Friday the 13th (2009)
Directed by Marcus Nispel (Familiar with remakes from directing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003 and is currently working on the reboot of the Conan series that is due out next year.) While some movies have a single writer, to properly bring the new Friday the 13th they had Damian Shannon and Mark Swift for the screenplay and story as well as Mark Wheaton on the story as well. Shannon and Swift both have experience with the Friday the 13th universe as they co-wrote Freddy vs Jason together. Knowing this will turn some people away immediately as this was one of the more ill received movies of both of these franchises (I'll admit it having hated it when it came out but having re-watched it recently it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered.) The final writer has done a couple movies previously though is his first entry into the Slasher genre.
This film is kind of a tough one to really go over because for as much as they got right with the reintroduction to the franchise there was so much that was wrong. The movie feels like it is a short movie at the introduction followed by the main feature that both involve the same characters (much as Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 felt like.) The only difference is all of it is “real” in the realm of Jason Voorhees and the first part of the movie actually takes classic moments from the first couple and remakes them to give us a kind of prologue for anyone who hasn’t seen the originals. This does not feel like a waste of time though. Just like Halloween 2 the introduction was the best part of the film. It had the classic moments that all felt just right while showing how little actually happened in the first few movies.
While the movie was able to follow the formula of a Jason movie “decently” after the introduction there was a slew of problems that brought everything great to a drag. Jason’s kills in the past all had that huge build up and pay off to each and everyone. This new entry into the franchise has the buildup down pat but each and every kill felt as if it lacked the payoff. While some of the styled in killing weren’t predictable this was due to them lacking the true strength of previous kills.
While it holds up as an OK watch and I highly enjoyed the introduction to catch anyone up on the series it kind of falls apart after that. There were modern day additions to a classically proven formula that just should not have made the cut: torture, traps, prolonged kills, abduction, a high level of gore, and Jason actually taking the time to run. Jason doesn’t run the entire point is a pepe le pew styled slow walk that would always catch up to the person running due to a mistake on their part or just getting tired. I really wanted this movie to work since the originals were all full of campy fun (and not something you should take as a serious slasher flick) but it just never seemed to reach the fun level and that’s a shame for all Friday the 13th fans.
