First things first - when I type that final key of this review, I'm done with the "Friday the 13th" megareview. The reason is obvious - there aren't any more flicks that need reviewing, and not a moment too soon. I've absorbed so much hockey mask action in the previous three months that I see the serial killing momma's boy in my sleep. Even more than I did during the period when I routinely fell asleep with my F13 boxset playing in the background.Second thing - I want to talk at you about remakes for a while. To understate it as much as humanly possible, I've taken part in quite a few internet fanboy debates about the subject of remakes. I've done, in essence, a complete 180 on the issue in the past three years, mainly due to my revelation one hot July night that the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" sucked and could use a remake. Like, badly. That little epiphany really made me take a good, hard look at my previous stance of "I'm swearing off any and all horror remakes!! They are the sux~~or~zz!!1!!" to the point where I'm now one of the biggest supporters of the current wave of '80s slasher film redux versions.
While it's true that there have always been remakes (trivia: the movie that you know, and love, as "The Wizard of Oz" is a remake), they've definitely saturated the market in the previous decade. The reason for this has been simple. Money. In a culture where the latest, most edgy and original horror projects often quickly get apathy-d out of existence, many movie moguls would rather go back to things that audiences enjoyed in the past.
Is there even an obligatory movie that I can point to as the "first" major horror remake that started this trend? As far as I can tell, the "remake trend" actually ties in with the earlier-in-the-decade "Japan-style horror" trend, where we got American versions of Asian horror films like "Ringu," "Ju-On" and "Dark Water" (which gave us "The Ring," "The Grudge," and...uh..."Dark Water"). As far as the remakes that we all know and love/loathe today - read, the reimaginings of classic American schlock/slasher flicks - the first one I can think of is "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," version 2004, directed by Marcus Nispel and produced by Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes team. Of course, the movie was a big hit, despite its suckiness, and PD has since become the de facto horror remake kings, churning out a prequel to "TCM," two "Hills Have Eyes" 21st century editions, a very blase version of "Amityville Horror, a new, updated versions of "The Hitcher" and the upcoming "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake. There have also been remakes of "Black Christmas," "House on Sorority Row," "The Stepfather," "Dawn of the Dead," "The Omen," "When a Stranger Calls," "Prom Night," and seemingly 96,817 other films since PD unleashed its slickified version of "TCM" on us. Of those movies named above, only Zack Snyder's awesome "Dawn of the Dead" and the first "Hills Have Eyes" film were any good, with the exception of this movie.
When the news broke that Platinum Dunes had acquired the rights to the defunct "Friday the 13th" franchise name, admittedly, my hopes were very low. I remember saying to more than a few online friends that we were about to witness the complete fagification/emasculation of Jason Voorhees, just as Marcus Nispel (who was also slated to direct this film) had done to Leatherface, what with a stringy, wispy model-type chick beating the crap out of ol' Chainy. Shockingly, the 2009 version of "Friday the 13th" was a shocking reversal of company policy. I can't say if this will be a lasting trend, since some of the information that I've read about the new "Nightmare" film is pretty, um, interesting, but this is nonetheless the only one of the wave of slasher remakes that truly seemed to get the charm surrounding the original. Admittedly, the "Friday the 13th" formula isn't a hard one to follow, but it's pretty admirable that Nispel and the PD crew managed to take this formula and replicate it without too much mucking.
So - onto the movie!
For lack of a better explanation, this flick is the first three "Fridays" all rolled up into one. We get a very brief introductory scene showing Pamela Voorhees stalking a young coed and quickly getting beheaded. There's your backstory, kids. Then we get an extended sequence that introduces us to several college-age happy-go-luckers, including some very lovely use of GRATUITOUS NUDITY (capitalized because this was something sorely lacking in horror films of the '00s - not to sound like a sexist pig, but slasher films just don't seem right without chicks getting naked, so sue me), before a sack-masked Jason Voorhees (an homage to his look in "Friday the 13th Part 2") decimates the entire group.
