Review of Friday the 13th (2009) by Ross L — 26 Oct 2012

Friday redux (which is how I'd like to think of it) is not that bad at being what it is, I suppose, but it's not that good at bringing anything that new into the formula. It's just familiar retread.

The filmmakers spend most of the time making Jason more reality-based than supernatural. For instance, Jason being in one place and then another so quickly was explained by him having underground tunnels all over the camp grounds.

They also take the time in the opening moments to show him as a child seeing his mother being beheaded and finding a locket on her dead body with a picture of her in it. In these remakes, there just seems to be this need to overexplain the characters and situations, and make them more relatable somehow.

In this film, Jason is purely a momma's boy. It goes to pathetic levels to show it, too. Jason even has a bed with his name written on the top of it with the obligatory teddy bear on top of the blanket.

There's even a moment when they show Jason having a flashback to the beheading of his mother while sharpening his machete (why would he do that?). It's that sympathy thing, not unlike Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween, that makes it feel pathetic.

Broad strokes are necessary when it comes to telling a backstory in these films. We don't need to sympathize with the killer. The moment when they take it too far is when Jason takes the lead girl prisoner because she's wearing the locket and looks like his mother.

Listen, Jason doesn't take prisoners. He's not Leatherface. He murders without remorse and without the need to take prisoners. You can fool Jason sometimes, but when it comes down to it, he'll flat out murder you.

As far as the characters themselves, they're slightly one-dimensional, and clichéd as all can be. It had to be intentional though, because there's no way that they made this film without realizing it at some point.

Starting off you have the handsome hero, the dick boyfriend, the sweet girlfriend who hates the dick boyfriend but likes the handsome hero, the funny stoner Asian guy, the black guy who points out racism in every direction and tries to be tough, the blonde looking to have a good time and eventually goes bananas (but thankfully dies early before she gets annoying), the adventurous couple who get it early, and finally, the lead victim who overcomes.

It's formulaic and generally boring on that level. The only thing that's missing is a mouthy black woman or a creepy little girl. On the other hand, the kills in Friday redux are actually pretty good, and some are even a bit on the visual side, such as the policeman's death.

In the Killer Cut of the film, there's quite a bit of blood and gore, but much more tame in the theatrical version. The film is also shot competently. It looks good, but it also looks like most of the horror films coming out these days.

Even the shaky cam is surprisingly used appropriately. So there's a various amount of elements at play in this film that doesn't really hold up together as a single entity.