Friday The 13th (The Remake, Unfortunately)

Friday the 13th (2009)

25% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 161 reviews)

Runtime: 106 minutes (extended version)

Directed by: Marcus Nispel

Starring: Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Derek Mears

From: New Line Cinema/Paramount

Yep, the perfect movie to review for today. Well, actually, it’d be best if I would have chosen a FUN Jason Voorhees movie to watch, but a reason to see this again is to tell an interesting story. Way back in ’09 I saw this movie at its midnight debut, which happened to also be on a Friday the 13th. It was a crowded screening and it was THE perfect audience to see a horror movie with. They went monkeyshit crazy for everything and loved this to death. Some ladies around me seemingly soiled their pants each time something even a tiny bit scary could happen, which made things a lot of fun. I realized then the movie wasn’t so good, but solely due to the crowd I loved the experience.

In the next few days, when I heard outrage from the horror community in general about how bad the movie was and how it wasn’t really a Jason film (what a shocker, given it came from Platinum Dunes, a bunch of clueless putzes who don’t know Jack about how to make a proper scary horror film; you shouldn’t expect anything more or less from such an awful person like Michael Bay) so I figured I shouldn’t see this movie again as it would ruin the good memories I had of it.

Well, unfortunately, I went against that promise.

This movie was a reboot of the series and the opening was the end of the original film, where Jason’s mom gets killed and he sees it. Then, the film turns into Parts 2 and 3, where you see Mr. Voorhees both with the sack on his head and the iconic hockey mask look. The plot is first a bunch of kids looking for a weed stash, only for Jason to take them out for taking his stash… at least that’s what I assumed. Then, six weeks pass by and you see some new kids go to a cabin, while the brother of one of the missing ladies from the opening segment is on the hunt for her.

So, the reason why this movie turned off many people is that it’s just another crappy slasher from Platinum Dunes instead of something that feels like a Jason Voorhees film. Jason does things like kidnapping, keeping a captive alive (and for stupid and ridiculous reasons too), and apparently being as good at ARCHERY as Rambo. Pretty dumb, I know… I mean, for the filmmakers to have Jason do such things. Then, most of the characters are just annoying and dumb, and not in a fun way like in the 80’s films. And speaking of that, they happened to have nudity and drug use and it’s presented casually. Here, there’s a lot of it and it’s shoved down your throat. Talk about missing the point.

But, worst of all is that most of the kills aren’t even that good/inventive. That’s a lot of the fun of the movie is seeing how Voorhees offed victims or at the end, seeing the hero stop him. Instead of having unique kills, most of them are just lame and sometimes, it seems like they tease you by showing objects that *would* make great weapons for destruction, but they never get used. What a fail. I guess we should be thankful that Platinum Dunes hasn’t done a sequel to this, and hopefully the next Jason film that gets made, some people with brains are behind it, and actual fans can make something that fits in the spirit of those cheesy and awful and yet still fun 80’s flicks. Not too much is fun about this; there’s definitely nothing like Crispin Glover dancing weirdly to an ubercheesy hair metal tune.

Oh well… at least Aaron Yoo as the goofy Asian stoner was amusing, and Mears as Jason did a great job considering what he was given to work with.

I'll be back tomorrow afternoon-that's right-with a new review.