Friday the 13th Reviews

I wasn't expecting much from this flick but since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it was certainly a weak reboot of this franchise and, even though it apparently had a strong opening weekend at the box-office, I'm not surprised that they scrapped their plans for any future sequel. I mean, what should you expect from a movie like this one? Still, I actually really enjoyed the very first 'Friday the 13th' and it must be my one of favorite slashers but one of the main reasons this movie worked so well was because Jason's mother was actually the killer but since Jason Voorhees has always been iconic to this franchise, they decided to focus on him instead. What bothered me even more with this movie was the fact that, even though it was not even 100 mins, it still felt so damned long which was definitely not a good sign. The fact that they butchered 2 different groups of kids didn't help either since they had to restart the story a second time around. I was also surprised by the amount of nudity which belongs to the genre but they pushed it even further with this movie but you won't hear me complaining about this aspect. Anyway, to conclude, I think I was actually rather generous with my rating here, the damned thing was seriously weak and I don't think it is really worth a look.

Clay Miller (Padalecki) is looking for his sister at Camp Crystal Lake, the home of Jason Voorhees. Clay believes that his sister is alive, and he will stop at nothing to save her, or at least find out what happened to her. At the same time Clay arrives at Crystal Lake so do a group of teenagers who are there to spend a weekend away at a cottage so that they can party and enjoy the summer weather. The weekend away turns into hell as the group go off to enjoy different activities they are brutally murdered by Jason Voorhees.


Jason is one of the premiere faces of the horror industry. He is the famous machete wielding maniac who defends his home turf of Camp Crystal Lake from outsiders. Over the years there have been many different Jason slasher flicks, including Jason X where Jason is in the future and killing people in outer space. Jason was always so massive and brutal because he wore an old fashioned hockey mask and used nothing but a machete to do what he wanted. This version of Jason was faster and more agile, and used more weapons over the course of the film. Jason never ran in the older flicks, he always had this uncanny ability to be where he should never be and no one bothered to question how he could have done it. Jason was always pure brute force, but this time he seemed smarter more aware of peoples presence, he even took a girl hostage and did not kill her. It is a tough sell and a tough buy when you change the foundation of a character that has stood as a horror legend for many years.

This was your classic glory horror flick with no character you felt for. All though Aaron Yoo's character seemed to have a long drawn out death scene and it was pretty brutal. Odd bit of information here, this is because Aaron Yoo became the first Asian male to be executed by Jason. Other then that you could predict each death as it began to happen. You could clearly tell who was going to be next, and you could clearly know who was going to be the last three standing. The arrogant asshole character is never one of the final three standing. You always want to good people to make it out alive, but usually only one of them do. The thrills seemed rather dull, other then the killing of the Asian guy. Jason used a bow and arrow on one of the couples and then smashed his machete through the dock into a girls head and lifted her up and you can clearly hear the thud and then she falls into the water. Some of the scenes were laugh worthy, because they were so over the top.

Horror as a whole genre needs to stop trying to reinvent the old classics and find a way to create something mind boggling, something that messes with our heads and not just a kill everyone and leave no trace of it kind of thing. A real thriller that dives deep into the human brain and leaves us thinking. Stop with the horny teenager cliche, stop with the beach house, sex upped horror films, where you hear the awkward sounds of the forest and so one person goes to check it out. Stop with the creepy man in the window as a couple are having sex in the bedroom. Just stop the sex and the pointless nudity. It does not even appear to be remotely real, it is just drunk teenagers how are so wrapped up in their own little sex world that they cant even hear or see what is going on around them.

Friday the 13th is nothing new or exciting. It tries to be the classic but we dont want to see the classic again or we could watch it. We want to see something new, something interesting.

"Jason. My special, special boy. They must be punished, Jason. For what they did to you. For what they did to me. Kill for mother."

Yet another classic horror franchise is resurrected and rebooted by Platinum Dunes (Michael Bay's production company) with 2009's Friday the 13th. Not really a remake, and by no means an actual sequel, this particular addition to the Friday the 13th saga is more or less a mash-up of the first few films in the blood-soaked franchise - a "greatest hits" compilation, if you will. For die-hard fans of the series, this new movie is ideal - it unapologetically delivers the proverbial blood and gore as well as the breasts and the beautiful women. In comparison to the early Friday the 13th movies, this 2009 re-imagining is also slick and well-produced. Gore effects are captured with a great deal of filmmaking skill, the pace is fast, and (as long as you absorb the on-screen material without contemplating it too much) it's definitely fun. However other cinematic reboots (Batman Begins, Star Trek) introduced some innovation to their respective franchises. Friday the 13th, on the other hand, is well-made but has absolutely nothing fresh or exciting to add to the series. To be fair, though, any actual invention could risk alienating original fans. Nevertheless, straightforward rehashing grows stale, especially since slasher enthusiasts will be able to predict every beat. As the film haphazardly doles out cliché after cliché, it gets a tad tiresome.

