Friday the 13th (2009)
Director:
Marcus Nispel
Cast:
Jared Padalecki ... Clay Miller
Danielle Panabaker ... Jenna
Amanda Righetti ... Whitney Miller
Travis Van Winkle ... Trent
Aaron Yoo ... Chewie
Derek Mears ... Jason Voorhees
Jonathan Sadowski ... Wade
Julianna Guill ... Bree
Ben Feldman ... Richie
Arlen Escarpeta ... Lawrence
Ryan Hansen ... Nolan
Willa Ford ... Chelsea
Nick Mennell ... Mike
America Olivo ... Amanda
Summary:Some idiot partygoers head to Crystal Lake - like so many morons before - and are chased and hunted down by Jason Voorhees, a psycho killer with an ugly face and major mom issues.
Review:
I'll re-state what I'm sure I've said before in any number of these cookie-cutter Michael Bay produced remakes, and why these are most likely bound to fail in my eyes as "entertaining horror":
Back in the real early 80's, Halloween and Friday the 13th brought a new brand of slasher horror that instigated many copy-cat flicks that last even to this day. They were massive successes for their time, and a lot of this has to do with the very hip and unique way in which horror was brought to the screen for its' time. Subjective camera angles taken from the view of the killer's eyes, and slow tension building to each successive victim was topped off with inventive and shocking deaths. That brought about a new series of emotional reactions from many viewers of these movies. Over the years, the modern audiences have taken this for granted. Gore is prevalent and even more gruesome than it was when these horror classics were made. The formula has been done so often now that whatever scares DID come from those movies AT THAT TIME has become "old hat" and worn out. These days, horror slashers are more violent and louder than before, but ultimately just a retread of the same damned thing.
This is where I go into the Jason series itself.
I respect the Friday the 13th series. I even like the successive sequels - some more than others - and have to give props to the way it evolved over the decades. The first few tried to play on some twists in the final act, and even worked at producing a semblance of a story. By the fourth installment, it was about the unique methods in which Jason dispatched his enemies. By number eight - Jason in Manhattan - the series became kind of a parody of its older self, not trying so much to scare people as entertain with cheesy laughs and over-the-top violence. The gore isn't even as much of a turn-off because it's used more as a vehicle for displaying the effects creative teams' imaginative progression with makeup effects. By the time Jason X came around, it was apparent that Jason wasn't just superhuman, but more of a supernatural force of unstoppable violence. The gimmick at that point was "how are we going to revive the evil spirit of Jason's corpse from before?" and then head out on dispatching one person after another. I like Jason X because even though it's a stupid, stupid movie, it had its' tongue placed firmly in cheek. It was a self-aware series at that point catering not for the visceral thrills and cringe-inducing "what'll they think of next?" surprises from the first few movies, but more to the fans who followed Jason so far on the journey that they ended up in space. By this point, I think many people hate the series, but there are still some fans out there (like me) who took it at pure face value and still managed to have a good time.
Then comes another one of the fucking Bay produced REMAKES that completely misses the point of why Jason has endured for so many years. It also doesn't understand why the old-hat method of horror from the past just plain does not work for a veteran horror moviegoer like me. (Please don't think I'm knocking you if you liked this movie; I'm just stating why this did not work for ME.) Over the years, the "fresh" approach of Friday the 13th the original has been worn down to the hilt. This remake exerts very little effort to re-invigorate the series, or incorporate something new to the horror movie fold.
The first movie is rehashed in the first few minutes. It then becomes apparent very early on that the batch of campers introduced will be killed off real quick before the "real" batch of campers for the rest of the movie are to be introduced. Once these new fucktards grace the screen, they are all so pathetic of human beings that you only wish for all of them to be killed quick. And by quick I mean having them vaporized in a split second by some alien space ship hellbent on destroying the human race. Instead, I had to suffer through over an hour of nearly nameless and almost completely undeveloped tweenies getting picked off one by one by the relentless Jason Voorhees. Not to mention meeting along the way a "hick" that likes to talk shit and have sex with mannequins. This is a "humorous interlude". There's a token black guy, and an Asian dude for "comic relief". I was almost amused by the Asian dude, but figured he'd be one of the first to go. He was. And then I was in more misery because I hated him, but I hated him a lot less than the rest.
