File This under Did We Have To?

Just when you thought my reviews of Friday the 13th movies were over, I’m back with another one. Slick Dungeon here, wondering why I just watched this. Maybe my review will answer my own question?

Okay so, I know I missed some of the originals but there are some films that can’t even be found in my own dungeon so I was left to watch this one. Just go with it and pretend those other films didn’t really happen. Kind of like this movie does.

I’m going to give you a summary of the… plot? And then I have a few thoughts about this thing. There are spoilers for this that will flow as free as the blood from a machete wound so you have been warned. If you haven’t seen the movie and you don’t want spoilers, watch it now and come back.

The movie starts with the decapitation of Mrs. Voorhees to dispel us of the notion that she could be the killer or that this is at all a straight remake of the first one. Then we get a group of teenage campers who are out in Crystal Lake, looking for weed, having sex and the whole bit. Of course they camp right near Jason, tell a story about Jason, then get killed by Jason. Finally, the credits roll like twenty minutes in to the movie. It’s a few months later and Clay (played by Jared Padalecki) is out looking for his sister who we know is one of the campers from earlier. We also know that she looks exactly like Jason’s mother. We don’t see her die on camera so there’s no guarantee she’s dead.

A different group of people are going up to Crystal Lake to spend the weekend and run into Clay. This one dude Trent is a total jerkwad and from the first second he is on screen we are all waiting to see Jason finish that dude off. Anyway, the story goes like you would expect, Jason stalks the people, kills them in horrific ways and in the end he is stopped at last. It’s a story we have seen on screen at least eleven times before and there isn’t really much new here, other than the fact that after eleven films, this doesn’t work so well when you try to start over.

Still, I had a few thoughts about this movie.

1. I wondered why I didn’t like this but then I figured it out. I hate virtually everything Michael Bay does. This was only produced by him but I still see his fingerprints all over it. There is modern (for 2009) music in it and it just feels wrong. Everyone is sweaty in practically every shot. The camera doesn’t hold still long enough to actually build tension. The characters are one dimensional for the most part, with the notable exception of Clay, his sister and the character of Jenna (played by Danielle Panabaker). It feels like a big Hollywood set even in the parts that are clearly just people walking in the woods due to the way it’s shot. In the end this is like trying to do horror with a glossy color poster with attractive people from 2009 instead of an old black and white Victorian portrait that actually looks creepy. Putting a modern spin on the film making style does not help this.
2. It seems like they wanted to feed into every stereotype from these movies to give the audience what they wanted. The thing is, that what the audience actually wants is to be surprised and scared by these movies. So if you see people doing drugs or having sex or whatever, and then they get killed, it’s not scary and it’s no longer a surprise. Also, I never related to these characters much (not that I do in the other ones either really) so when they die, it’s not real impactful.
3. There was a disturbing lack of car trouble in this movie. How can this be a Friday the 13th movie if the only reason that a car doesn’t start is that there are no keys? Did someone open that Crystal Lake auto repair shop? Cause that was my idea!
4. Also, the guy who tells the campfire story of Jason does a terrible job. It’s not suspenseful and there is no one to jump out at the end. Come on man, learn to tell a story, otherwise this is just lazy.
5. This stars Jared Padalecki and there is no Jensen Ackles in the movie. Come on Sam Winchester, you can’t win this without your bro.
6. I didn’t find the kills in this one particularly inventive. I know after all those movies that came before it’s hard to come up with something new but try a little harder guys. I saw a circular saw and you know how many people got killed with one? Absolutely none.
7. Jason doesn’t kill Whitney (the missing sister) because she looks like his mother. But he basically keeps her prisoner in his house. Sorry but this makes no sense. Why would Jason take his own mother prisoner. Also, Whitney finds out right in the beginning that she looks like his mother but doesn’t really pull the whole impersonating his mother until the end of the film. What? Why not? I mean she could have done that in the first fifteen minutes and then the movie is over.
8. Trent is a jerk. They make Trent such an obvious jerk in this movie that you can tell the film makers were like, here’s the guy you can cheer for when he gets killed. Look how jerky his jerkiness is. Let’s make him more of a jerk. Wait he’s not jerky enough so let’s have him cheat on his girlfriend so the audience understands how jerky he is! So yes, there are not one but two attractive women who just want to be all over Trent even though… he is a jerk. Okay…
9. I did not see an old man warns those kids away from that place scene. This movie fails. The closest we get is an old woman telling Clay that “he just wants to be left alone” with no other explanation. I need an old guy warns people away scene. If you make a sequel to this movie, hire me for that scene, I am available. Also, I work cheap.
10. While Derek Mears does a great job playing Jason, he’s on camera too much. These movies are always better when you are not sure when he’s going to pop up or from where. As soon as we see Jason, it gets a little less scary and in this one we see him almost right from the beginning. The early ones hid Jason a lot more and that worked to their advantage.
11. The jump scare at the end of this was so predictable. Again, if we have seen it a bunch of times, even though you are doing a reboot, we are going to see it coming. How about just try something new? Oh wait, you can’t. That’s why you did a reboot. Okay fine.
12. For a reboot though, this is actually not that bad. I have definitely seen worse reboots. It just never felt… necessary to me though.
13. This film make the 12th movie about the Voorhees in the series. Can we please, please get one more? Let’s get everyone who survived these to team up and hunt down Jason. And let’s make sure that I am there warning those kids away from that place!

I hope you have enjoyed my reviews of this series. It was fun to take a look at these movies again. Until next time, I’ll be hanging out at a local hardware store near a lake and telling people not to go to that place.

Superstitiously yours,

Slick Dungeon

PS Want to see Sam Winchester without his brother and Killer Frost without the Flash face off against the Voorhees family? Check it out below.

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