Friday the 13th (2009) — The Reviews Thread

[jdugger2]

What a disappointment. I love the original Friday the 13th films (even the shitty ones), but this one was not good. Let's all be honest with ourselves. I think the USA Today review summed it up perfectly for me:

"Friday the 13th may be gory enough to please some fans. But its witless story adds nothing new to the franchise. The story has been pulled from its shallow grave, but not at all reinvigorated. Rather, it's been dusted off and repackaged for the sole purpose of raking in millions from foolish audiences. Let the viewer beware."

[KillerCannibal]

I was ok with them changing up the usual story a bit and not making this all about summer camp. Sure, they took some liberties with the canon but that's what doing a remake is all about. I expect a remake to attempt to bring something different to an established film, which is was this film did. There are absolutely things I would have liked to see done differently in this film, but we've already got 11 films from the original series that aren't going anywhere. As long as Jason is on a big screen, I'm happy.

Also:

Spoiler:

I would have changed the opening so that the kids sitting around the campfire at the beginning tell the story of Pamela Voorhees while the footage is intercut. I didn't like them intercutting it with the credits because, frankly, I thought it looked too cool to cut like that.

Also, to Zodiac's question:

Spoiler:

I assume he was running at her, lunged with the blade and then made a quick recognition of her face so he narrowly missed her. I know it's a bummer he didn't whack her head off like everyone who saw that footage had hoped, but I can buy him avoiding her at the last second.

[Zodiac_Speaking]

Originally Posted by dino88

Spoiler:

They made a reference to their similar appearances in Jason's cabin when she found the locket. Her boyfriend said "You look just like her, you should keep it".

As for "how did Jason not whack her in the opening credits" I am assuming you mean Jason not killing the woman that beheaded his mother. I would say because he was only a child. First, he would most likely not have the strength. Second, he's already mentally slow and probably didn't understand what he was seeing straight away. This was the point that everything stemmed from, he wasn't a serial killing before this incident.

Spoiler:

Even still dude, he was coming at her with a ton of force and momentum. It's a tough pill to swallow. Also, I'll give you the locket thing, you're right. But why would he keep his "mom" tied up and what purpose? There were some ideas and potential left on the drawing board.

[kilcher]

Originally Posted by Zodiac_Speaking

In the beginning, Jason kills the first group of kids. Whitney tripped and was crawling backwards. Jason runs and lunges his machete into her then main title. A half an hour later, she tied up in his catacombs. Um...huh? Did he miss?

Spoiler:

I don't think it went into her. I think the whole thing was that he saw the locket and somehow thought it was his mom. That would tie in with the earlier movies in the series.

I think he kept her chained up because he wanted it to be his mom but deep down knew it wasn't or he was afraid that she'd leave him again.

[Zodiac_Speaking]

Originally Posted by kilcher

Spoiler:

I don't think it went into her. I think the whole thing was that he saw the locket and somehow thought it was his mom. That would tie in with the earlier movies in the series.

I think he kept her chained up because he wanted it to be his mom but deep down knew it wasn't or he was afraid that she'd leave him again.

Spoiler:

I think that was what the filmmakers wanted us to think. But if you're a 16 yr old or something who hasn't seen F13 Part II, would you get this?

Still, how did he locate that was his mom's locket while cocking back the machete and running at her. The physics of this doesn't make sense. It was a scene for an awesome kill...until we found out he didn't kill her. lol

[Mr. Cinema]

One thing I didn't like was how part of the movie was filmed. Just like Quantum of Solace, though not as badly, I thought part of the film was zoomed in a tad too much and there were parts of "shaky-cam", making it hard to see what's going on. Why is this a trend now?

Not sure if this was just at my theater, but also there were a few scenes, up close, that were blurry. Did this happen at anyone else's screening?

[Zodiac_Speaking]

Perhaps the most tiring trend right now, IMO. In hindsight now, after seeing the film, Marcus Nispel was all wrong for this film. He "Texas Chainsaw'ed" it up here.

But to answer your question, Mr. Cinema, I didn't notice that it was blurry at my screening.

[scott1598]

Originally Posted by KillerCannibal

I enjoyed it. There were things that I felt worked really well, and others that weren't so welcome. I'll have a full review to post later this afternoon. My current score is 3 1/2.

Edit: here's my full review. Spoilerized because I wrote too much, and because there are spoilers.

