A Review of Friday the 13th (2009)

I grew up watching Friday the 13th movies. When I was five or six, my grandfather would take me to Alpha Video and we would rent the Jason movies. Although I found the movies funny back then (and still do), I'm pretty sure these things are the reason I'm so afraid of sex. After all, if you were a kid and you kept seeing these movies where this big guy in a hockey mask kept killing these stupid teens who couldn't keep their pants on, wouldn't you? 

While I definitely should not have been watching these movies at such a young age, I have to admit that they definitely notched a special place in my heart (along with the horror genre as a whole). I recognize that they are not good movies: they are formulaic, unoriginal, and undeniably sleazy pieces of cinema. However, I do not believe that they are "pieces of trash," to quote Robert Ebert (see video below of his infamous review of Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter). 

While I do prefer the Halloween series, I do think that Friday the 13th is important to the horror genre and the slasher film as a whole. These movies provide a strange kind of escape to people from everyday life. While the quality of cinema for these films is definitely low, I do recognize that some films are better than others (Parts 4,6, and 7 are some of my favorites in the series). Jason and these films are a cultural phenomenon and they are a force to be reckoned with. So, when someone comes around and decides to just remake the first movie, it's kind of a big deal. There are certain things that needed to be done right. And I'm here to tell you whether or not these things were accomplished.

It's kind of stupid to call Friday the 13th a remake because it's not. It's not a re-imagining or even really much of a reboot. It's a blatant sequel with the title Friday the 13th to attract more people than the title Friday the 13th: Part 12 would have. With that said, it is a fairly entertaining but incredibly flawed sequel.

As I hoped it would, Friday the 13th was a really fun entry to the never-ending, slasher shlock series. It didn't even try to break the mold- it was filled with gore, stupid teenagers having lots of sex, lots of drug use and alcohol consumption and Jason tearing some people up. I have to admit- it was refreshing to go through these series cliches and see Jason doing his thing on the big screen again. The movie was filled with some effective scare scenes and, luckily, I had a really fun, rowdy audience to experience it with (though someone brought a baby into this... wtf). The audience absolutely exploded on certain occasions (the false start and follow-up opening title credit had the biggest reaction I've ever seen in a theater audience next to the ending of The Departed... that's saying something) and it really just made the whole experience that much better. 

There were a lot of things that I felt director Marcus Nispel and his team did quite well. Most of the stalk scenes and follow-through kills were well-executed. I felt that the false opening sequence and the lake stalk scene definitely had the most impact in terms of tension and pay off. As for the kills themselves, I felt that some were creative but definitely not as creative or... well... fun as I had hoped. Since this is a Friday the 13th entry, this is an aspect that everyone's always wondering about since Jason has really racked up an unique body count over the years. I felt that they lamed out in some cases. There was one character in particular who had a really slow and drawn out death that wasn't creative at all. The audience was completely silent in this scene and I don't think anyone really got anything out of it. I will admit the false start opening did have some pretty crazy kills in it. Unfortunately, most of the ones following it in the rest of the film didn't have the same creativity, insanity or impact (lake scene aside). 

I also felt that a lot of the film's humor worked as well. While Nispel and his crew tried to play it all serious for the most part (and this is something that I think hurt the film in some cases... keep reading on), they definitely knew they were making a Friday the 13th film. There are a lot of lines that are pretty funny and some of the characters, while unabashed stereotypes, are pretty humorous as well. To me, the line that had me dying with laughter was when the douche bag jock character lost his gun in some water while Jason was stalking him. "Where are you, gun?!" he yelled out as he searched for it. The audience was dying on this one. I also thought the scream this guy let out after Jason threw a dead body on his car was hysterical. The reaction from the audience was almost as loud as their eruption from the opening sequence.

A lot of reviews I've read have complained about the characters but I actually enjoyed a lot of them. I will admit that the first group introduced in the false start is actually a little more interesting than the second group we end up getting stuck with. However, I still enjoyed watching them deal with having a crazy guy with a hockey mask stalking them. My favorite characters to watch were the weed-obsessed nerd from the opening, the stoner Asian loser and the pretty boy douche bag. Man, that last guy was a dick. But he was so fun to watch. Everyone in the audience couldn't wait for him to die. You could feel the dissension towards him growing. It made the film more fun.

