Friday the 13th (2009)

Sex :
Violence :
Director Marcus Nispel Reviewer :
Writers Damian Shannon, Mark Swift
Starring Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Aaron Yoo
Genre Slasher
Tagline Welcome to Crystal Lake
15 second cap Jason protecting his stash from twenty something teenagers, we get boobies
Country

Review

“You're the last one. I've killed all the others. It'll be easier for you than it was for Jason. “ – Pamela Voorhees

You all know the drill, bunch of twenty-somethings do incredibly stupid things until Jason Voorhees culls the herd to save the gene pool. The only difference in this one is that Jason doesn’t want people messing with his crop and he keeps one of the hot chicks prisoner because she reminds him of his mother – anyone else notice the crib from Part 2 there? That’s about all the plot you get in a F13th movie, so at least they are maintaining the traditions here. Ready to take up the machete again?

Like the vast majority of Colonials at the bottom of the world I had no interest in watching the Platinum Dunes remake of F13th on the big screen; it bombed big time here. But I decided I would give it a shot on DVD hire as a $4.50 investment seemed about right for what promised to be a substandard movie, even by F13th franchise standard. Director Nispel, who also did the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, sure can shoot some pretty scenery, use the fog machine, and, well, shoot some pretty scenery. The dude really is a one trick pony and at times I thought I was watching the TCM remake again, sort of an acid flashback to the true shambles that movie proved to be. We get the same inbreds – Rob Zombie isn’t alone in strangely finding those people frightening – the same lack of tension, and it’s got to be said, the same uneven pacing. Nispel is simply a terrible director, and he’s not helped here by a script by Shannon and Swift that touches bases with every horror cliché they can think of, except being a good movie. Through eleven films the F13th franchise has managed to get a theatre release in Australia, but Platinum Dunes and Nispel have pretty much killed it off Downunder with one movie. Let’s slash it up and see what results.

The movie kicks off in good style, it’s 1980 and we’re at Camp Crystal Lake with Pamela Voorhees doing her thing due to Jason drowning. The infamous beheading goes down – yay final girl, can we have that movie instead – but this time young deformed Jason is watching from the woods. Shannon and Swift immediately kick in one of the major plot holes from the second F13th movie. Either Pamela Voorhees should have been expecting a visit by social services for not noticing that deformed kid hanging at her place, or the “mummy’s boy” notion of Jason makes no sense. To a certain degree we can forgive F13th Part 2 as Paramount demanded a sequel and the Writers had to get around a hole they had dug for themselves, remembering the original movie was viewed as a cheap stand alone with no thought given to a sequel, but for two modern Writers to trot out the exact same plot hole and apparently be totally unaware of it can be viewed as pretty piss poor scriptwriting. It doesn’t improve from there folks; I had to check to ensure that the dross loosely termed as a “script” wasn’t banged up by a barrel full of monkeys on crack cocaine. It’s inane, insipid, and should be an embarrassment to the whole Hollywood industry, though considering the conveyer belt mentality running through that place it’s probably par for the course. Why is it that Hollywood considers the fans will be happy with being talked down to and given second rate horror movies in the modern era? Friends and neighbours, vote with your wallet, boycott this sort of crap and send a message.

Okay, having spit roasted the writers, onto the wonderfully asinine Nispel who couldn’t direct an old lady across the street. The opening of the film is pretty good, I have to say; Pam Voorhees’s voice was always chilling times for me, total insanity there, but Nispel feels he has to film it in black and white. What, they didn’t have colour back in the 1980s? Oh it’s meant to be a flashback, ergo let’s film that in black and white for a possible Utah audience who were unable to read the title card telling us the time and place. Nispel is already talking down to his audience and he lost me right there and right then. A new record, it took half an hour of the remake of TCM for me to work out I was dealing with a hack, the remake of F13th took about five minutes.

Guess I should say something about the movie for F13th franchise fans: hey, you simply won’t like it – Nispel is unable to put any feeling into things, it’s brewers droop time folks. The remake isn’t really a remake as the film tramples over the plot lines of the first four F13th franchise movies, so it’s pretty much an attempted reboot by the combined brains trust of New Line and Paramount. We have this dude Clay looking for his sister, the chick Jason decides to keep as a trophy, which harks back to Friday the 13th : The Final Chapter, the intro mentioned above, which of course is the penultimate scene in the original Friday the 13th, bag head Jason Friday the 13th Part 2, and Jason getting his hockey mask Friday the 13th Part 3. Seems the concept of a killer taking out “a bus load of idiots” isn’t enough for the low attention span of modern teens, ergo we have the first four movies receiving the reader’s digest treatment. The rest of the comparisons run down the lines of Jason doing what Jason does best, ridding the world of annoying loathsome twenty-somethings no one really cares about.

Jason is back baby, no doubt hunting down Nispel for despoiling his heritage with this schlock