Spoiler:

Before I even delve into this review I need to preface it by making one thing perfectly clear: I have a tremendous bias at play here. The Friday the 13th series was my Star Wars when I was growing up. I watched The Final Chapter on a seemingly endless loop. I used to sneak late night viewings of the series on USA long after my parents had tucked me into bed. I bought every single VHS tape and wore them out from continuous play (except for A New Beginning, I always hated fake Jason). I went into this remake with a mix of excitement and trepidation. On the one hand, I was happy to see all the love Jason has been getting lately. There is something awesome about seeing Jason pop up all over the place again – on subway posters, billboards, websites, magazine covers… it’s so refreshing to see my childhood icon being re-introduced to a new generation that missed the original series. Then again, on the other hand, I was worried Jason would be dropped into a 21st century flick that couldn’t do his legacy justice. This is, after all, Platinum Dunes, Michael Bay’s production company, at the helm. Marcus Nispel, he of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake fame, would be directing. I was concerned since the Chainsaw remake failed to hold up after successive viewings, and I couldn’t stomach seeing the same fate for Friday the 13th. As luck would have it, it didn’t turn out quite as bad as it could have, although it also wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.

Do I really even need to provide any kind of plot synopsis for a Friday film? Attractive 20-somethings head out to a cabin in the woods for a weekend of sex, drugs and unexpected death. That’s really the long and short of it. The only addition to that most tried-and-true of plots is that there’s a guy (Jared Padalecki) who’s also headed out to Camp Crystal Lake to look for his missing sister, one of the film’s female leads (Amanda Righetti) from the fantastic pre-title sequence.

While it’s true that all the right elements of a Friday film are here, this certainly isn’t the series I grew up on. First and foremost, let’s discuss just how Jason has evolved over the last 30 years. For those not in the know, and there are surprisingly many of you, Jason isn’t really in the original Friday the 13th. Aside from a seat-jumping cameo during that film’s final 12 seconds, he was just there to provide the impetus needed to get Mrs. Voorhees’ blood boiling. The Jason of Parts 2-4 was a lean, forest-dweller who lived in a ramshackle cabin deep in the woods and hunted anyone unfortunate enough to enter the camp grounds. He was a mongoloid, but he had intelligence enough to eke out a meager living in the woods. After he was (seemingly) killed for good in The Final Chapter, A New Beginning resurrected “the legend” of Jason Voorhees and pissed off fans were bummed to find out that the film’s slasher was merely an imposter posing as the real Jason. Jason Lives brought back the real Jason, only now he was an indestructible zombie. Regardless of the liberties they took with him, that film, along with The New Blood, was plenty of fun to watch. Jason Takes Manhattan turned him into a goddamn teleporter. I shit you not. Jason Goes to Hell, aside from about 10 minutes at the beginning and end where we see he’s a fat, mutated demon-thing, doesn’t even have him in the film. Jason X finally took him to the only place he hadn’t gone: outer space. And you know what? It was way more fun than it had any right to be. Then horror’s two leading icons finally got the match-up everyone had been waiting for, the only problem was that Freddy vs. Jason (for the most part) sucked.

Jason in 2009’s remake is a much different beast than we’ve all become accustomed to. It isn’t really made clear whether he survived his apparent drowning as a child, or if he did indeed come back from a watery grave to exact revenge, but the film establishes that he’s been living comfortably by himself in the woods of Crystal Lake for some time. Hell, even the local residents seem to know he’s out there, killing lots of people, but they’d rather just leave him be than call the police (?!?). Also, we get two different flavors of Voorhees in one film. Sackhead Jason hangs around for the first third of the film until he finds his iconic hockey mask and chooses to don it for the remainder of the flick. And despite what the writers have said, there is nothing remotely cool about how he gets the mask. Considering his acquiring the mask in part 3 worked well in relation to the story, the way he does so here just seems way too convenient. Now, here is the area where I have the most issue: Jason is too intelligent in this film. He sets booby traps, has a rigged up lighting and security system, uses wounded victims as bait to lure others and, most confounding, he’s managed to dig a series of tunnels around Crystal Lake. I kept waiting for him to take off his mask to reveal Bob Vila has been behind it all. I can accept that Jason is a skilled marksman with a bow-and-arrow, as we learn in a typically grisly manner, and it’s a series fact he’s good with throwing knives and various weaponry. But the writers here are giving Jason a little too much credit in the brain department. He’s like Lenny from Of Mice and Men, just with a machete. He’s big, he’s dumb and he plays rough.

Another staple of the series that got the short shrift here are the kills. There are a few that are memorable here, but there are a couple others that just seemed extremely lazy. The worst offender of all is when Jason suffocates someone before impaling them on a clothes hook. Suffocation? Really? People have watched the Friday the 13th films for years for 3 reasons: the sex, the drugs and the kills. When you’re lacking in originality for a film like this, as a fan, I have to wonder why. Also, despite the filmmakers touting just how grisly this entry is, I was under whelmed by the level of gore on display. I don’t need an ultra bloody film necessarily, but when you’re going all over town talking about how graphic your film is then it should at least live up to that hype. I’ll cut Jason a break on this one, since it’s his first big new outing and all, but I expect them to ratchet up on the kill creativity when the sequel hits.

