October 13th, 2023, it can be viewed here
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This Fan Film contains examples of:
- Action Survivor: Diana Hill, who isn't as physically capable as Tommy or Kyle but will not hesitate to put an axe in Jason's skull.
- Bloodier and Gorier: In comparison to its predecessors, this film significantly ups the body count. Bringing it up to the body counts of the traditional Friday the 13th films.
- Blown Across the Room: Tommy shoots Jason point blank with a sawn-off shotgun and sends him careening off the road. Since he had to do it at the last moment and didn't get a chance to brace for the recoil, he gets knocked across the seat divider of the ambulance he's driving in kind.
- Book Ends: The film begins and ends with Tommy overviewing Crystal Lake.
- Boom, Headshot!: Sheriff Cologne manages to inflict this on Jason through the temple, but as to be expected, it doesn't even faze him.
- Brick Joke: A post-credits scene finally shows us "Hikerman 5000". A fan of Kyle's Trail Junkies videos, who Kyle called out while filming an episode in Never Hike Alone.
- The Cameo: The film features cameos of actors from across the Friday the 13th franchise
- Zoran Gvojic of Lowcarbcomedy and Dead Meat fame appears in the film's ending playing an FBI Agent
- Cop Killer: Jason openly takes out several police officers during the hospital rampage and caps it off with killing Rick Cologne.
- Determinator: Jason's always had this, but here he displays a rare willingness to leave his campground territory (without being prodded by some outside force) in his pursuit of Kyle.
- Didn't Think This Through: After confidently taunting Jason with Pamela's severed head, Kyle promptly runs off, remembering that the man he's taunting is a nigh-unstoppable serial killer.
- The End... Or Is It?: Jason's decapitated head shows to make air bubbles in the last shot of the film before the credits.
- Guns Akimbo: Sheriff Cologne tries shooting at Jason with dual laser-sighted handguns during his Last Stand. Naturally, it doesn't bring him down.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Sheriff Rick Cologne pulls off one of these to buy Tommy, Diana and Kyle time to escape Jason, shooting Jason and distracting him while the trio find an engine to escape through an ambulance.
- Immediate Sequel: The main events of the film pick up directly from the ending of Never Hike Alone, being set the day and night after Kyle's encounter with Jason.
- Interquel: The opening portions of the film focuses on what Tommy, Diana, and Sheriff Cologne were doing the day Kyle first ventured to Crystal Lake.
- Missed Him by That Much: As Sheriff Cologne is responding to the initial call from Jarvis, he drives past Jason, who stayed just far enough off the road to blend into the trees at that speed.
- Mythology Gag:
- Roy Burns' blue-chevron hockey mask can be seen on the wall of Tommy's apartment.
- Camp Crystal Lake is said to be located near a road called Cunningham Drive, a previous nod used back in Jason Lives.
- Jason takes an axe to the head in the exact same spot as Part III.
- Pamela Voorhees is "killed" where she was decapitated way back in the original Friday the 13th.
- Never Found the Body: Diana Hill's grief over her son's death isn't helped by the fact that his body hasn't even been found yet and the police keep claiming that he is just missing. She is absolutely livid when Cologne reveals that there was evidence he was murdered but they didn't release any information to the public. At the end of the movie, her son's body is recovered, giving her closure.
- Nightmare Sequence: The four main characters all go through one;
- Tommy opens the film trying to save the younger version of himself (from The Final Chapter) from being drowned by Jason.
- Diana envisions seeing her murdered son, Mark, while at the hospital.
- Kyle wakes up at the hospital with Jason breaking through the window in his room before Tommy snaps him out of it.
- Rick dreams the missing deputy Allen Mabry is at his office and Tommy murdering him soon after.
- Not So Stoic: Jason pauses, and seems to act horrified, after he accidentally destroys the remains of his mother's head (that Kyle was using as a shield).
- Off with His Head!: How Jason is finally taken down, courtesy of Tommy. Though the final scene leaves it unknown if he is permanently out of the picture.
- Redemption Equals Death: After having denied the existence of Jason for so many years and covering up all the deaths caused by him as accidents and missing persons cases, Rick Cologne immediately admits he's wrong once he sees Jason in the flesh, and commences a Heroic Sacrifice to help Tommy, Diana and Kyle escape the killer.
- Sequel Escalation: This film significantly ups the ante from the previous two installments, having a larger number of locations, cast, and a body count comparable to the canon Friday films.
- Soul Jar: Tommy's convinced Pamela Voorhees' decapitated head is what's keeping Jason alive, through some unexplained supernatural means.
- Technologically Blind Elders: Tommy has no concept of what a "YouTuber", like Kyle, is and is baffled by the idea people would watch videos of someone hiking in the woods.
- Villainous BSoD: Jason, after destroying the remains of his mother's head, starts to stare down at his hands in disbelief before he begins to hallucinate her calling out to him from within the lake. To everyone outside his mind, however, he just stops and stares out into the distance.
- Would Hurt a Child: Unlike in the canon movies, where Jason has at least used children but ultimately would not harm them, a couple of missing posters show that children have also gone missing near Camp Crystal Lake, suggesting they were not spared in his killing spree.
