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Friday the 13th (2009)
For years now we’ve been seeing remake after remake some redoing some not so classic horror films, others would remake the cream of the genre crop. We’ve seen remakes like “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Halloween”, “The Fog”, and many more over the years, many leaving much to desire. However when I first saw the trailers for the “Friday the 13th” redux I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. The film looked like it was going to be chalk full of gore and would actually be a solid entry into the “classics” that were being remade. Sadly, that’s simply not the case with this one as it was more smoke and mirrors as the trailer made the film look like something it’s simply not.
“Friday the 13th” begins with a group of teens going to a cabin in the woods to party away the weekend. Little do they realize that Jason Voorhees is out there lurking in the same very woods. Much like in the original series, Jason was a boy who drowned at Camp Crystal Lake. His mother was beheaded by a camp counselor years ago and now Jason is back to wreak havoc on anyone or anything standing in his way. Will the teens figure out how to escape Jason’s wrath, or will he maim and destroy each and every one of them?
One thing I was hopeful for going into the film was the gore factor. See in the 80s when the original films were being released they would eventually become scrutinized by the MPAA to death, making sure the biggest chunks of gore would end up on the cutting room floor. But since that time period and mainly since we’ve gotten into this decade of the 2000s, that stranglehold seems to be loosened completely. Films like “Saw”, “Hostel”, and many others have brought tons of gore on screen without repercussions from the MPAA, to many fans delight. So I was sure that we were about to receive the wettest slasher film to date with this one, or at least right there with any gory slasher that’s ever been made. Unfortunately, that’s not the case at all as the film manages to turn away from just about every gory scene it could. Now sure there are some scenes in the movie that are pretty violent and disturbing, but this one does have a severe lack of creativity when it comes to it’s kills. That’s even something the lesser entries into the original series could say even if they weren’t that great of a movie to begin with. This really disappointed me here and made me think even further that the people that were making this movie simply didn’t “get it” when it comes to the Friday series.
The one bright spot in this mess of a film would be the man behind the mask himself Derek Mears. Many hardcore fans were skeptical going into the film with him as the choice, but personally I thought he did a great job in the role. He’s a big hulking guy that moves well which is physically the type of guy that should play the role. This didn’t work in Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” but then again Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees are two completely different characters. Mears manages to do a great job in the fact that he plays Jason the killing machine very well.
Something else that really annoys me in this one is the shifting of the character of Jason. In the original series and with the Jason character we all know and love, we expect certain things of him. Jason should be able to catch 99.9% of his victims by walking behind them in the woods. He’s just that damn good and that’s all that is needed by us fans. But in the redux we have Jason who is a master of underground tunnels, which they use to explain why he’s seemingly everywhere at once. It’s one of the lamest and most pointless plot points I’ve ever seen and it really had me rolling my eyes watching this one.
The group of actors are laughably bad, from former pop star Willa Ford (who’s basically only in the movie to be topless at one point), Jared Padalecki (who is alright in the movie and probably the one cast member I have the least problems with), Danielle Panabaker (who seriously looks like Amber Tamblyn’s sister or something), and Julianna Guill (who gets topless....thankfully). None of the cast members seem to have any personality whatsoever and the ones that do, you’ll hate. It’s just a frustrating thing while watching the movie and not finding one character all that appealing.
Overall “Friday the 13th” is sadly not what fans wanted or expected to have in a remake. Is it the worst film or even remake that I’ve seen? Of course not, it’s just that it’s a rather overblown film that’s just not very good. It’s basically “Friday the 13 lite, or even a more generic version of the film. I would have to give a recommendation to AVOID, that is unless you like feeling empty and cheated after you watch your movies.
Rating - **
-Ed Demko