The cast here is, surprisingly, not nearly as bad as I expected. I didn’t recognize anyone, aside from The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond star Nick Menell, but they all did slightly better than I anticipated. Jared Padalecki plays Clay, the guy searching Crystal Lake for his missing sister. Aside from looking very serious the entire time I thought he did well. Hell, even Trent, the pole-smoking douchebag whose parents own the cabin, was good in his respective role. I think I most enjoyed Arlen Escarpeta as Lawrence, the film’s token (and majorly tokin’) Black Guy. We all know the fate of the Black Guy in a horror film, but Lawrence does better than most and the audience was definitely rooting for him.

I’ll admit that much of my initial hesitation to this remake was due to the choice of writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. This is the same duo responsible for Freddy vs. Jason, one of the worst entries for both respective series and featuring some of the most poorly written characters and dialogue of any film in either. To say Friday the 13th is a marked improvement would be a fair statement. Some of the dialogue here is actually smart and there is some wit to their lines for once. While I have stated that I don’t like some of the liberties they took with Jason as a character, they still retained some of his trademark qualities and did make some minor improvements to his behavior. I hate to say this is a complaint, but they should have given us some more time to get to know the characters for who they are. Shannon and Swift seemed to be so concerned with reminding us that the series loves sex and drugs that almost every other scene features one or the other. I love a good smoke session or cheesy sex scene on screen as much as any Friday fan, but after a certain point you wonder if these people know how to do anything else.

Other than my concerns over changing Jason, my main gripe is with the music. Harry Manfredini created a legendary score for the series. His work on the first 4 films is a large part of what made them so endlessly re-watchable. The film retained many of its distinctive cues throughout all the entries, so to have someone new come in and completely blow all of that out was unfortunate. Steve Jablonsky, a longtime collaborator on Michael Bay films, comes aboard to provide a pounding jungle beat score that didn’t match the film on display. For one, his work sounds so reminiscent of Tyler Bates (Halloween ’07, 300, The Devil’s Rejects) that until I read his credit I was convinced this was Tyler Bates. I don’t need a bombastic track that makes me think Jason is going to break out glow sticks and starting popping dance moves in the woods at any moment. Jablonsky not only produced a lackluster score, but he also elects to go for cheap scares by tossing in stingers intended to make people jump at red herrings. That, in my opinion, is the lowest form of terror in a theater.

I had no problems with director Marcus Nispel. He wisely chose to use famed cinematographer Daniel Pearl (Texas Chainsaw Massacre ’74 and ’03), so the film looks absolutely gorgeous. Seriously, this is easily the best looking Friday the 13th film ever. The lighting is awesome, the location shots are awesome; everything looks really great. The film’s look will undoubtedly be compared to the Texas Chainsaw remake, since they do look similar, but overall this film maintains a better atmosphere and will no doubt hold up far better than that film does now. I think it’s also important to mention that the film doesn’t rely on that frenzied, quick-cutting style that so many filmmakers are fond of these days. The action is fast-paced, but the shots are broad and simplistic in their framing. You get a good feel for what’s going on without having to risk getting a headache following the carnage.

I think that’s probably more than enough information to form an opinion on whether or not you should see this movie. I want people to see it because I love the smell of Jason in the air, and the more money this one makes the more likely we are to keep getting sequels. I could argue that we have enough Halloween, Nightmare on Elm St. and Texas Chainsaw Massacre films that more don’t need to be made, but Jason obviously has a special place in my demented heart. I need to see the film a few more times to really let it all sink in… Not because it’s some deep Lynch-ian existential thinker, but because I need to see this Jason in action more to determine his rank among the others. Bottom line: this is a cool flick that probably won’t live up to the lofty expectation of hardcore Jason nerds, but as a horror film its far better than most of the detritus we’re treated to each year.

I don't think I could have put my feelings on this nice little addition to the slasher genre better than KC! he puts everything i liked and disliked so succinctly and aptly put that why bother.

the movie had me by playing the greatest rock ballad of all time:

Spoiler:

Night Ranger's "Sister Christian"

it would have been better if the stoner wasn't singing along, but alas.



i had the same gripes too:

Spoiler:

all the other Fridays did something so well that added to the overall mystique of Jason...they didn't show too much Jason!

he just appeared and you got glimpses before the kill. this one showed too much Jason imo. in the other Fridays, bodies would move and then appear in precarious locations without us seeing how they got there. this one actually showed Jason moving the bodies (some of them at least). carrying and lugging. they showed too much physicality of the being that it made him more human than the superhuman we've come to know and love.

they almost made him like the other slashers of this gorified, brutality living era we are in. almost more like Leatherface from TCM, where we saw him as a butcher rather than keep him hidden to the very last moment of impact.

and the cleverness with boobie traps and what not also de-mystified him just a bit. but, i understand that to progress even a bit you need to mix the original formula

but overall, this was the movie they should have made and is very much an opus to the fanboys and newbies alike.

i got a lot more out of this and enjoyed it a lot more than the aforementioned gory, realistic slasher flicks that pepper the genre now. they aren't redefining a genre and they aren't steering to far away from what made the originals so genuine. a note to future remakes in this category.

this was mindless fun to the 4^th degree and it was perfect for Jason and the "Friday the 13^th" legacy.

oh, and my favorite kill:

Spoiler:

machete through the dock to the unsuspecting topless water skiing starlet

predictable kill...yes. fun...hell yes!

your favorite kill?