Yes, there's superfluous nudity and lots of killing. The nudity just felt like it was obligatory and forced, as if they were marking off a checklist on Friday the 13th-isms. Jason this time around is more "human" and productive in thought process than before. In many ways, though, that kind of ruined some of the charm of Jason's persona: his unflinching insistence and lack of humanism produced a kind of menace that is hardly matched.
Even more disheartening was the illogic behind ALL RESIDENTS near Crystal Lake knowing about Jason and his murders for several years and doing nothing about it. Or how Jason's place has electricity for all these years. Or the reasoning behind him holding ONE WOMAN hostage (who happens to be a lead character's missing sister OF COURSE) and killing any and everything else. I could go on forever about the lack of logic that this movie employed. Everything falls apart before the seams can even be sewn together, further pounding the stamp of "cashing in the paycheck" glory that is to be had from this cheaply made horror flick that's bound to win the cash back over opening weekend.
When it comes to scares, once again it's so predictable and by-the-numbers that I started laughing in disbelief at how far I was ahead of the game. Never mind them all doing pathetic decisions and splitting up when they know there's a killer on their asses. How about countless moments of people walking up to something in slow motion, and the music giving the cue for a fright up ahead... then a LOUD NOISE and nothing... but wait!... just out of focus is JASON RIGHT BEHIND THE MORON!!. I couldn't stop shaking my head in bewilderment by the oft-repeated false-scare-to-actual-scare fright attempt... that didn't even work the first time around!
For me, these idiot campers couldn't die soon enough for me. And of course, since this is a Jason reboot we've seen ALL of this before, but done better. If it wasn't done better, at least at the time it was more out there and less typical of horror films for the last 30 years. Knowing this is a Jason reboot, there will just HAVE to be one more "boo scare" to finish the credits. There's no way in the entire world that NO ONE saw the final moment coming.
In conclusion:
My thoughts are that if you know you're going to see a pointless, mindless, predictable shallow lack of effort of a horror movie that screams "easy buck" from open to close (I knew this), how truly disappointed should you be after watching just that? At least it was very nicely filmed. It looks like any other of these generic retread horror remake/reboots, but then again I can't fault it for looking fairly nice. It's just every single thing other than that in which this movie fails. I figured this would suck, but typically even these reboots have something that could be redeemable (like better pacing, great sound, or something like that). In this case, I can't even say Friday the 13th is on par with the other hack job Bay produced money makers. I wasn't even asking for much, and I didn't even get that.
Jason takes a ride through Crystal Lake, full sail in high winds this time around on the FAIL BOAT.
GRADE: F
I'll re-state what I'm sure I've said before in any number of these cookie-cutter Michael Bay produced remakes, and why these are most likely bound to fail in my eyes as "entertaining horror":
Back in the real early 80's, Halloween and Friday the 13th brought a new brand of slasher horror that instigated many copy-cat flicks that last even to this day. They were massive successes for their time, and a lot of this has to do with the very hip and unique way in which horror was brought to the screen for its' time. Subjective camera angles taken from the view of the killer's eyes, and slow tension building to each successive victim was topped off with inventive and shocking deaths. That brought about a new series of emotional reactions from many viewers of these movies. Over the years, the modern audiences have taken this for granted. Gore is prevalent and even more gruesome than it was when these horror classics were made. The formula has been done so often now that whatever scares DID come from those movies AT THAT TIME has become "old hat" and worn out. These days, horror slashers are more violent and louder than before, but ultimately just a retread of the same damned thing.
This is where I go into the Jason series itself.
I respect the Friday the 13th series. I even like the successive sequels - some more than others - and have to give props to the way it evolved over the decades. The first few tried to play on some twists in the final act, and even worked at producing a semblance of a story. By the fourth installment, it was about the unique methods in which Jason dispatched his enemies. By number eight - Jason in Manhattan - the series became kind of a parody of its older self, not trying so much to scare people as entertain with cheesy laughs and over-the-top violence. The gore isn't even as much of a turn-off because it's used more as a vehicle for displaying the effects creative teams' imaginative progression with makeup effects. By the time Jason X came around, it was apparent that Jason wasn't just superhuman, but more of a supernatural force of unstoppable violence. The gimmick at that point was "how are we going to revive the evil spirit of Jason's corpse from before?" and then head out on dispatching one person after another. I like Jason X because even though it's a stupid, stupid movie, it had its' tongue placed firmly in cheek. It was a self-aware series at that point catering not for the visceral thrills and cringe-inducing "what'll they think of next?" surprises from the first few movies, but more to the fans who followed Jason so far on the journey that they ended up in space. By this point, I think many people hate the series, but there are still some fans out there (like me) who took it at pure face value and still managed to have a good time.