There are problems galore with the film, which really shouldn’t need to be said about a F13th movie, but moreover the class of 2009 makes the preceding 3,000 F13th chapters seem like textbook cases of logic and consistency. Our first group of victims – they have like a big “v” tattooed on their foreheads – trek into Jasonville on the pretext of camping out. Read hit the bottle, hit the drugs, and have wild twenty-something sex in nature’s backyard. There’s two couples (ensuring at least one boob shot) and the requisite nerd, cause all the cool kids have a nerd with them, it’s like an unwritten law or something. Anyway, our nerd dude and one of the other guys are on the track of this awesome dope patch rumoured to be in the region. Uhmm is Jason growing some of the mary jane to fund his herd culling activities? Actually, considering Nispel had two of his characters in the TCM remake trying to sneak some green into the U.S. you could call it a recurrent theme with the Director’s work, or a lack of original ideas if we wanted to be brutally honest. But I digress, naturally we hit night time, about the only thing missing is a storm, and while on the subject when did they erect the tents? Got to love continuity in your movies. Nerd guy using his GPS – wtf? – and finds the dope patch. Naturally Jason isn’t having a bar of someone stealing his crop and lodges a protest in a Voorhees kind of a way. One couple go for a stroll in the woods, which gives the other couple a God-given opportunity to get nekkid and do the wild thing in a tent. Hey, under ten minutes and we have boobs. Jason has strong thoughts on pre-wedding hiding the sausage activities and once again lodges a formal protest. Which leaves our final couple, the good girl who doesn’t flash her boobs, and her boyfriend who isn’t long for the world. Strangely Jason takes time out of his busy chopping schedule to lay a bear trap, which unerringly one dude steps in – now that’s got to ruin your day. Since when has our Jason been the brains in the outfit, it’s not his style amigos. In the wash-up, Jason manages to rid the world of four people who won’t be missed – I hear their parents threw a street party when they got the news – and takes prisoner this one chick who reminds him of his mother. And yes, for South Australians who may not have got the point, the clearly non-existent look-a-like thing is spelt out. If Jason thinks Whitney Miller looks anything like Pam Voorhees then he clearly has been smoking a lot of his crop.

That’s all logical, I guess, for the character of Clay to come searching for his sister six weeks later, but the thought remains, where the hell did they hear about the crop? We also learn the local inbreds know about Jason – he just wants to be left alone – but the once again incompetent local law enforcement have no idea. Hey go ask the dirty-looking inbreds dude, those people know things.

Jeez, I’m almost through this review and didn’t hit all the plot holes, but hey, I need to talk about new improved Jason. Got to say Jason was looking good, friends and neighbours; huge guy with gnarly clothes and good body acting. However, a few problems in my book of sorrows with the package here. Jason was always menacing when he adopted that slow relentless pursuit style, but here he runs! Jason doesn’t do the Olympic style sprint folks, no way in hell, and I was actually sniggering a couple of times over that one. We have a more intelligent Jason this time, a man able to set traps and lay on ambushes for the unwary twenty-something dude out to steal his crop. Did they nick the idea of the bear trap from Dying Breed? Okay, I can go with a low level animal cunning sort of thing, but come on, Jason has fitted out his crib with high powered lights! Anyone not notice the tall hulking mutant buying supplies down the local hardware shop? Nispel is at pains to make Jason a real person, rather than the zombie-like supernatural killer in the later franchise movies. His ability to teleport to about anywhere he wants is explained by a system of underground tunnels, it’s gopher Jason! He must also have taken time out to construct a vertical tunnel as well judging by the split second it took him to go from ground level to the roof of the house. Maybe he had an express elevator installed without the owners noticing or something. We also have the stock ending, cribbed from the first movie that kicked things off, which sort of dispels the whole non-supernatural thing. For a cheap jump moment Nispel basically throws his careful construction of Jason as a living human being out the window, talk about numb nuts. That scene didn’t actually make me jump, it was more your “wtf” moment of perplexity.

Should also state a couple of “highlights”, term used loosely, for franchise fans. Machete in head calling to mind the death of wheelchair guy from Part 2. Also we get a repeat of the jeep scene from the original movie, that scene actually worked for me. Special mention of Jared Padalecki (Clay); apart from Derek Mears (Jason), he’s the only person on set who can actually act, the rest are just filling in time between MacDonald’s shifts. There’s more wood going down here than contained in the Crystal Lake forest.

T&A is covered with three sets of boobs on display, ranging from natural to silicon enhanced. The gals of course get nothing as no female is ever going to see this movie, Jared Padalecki notwithstanding. Or at least that’s the view from Nispel’s end of the woods. Dude, news for you, and it’s not good on the audience make-up, word!

Steve Jablonsky did the score, which is heavily informed by the soundtrack for Halloween. I wanted more ki ki ki ma ma ma, the signature of F13th movies. So yeah, derivative, heard it all before, just like every scene in the movie really.

Well that’s another remake crossed off my list, which is about the best I can say for Friday the 13th (2009). This is an overly glossy remake that lacks the heart and soul of the original movies. Even in terms of its own franchise this is a dumb movie, with plot holes galore, and a dumbed down feeling to it. Quite frankly the worst movie yet in the F13th franchise, and that’s taking into account Jason X.

Friday the 13th (2009) had an opening weekend of $40.5 in North America but word of mouth soon kicked in and the movie limped to a total of $65 million. That’s still a profit but should serve as a warning that people are picking up on lame ducks quicker via web reviews. Simply put, it would be a huge mistake to go with a sequel as Platinum Dunes discovered with the TCM:The Beginning fiasco. International audiences were even more harsh on the movie with a total of $25.6 million underlying the public perception that F13th (2009) wasn’t worth catching. Downunder, the movie tanked with a $1.2 result.

I would catch the reboot if you are a F13th franchise fan, simply to fill out your requirements, otherwise give it a miss. Friday the 13th (2009) is a stupid movie made for the lowest common denominator who will take any old crap as long as it has boobs and kills in it, I don’t even want to think about the implications there. Got to say North American audiences are becoming a hell of a lot less discerning in recent times, so you can expect more of the same being churned out to a waiting audience of no attention span teens. Downunder audiences are also becoming sheep-like it must be said, but at least our Distributors are making the mistake of allowing reviews to cloud the issue before people waste money on this sort of stuff. Give it a miss would be my advice, or go grab a copy of the original.

ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ...

  A remake that makes the original look like Oscar worthy material.