It'd be redundant to outline the plot. This is Friday the 13th, after all. But for those unaware of the standard formula: a bunch of horny young adults travel to Camp Crystal Lake for the weekend and encounter Jason Voorhees (Mears) who carves them apart one by one. Oh, and a last-minute scare moment is thrown in just prior to the end credits. And voila - there's your Jason slasher flick.

Friday the 13th opens with a bang - a high-energy prologue that compresses the mythology of Jason Voorhees into a few short minutes. Recapping the events of the first film takes no more than five minutes as a viewer is clued into how Jason has grown into a bloodthirsty creature of legend. Once the film accepts the events of the 1980 original as its back-story, it embarks upon a new course. Following this opening, Jason offs a group of knife-fodder in a sequence which establishes the character's abilities (leading to a series of thrilling, gory kills). The film subsequently settles down before adhering to the time-worn Friday the 13th structure. Had the rest of the picture sustained the quality of the rousing prologue, there'd be far more to recommend. Alas, the central narrative is a mess. The clichés are also firmly in place, the characters do stupid things which lead to their inevitable demise, and there's no mystery as to who'll survive until the final act.

There's plenty of bloodletting, yes, but an effective slasher should work on another, slightly higher level. The best slasher flicks are able to generate a level of almost unbearable tension (think Scream or Halloween), but within Friday the 13th there's little tension (although the opening sequence is suspenseful and the climax is admittedly quite nail-biting). Character identification is a requirement when it comes to generating effective tension...all the characters in this production are one-note caricatures lined up for the slaughter. There's the token black guy, an Asian stoner, a few pairs of large breasts (there's a lot of skin in this film), an asshole who's guaranteed to get killed...it's all agonisingly by-the-numbers. Director Marcus Nispel (who directed the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and the screenwriters (Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, who also penned Freddy vs. Jason) pack this feature with too many clichés. With lights being knocked out, cell phones dying, cars that won't start and characters running off in separate directions, it's all quite hopeless. The days during which filmmakers spent time and effort on a horror movie screenplay have passed.

The backdrop for this reboot isn't Manhattan or Hell or the furthest reaches of outer space. Jason is instead back at Camp Crystal Lake, and he's killing people because they're invading his territory (First Blood, the first Rambo movie, was apparently inspiration here). Unsurprisingly, Friday the 13th ignores logic. How could anybody live in the old Camp Crystal Lake campground undetected for decades? How does Jason manage to dig an extensive labyrinth of tunnels under the old camp without anybody noticing? Why haven't the police caught on yet with so many people going missing in the area? As always, Jason also has the uncanny ability to be everywhere at once. Aside from these nitpickings, the new and improved Jason is one aspect the film gets right. He's fast, agile, shows vulnerability from time to time and appears to be smarter. Derek Mears has a strong screen presence as Jason Voorhees, and there are plenty of opportunities for him to rush teens with his machete raised. Plenty of classic '80s-style lurking is included for good measure as well. On top of this, some of the kills are pretty killer (excuse the pun). They're technically proficient and fairly creative, although there's nothing here that rivals the cleverness of the 1980 original. Interestingly, the less elaborate kills are usually the most satisfying (like a screwdriver through the head). Nispel is skilled at building an atmosphere of dread, even if the payoffs are fairly pedestrian - the kills are more gory than genuinely scary.

Naturally, the actors are all very attractive and every performance is standard stuff. Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker and Amanda Righetti are the trademark heroes, but the trio aren't anything overly special. The only real standout is Aaron Yoo, who delivers a few mildly amusing one-liners even in the face of danger. Julianna Guill is certainly memorable...but she only distinguishes herself from the other actresses on account of her sensual dancing and a sequence in which she bares her "stupendous" breasts (as one character describes them).

Only the adequate performances and the competent gore effects demonstrate improvement over the earlier Friday the 13th films. Sadly, both of these factors are wasted on a story not worth telling and a movie not really worth making. This new Friday the 13th is derivative and sorely lacks novelty, but at least it reiterates the old material with top-notch production values and an awesome soundtrack. There are certainly worse slasher movies than this Friday the 13th re-imagining, but it nonetheless remains forgettable, disposable and unnecessary. It's gruesome, exploitative, watchable fun, but we've seen it all before.

4.7/10