[KillerCannibal]

My fave:

Spoiler:

The guy with his hamburger meat leg caught in the bear trap right before Jason plowed a machete halfway into his skull.

Brutal.

[scott1598]

also, about not making that kill before the opening title card (which i loved how it was placed by the way):

Spoiler:

i thought it was pretty obvious why she was spared after the reference to her looking like Pamela Voorhees and also how many times do you see someone about to get killed and then a quick cutaway, later to find out they are still alive and spared for some reason or another. that is a staple sometimes.

[scott1598]

Originally Posted by KillerCannibal

My fave:

Spoiler:

The guy with his hamburger meat leg caught in the bear trap right before Jason plowed a machete halfway into his skull.

Brutal.

that was a nice one as well and very much an ode to an earlier sequel, but the cheesiness of the one i mentioned is just so memorable for me.

and i think this was just a stepping stone to a future, more creative sequel with more creative kills. Bay and the creators, i think, will heed advice and make the next one that much more fun. but what a great start!

[Moopher]

I hated it.

[Giles]

'Jason goes to Manhattan' may have been silly but this was just dumb and pointless.

[LickTheABCs]

and i think this was just a stepping stone to a future, more creative sequel with more creative kills. Bay and the creators, i think, will heed advice and make the next one that much more fun. but what a great start!

or it will 20x worse. Like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Well, at least that had Diora Baird.

[Giles]

even the cast was annoying - they looked like CW rejects.

I do admit the kills and gore was good, but the script was just so pedestrian, and a 25min prologue - come on... that's stretching it.

[KillerCannibal]

That 20 min prologue may have been the coolest part of the movie.

Sure, the actors all looked like they sprang free from an Abercrombie ad campaign, but they weren't nearly as bad as most teen/20-somethings in horror films these days.

The script could use more work, but just remember these guys also did Freddy vs. Jason. For them, this was a marked improvement.

[Torchur317]

I thought Freddy vs. Jason was better than this....

[DJariya]

CW Rejects?

Uhhhh, Amanda Righetti or Whitney is currently on the #1 new TV show this season "The Mentalist"

Danielle Panabaker was on "Shark" on CBS.

Jared Padalecki is on Supernatural on The CW, which is probably a fan favorite in the TV forum and gets solid numbers for the CW. Plus, he's got a large female fanbase.

[LosingMyMind]

Wow, this made 19,000,000 on Friday. That's huge.

[DJariya]

OMG, it's Friday the 13th people!! Sounds like some of you were expecting an intellectual cinematic experience or something. It had blood & guts, boobs, stupid young adult victims and Jason. It worked for me.

[DJariya]

It you want to see a really shitty horror movie, rent one of those Dimension Extreme titles.

[Torchur317]

Originally Posted by DJariya

OMG, it's Friday the 13th people!!

Don't even try to pull that crap....
Most of know & love the Friday the 13th franchise....
The reason this is getting any hate because it's not the same as before....
It's been altered way too much for the modern day crowd....
Even with the changes most of us still enjoyed it, we were just let down by it....

[DJariya]

Originally Posted by Torchur317

Don't even try to pull that crap....
Most of know & love the Friday the 13th franchise....
The reason this is getting any hate because it's not the same as before....
It's been altered way too much for the modern day crowd....
Even with the changes most of us still enjoyed it, we were just let down by it....

I understand that. I like the Friday the 13th movies just as much as you and others in this thread. However, this is an updated "re-telling" of the Jason saga and I think altering it to fit with today's teen-20-something audience is necessary to fit with that demographic. Especially with then casting young known 20-something actors like Padalecki and Righetti. Of course it's not going to be the same as the 1980's movies. That type of storytelling would be dated now.

[BigDaddy]

I noticed blurring in some of the scenes in my theater. I might have to watch it again. I had a good time the first time. Looks like it make back its whole budget in the first day. Pretty impressive.

[Cosmic Bus]

So, other than horrible continuity, I wonder how they'd like to explain

Spoiler:

how Jason had the mask back on when he jumps out of the water at the end. It's shown sitting on the bottom of the lake, so what, he swam down to get it before coming back after the teens?