From here, we're introduced to the CURRENT group of idiots that we're going to spend the movie with, and it's here where this really starts to feel like a "Friday the 13th" movie. It's been a long time since I've been able to type this sentence, but here we go: a group of young partyers is headed out to the lake for some fun, not knowing that Jason is there waiting for them. In fact, it had 20 YEARS since we'd seen this plot on film. Nope. What we got instead was Jason Takes the Cruise Ship...Jason re-playing "The Hidden"...Jason in Space...and Jason in Elm Street. To put it bluntly, it felt f**king good to get back to "Jason kills people at Crystal Lake."
These characters aren't quite as memorable as some of the batches we got in those early, immortal "human Jason" films. The two that I remember by name are Clay (played by "Supernatural" actor Jared Padalecki), a character on the trail of his sister, who just so happens to be one of the people in that first group of victims, and Chewie (Aaron Yoo), a fun-loving stoner kid just hoping to get some. There's the usual bunch of CW castoffs that the Platinum Dunes remakes are famous/infamous for, but I'll give them this - this movie doesn't skimp on the hot chicks. The "Friday the 13th" series was noted for two things: (1) explicit death scenes, and (2) explicit nudity. So yes, we get to enjoy not just one but THREE sets of cans in this film. Model America Olivo, singer Willa Ford, and actress Julianna Guill are your admirably non-prudish thespians who get to ply their trade at F13 sex-and-death this time around, and for this, the screenwriter of this film is greatly appreciated.
Where this film falls flat is in the horror element. In between the 20 years between "Jason in the forest" films, it seemed that horror directors forgot how to build up chase scenes in shock flicks, and decided instead that it was much easier to fire off bazookas in the audience's collective eardrums and call their movies scary simply because of that. Yes, there are a lot of "jump scares" in the 2009 version of "Friday the 13th." We hear them early and often, and my packed house during the Horror Nerd-sanctioned theater viewing of this film began groaning every time they popped up.
In addition, perhaps the defining characteristic of the series - the kills - are very pedestrian in this go-round. They're essentially your basic stab-and-slice deaths, and coming from the series that gave us the classic "sleeping bag kill," I expected some awesome things from the higher budget and a production team with Michael "Antichrist" Bay as its CEO and Chief Operating Officer.
One thing, however, that isn't pedestrian is the actor chosen for the role of Jason. I was very sore when it was announced that Kane Hodder wasn't there for the Jason role in "Freddy vs. Jason," but in the six years between that movie and this one, I got over it. Derek Mears isn't quite as good as Hodder, but he's something else, and easily ranks as one of the more menacing Jasons of the series. He's not quite as large, but he's resourceful, he's quick and athletic, and he's got a lethal cunning that seems to ply his trade in more than a few of the AFOREMENTIONED "stab-and-slice" deaths. Despite its comparatively low gore-quotient, the "bow-and-arrow" death is one of the highlights of the movie, and something that we thought we'd never see from the character of Jason Voorhees. So points for the PD portrayal of Jason - he most assuredly wasn't emasculated.
Platinum Dunes' "Friday the 13th" is a movie with weaknesses, but I walked away from my theater viewing pleasantly surprised. Not shockingly, there's also a sequel to this movie coming up, and also not shockingly, the PD group has stated that it will be the FINAL "Friday" film. Like, ever. There have been cries of protest from the horror community in regards to that news, but to them I say...don't worry about it. "Friday the 13th" is the movie series that will ALWAYS rise again. It has survived a 3D entry, a haphazard plot twist in the middle that never came to fruition, that goofy "IN SPACE!" entry, and going to hell and back. In short, "Friday the 13th" is immortal.
And that's all for the Horror Nerd's F13 Megareview. It's been three months of Jason madness. I've done my best to actually tell a story with this series of reviews, and hopefully I haven't let you down in a big way. I can only hope that I've been as successful as selling you on the merits of this series as the series itself has been with me. The "Friday the 13th" films have legitimately played a pretty big role in my life. They were there for me as a fourth grader terrified of the cheesy action, as an awkward middle-schooler all hopped up on teen angst, as a college student viewing them through the guise of intellectual criticism, and as an adult whose brother had just died seeking something...anything...for something that gave me solace in the past. And I'm only one story. "Friday the 13th" has been there for many fans all across the world, and there's a reason why Jason Voorhees will never truly die. As long as campfire scary stories exist, there will be a "Friday the 13th." And if you disagree with that...KI KI KI KI MA MA MA MA.....
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