Out of all the horror franchises in existence none hold quite the power over the general public like the Friday The 13th series. The name alone conjures up dark fantasies of machetes and hockey masks. Depending on your generation it may bring back nightmares from your childhood or thrills and excitement from days long past. Whatever your disposition is to the series one thing remains consistent amongst us all, Jason Voorhees's reign of terror is the stuff of legend.
After 8 films during the 1980's, 1 film in the 1990's, and two more in the early 2000's the series appeared dead. Jason went to Hell, literally. He went to space (yep, that actually happened). And he squared off against perhaps his greatest horror rival Freddy Krueger. "When Jason saw the breadth of his domain he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer." So what does Hollywood do nowadays when they run out of ideas? They hit the reset button.
In 2009 we saw the release of the first ever FRIDAY THE 13TH remake. By this time numerous horror films had been remade and with some success. The 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre and 2004 Dawn of the Dead proved very popular and really kick-started the horror remake movement. But Jason's story is quite extensive and mythic among the genre. The character really evolves over the course of the first four films. He's barely in the first film but the entire motivation of the franchise comes from this movie. Jason becomes the killer in the second film after his mother and donning a clothe sack for a mask. The third film he finds his hockey mask and fourth film cements his legacy as the most notorious slasher in cinema.
So how do you go about doing a remake of such a storied character? I actually like the way they handle his origin in this film. The opening credit roll is a truncated version of part 1. The next 20 minutes is basically part 2. The rest of the film is a best of parts 3 & 4. Actor Derek Mears plays Jason with intensity and fury. His Jason is one pissed off sonuvabitch! So how does one take Jason down? With a Winchester. Jared Padalecki (Sam Winchester of the tv show Supernatural) stars as the hero and he is a great foe for Jason. Honestly I'd love to see more of those two fighting each other. Still it is a wonderful treat to see Sam Winchester go up against Jason. By the way, if you don't watch Supernatural you should.
The movie as a whole isn't quite as terrifying as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (by the same director no less) nor the Halloween remake but then the Friday series never was quite as scary as either of those so this is actually fitting. What this film excels at better than those two, and what the original series perfected, is walking the fine line between horror and entertainment. It doesn't go so deep into horror that it becomes difficult to watch but it doesn't pull its punches either. It is in keeping with the original films in that it is the perfect popcorn horror movie. It will thrill you and scare you and make you glad you went to the movies.
There's lots of nudity. Plenty of drinking and smoking. And premarital sex. There's 80's tunes, campers in the woods, and a high body count. Jason is brutal and strictly business as per the norm. Although in this one they keep him generally like he was in the first four films, setting traps for his victims like a hunter, killing them quickly (mostly), and running (yes, I said running). Jason ran after his victims in the first four films. All in all what this means is that the film feels like a classic 80's Friday the 13th. Well done, gentlemen.
Overall Ranking: 6 out of 10
Nude-O-Meter: 6 out of 10
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