It was also kind of nice to finally see Jason in a stylized film. Granted, while Freddy vs. Jason definitely was slick-looking, it wasn't a pure Friday the 13th film. To see Jason in a movie with a decent budget is a new thing and I have to say that it is nice but it definitely doesn't have that nostalgic feel that the old films had. I did however really like a few shots that Nispel pulled off. Seeing Jason walking on a dock entirely through the cracks underneath it was pretty cool and really helped build some tension in that scene. However, I would have to agree with the notion that Nispel's style definitely works better in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre world than in the world of Friday the 13th. While a lot of it worked in the movie, it didn't feel as fluent as it did in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake.

Now for the problems. Despite the fact that I really enjoyed watching the movie, there are a lot of problems with it. 

The biggest problem with this movie is its story. The story actually hurts the film. Yes, that's right, I said it. This is one of the few times where I'm going to complain about a horror film wasting its time with a story. Anytime the character of Clay came on screen and started his speech about looking for his missing sister, I got bored. Anytime we saw Clay and that other nice girl looking for his sister, I got bored. This isn't what the movie's about. This is Jason's movie. I don't care about your sister. Apparently, I'm not alone on this notion as this seems to be one of the biggest complaints I've seen in horror site reviews I've been reading. 

The other problem that I had with this movie and the problem that seems to have most fan boys up in a tizzy is that of Jason himself. No longer is Jason an unstoppable force of nature that will stop at nothing to kill. Now, he's a big, aggressive hillbilly that also subs as a pot farmer. I'm not sure if I like this interpretation very much. Plus, he keeps the sister character alive, chained up in his underground tunnel (which he built how?) all because she kind of looks like his mother when she was younger. What? What?! Jason keeps a girl ALIVE? Jason doesn't do that crap. That girl would be dead meat. And using the whole "oh, but it's because she looks like his mother" thing is so cheap. Really, I'm sick of that Jason's a momma's boy crap that people have been pulling lately. It's not character development. It's just a cheap method that only makes the character lamer. I like Jason as just a hulking mass of destruction. Leave him that way! As for Derek Meyer's performance as the big guy, well he did the job. He was definitely aggressive and hulking. He was kind of like Kane Hodder light. But, unlike Hodder, he lacked some of the little personality ticks and movements that made him special. There was one shot where he was walking away that lacked any personality once so ever. Hodder could have done something there. Someone please give him his character back, please.

Although I was entertained throughout the movie, I found myself pretty bored by the finale. Once it became an extended chase scene between Jason, Clay, that one nice girl (her name evades me... probably not important) and the sister (again, name? Who cares), I could care less. I knew what was probably going to happen so I just kind of tuned out. Nispel didn't do anything out of the ordinary to make it any more exciting than I expected so I didn't really care. Curiously, the same thing happened with me at the end of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake as well.

I thought summing up the original Friday the 13th movie in the opening credits sequence was really cheap. They should have thought it through a little more. I also hated the way it was filmed. It was just kind of done in a throw-away manner. If you don't care about the scene you're filming, I'm not going to care about it either. Sorry. 

And, since this is labeled a "remake," they definitely didn't try to do anything with the material that was groundbreaking or new. Rob Zombie got a lot of crap for his flawed but well-made remake of Halloween but at least he tried something new and fresh. I felt that they missed some good opportunities to do something here.

Other things I didn't like:

- The scene where Jason found his mask was cheap and poorly set-up

- I didn't like Steve Jablonsky's score. Not enough "Chi-Chi-Chi-Ha-Ha-Ha" or Harry Manfredini staples. I was hoping for more nostalgia

- Lack of a strong survivor girl

- No scene where the survivor girl finds all her dead friends. This is a big staple of the series and they missed it somehow.

I really did enjoy watching Friday the 13th. It was great to see Jason on the big screen again and with a really lively crowd that got the movie. It's not a good movie but it is a fun one. Unfortunately, it definitely made some big no-nos when it comes to Jason and the Friday the 13th series. These flaws only became more evident to me after re-watching fan favorite Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter last night. With that said, I still really enjoyed watching it. I just hope next time they can do their homework better on Jason and hire Kane Hodder to be the guy in the hockey mask one more time. 

5/10