Then comes another one of the fucking Bay produced REMAKES that completely misses the point of why Jason has endured for so many years. It also doesn't understand why the old-hat method of horror from the past just plain does not work for a veteran horror moviegoer like me. (Please don't think I'm knocking you if you liked this movie; I'm just stating why this did not work for ME.) Over the years, the "fresh" approach of Friday the 13th the original has been worn down to the hilt. This remake exerts very little effort to re-invigorate the series, or incorporate something new to the horror movie fold.
The first movie is rehashed in the first few minutes. It then becomes apparent very early on that the batch of campers introduced will be killed off real quick before the "real" batch of campers for the rest of the movie are to be introduced. Once these new fucktards grace the screen, they are all so pathetic of human beings that you only wish for all of them to be killed quick. And by quick I mean having them vaporized in a split second by some alien space ship hellbent on destroying the human race. Instead, I had to suffer through over an hour of nearly nameless and almost completely undeveloped tweenies getting picked off one by one by the relentless Jason Voorhees. Not to mention meeting along the way a "hick" that likes to talk shit and have sex with mannequins. This is a "humorous interlude". There's a token black guy, and an Asian dude for "comic relief". I was almost amused by the Asian dude, but figured he'd be one of the first to go. He was. And then I was in more misery because I hated him, but I hated him a lot less than the rest.
Yes, there's superfluous nudity and lots of killing. The nudity just felt like it was obligatory and forced, as if they were marking off a checklist on Friday the 13th-isms. Jason this time around is more "human" and productive in thought process than before. In many ways, though, that kind of ruined some of the charm of Jason's persona: his unflinching insistence and lack of humanism produced a kind of menace that is hardly matched.
Even more disheartening was the illogic behind ALL RESIDENTS near Crystal Lake knowing about Jason and his murders for several years and doing nothing about it. Or how Jason's place has electricity for all these years. Or the reasoning behind him holding ONE WOMAN hostage (who happens to be a lead character's missing sister OF COURSE) and killing any and everything else. I could go on forever about the lack of logic that this movie employed. Everything falls apart before the seams can even be sewn together, further pounding the stamp of "cashing in the paycheck" glory that is to be had from this cheaply made horror flick that's bound to win the cash back over opening weekend.
When it comes to scares, once again it's so predictable and by-the-numbers that I started laughing in disbelief at how far I was ahead of the game. Never mind them all doing pathetic decisions and splitting up when they know there's a killer on their asses. How about countless moments of people walking up to something in slow motion, and the music giving the cue for a fright up ahead... then a LOUD NOISE and nothing... but wait!... just out of focus is JASON RIGHT BEHIND THE MORON!!. I couldn't stop shaking my head in bewilderment by the oft-repeated false-scare-to-actual-scare fright attempt... that didn't even work the first time around!
For me, these idiot campers couldn't die soon enough for me. And of course, since this is a Jason reboot we've seen ALL of this before, but done better. If it wasn't done better, at least at the time it was more out there and less typical of horror films for the last 30 years. Knowing this is a Jason reboot, there will just HAVE to be one more "boo scare" to finish the credits. There's no way in the entire world that NO ONE saw the final moment coming.
In conclusion:
My thoughts are that if you know you're going to see a pointless, mindless, predictable shallow lack of effort of a horror movie that screams "easy buck" from open to close (I knew this), how truly disappointed should you be after watching just that? At least it was very nicely filmed. It looks like any other of these generic retread horror remake/reboots, but then again I can't fault it for looking fairly nice. It's just every single thing other than that in which this movie fails. I figured this would suck, but typically even these reboots have something that could be redeemable (like better pacing, great sound, or something like that). In this case, I can't even say Friday the 13th is on par with the other hack job Bay produced money makers. I wasn't even asking for much, and I didn't even get that.
Jason takes a ride through Crystal Lake, full sail in high winds this time around on the FAIL BOAT.
GRADE: F
