Overall Rating
  Awesome: 4.41%
Worth A Look: 17.65%
Average: 25%
Pretty Bad: 10.29%
Total Crap: 42.65%
5 reviews, 38 user ratings
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| Friday the 13th (2009) |
by William Goss
"Hack, Slash, Repeat"
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After almost a dozen sequels and twice as many knock-offs, one would hope that a modern reboot of the 'Friday the 13th' franchise would bring a properly inflated sense of tension and terror to this generation that the original brought to its own. 2003’s 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 2004’s 'Dawn of the Dead', even 2005’s 'House of Wax' met the criteria in terms of the purely visceral experience, and with no great blasphemy to their predecessors in the process. However, as something old becomes something new, what was eagerly borrowed may leave some blue, because this year’s 'Friday the 13th' – from 'Chainsaw' director Marcus Nispel and producer Michael Bay – looks like a Jason movie, sounds like a Jason movie, knows it’s a Jason movie, and yet settles for being just another Jason movie.The story sprints past the established lore in fleeting glimpses during the opening credits: when the unsupervised Jason drowned at Camp Crystal Lake one summer, his mother returned to stick it to all those doping, drinking, diddling counselors until finding her rampage stopped by the business end of a machete. Of course, the back-from-the-grave Jason doesn’t take lightly to his mother’s decapitation, and so he picks up the blade and takes off for the nearby woods, eager to eliminate all who stumble upon the campground to this day. And boy, has the camp gone to pot, literally. Our introductory band of buds are hiking their merry way towards an alleged crop of marijuana that happens to be exactly where they shouldn’t, and while it seems unnecessary to have the campfire legend recycled to us by way of the nearly departed, it’s this prologue that gives us the best sense of Jason’s anywhere-everywhere menace and general resourcefulness.
Twenty minutes in and six weeks later, however, we’re introduced to our primary group of victims, a veritable Abercrombie catalog brought to life and sentenced to death, including the rich frat kid (Travis Van Winkle), the reluctant girlfriend (Danielle Panabaker), the African-American guy who won’t stop reminding everyone he’s black (Arlen Escarpeta), the Asian-American dude who won’t stop reminding everyone he’s stoned (Aaron Yoo), and a couple of blonde bimbos (Ryan Hansen and Willa Ford) to round out the body count. (Did I mention there’s this terribly rugged fellow looking for his missing sister that happens to very much resemble Jared Padalecki of "Supernatural" fame? He’s dreamy AND concerned!)
Soon enough, things take their natural course: Jason (Derek Mears, appropriately hulking) wears a dusty hockey mask, for no reason other than to fit the part, and wields a mean machete against the fresh faces, one by one. An admirable favoring of practical effects lends the kills some heft, often rendered suspense-less by Nispel’s efforts to frame every attack as obviously as possible and Bay’s penchant for lens flares as far as the eye can see. The cast members merit little individual mention because their roles require little effort other than to sprint and scream on cue (they’re here to bare their breasts, not their souls), and some errors in consistency as to how their characters seemingly transport themselves as easily as Jason does are likely explained away by the film’s producers boasting online about just how many scenes were snipped and saved for the inevitable unrated cut on DVD (now with more logic!).It should please the clap-happy, scream-easy masses, and it shouldn’t piss off the most hardcore of fans, but to bring Jason back into the spotlight proper after space escapades and showdowns with Freddy deserves something a bit more intense than this. No matter which way they cut, this incarnation of 'Friday the 13th' makes for one weak day.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=17533&reviewer=409
originally posted: 02/13/09 23:41:34
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Horror Remakes: For more in the Horror Remakes series, click here.
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USA
13-Feb-2009 (R)
DVD: 16-Jun-2009
UK
13-Feb-2009 (18)
Australia
12-Mar-2009 (R)
DVD: 16-Jun-2009
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