The new Friday the 13th (which is being released on Friday the 13th, as if that really makes a difference with anything) is being billed as a remake, but it’s really only a remake in the sense that the new Shaft was a remake: new characters, the original timeline still happened, but enough time has passed since the first film that it can safely claim that film’s title without confusing anyone. It’s also a remake in the sense that the new King Kong was a remake: it’s not really supposed to stand on its own without the good will generated by the original to use as a crutch. Judging by the fact that this film has even less exposition or plot justification than any of the other Friday films that I’ve seen, you’re basically supposed to be familiar with the fact that there’s a character called Jason who lives in the woods and kills people for no real reason.
The incredibly flimsy pretext for this go-round follows as such: a bunch of teens go into the woods near the old site of Camp Crystal Lake looking for pot, and they all are murdered pretty quickly by Jason Voorhees. Except….we never see one of them actually die (the screen just cuts to black), that one being Whitney (Amanda Righetti). Is she alive? Her brother (Jared Padalecki) is going into the woods to find out. And, along the way, there are some other teens, led by Jenna (Danielle Panabaker) and Trent (Travis Van Winkle), who are accompanied by the requisite sluts and background minority characters that occasionally say goofy things. Coincidentally, Travis Van Winkle also portrayed a character named Trent in Transformers. Perhaps not coincidentally, that character was also a complete douchebag.
If you’re a fan of the Friday the 13th series, then I can only presume that you’re going to like this, because this struck me as having most of the qualities that have defined the series thus far. It is stunningly lazy in its conception, kind of boring in its execution, and unerringly cynical in its effect, which perhaps says a little more about this series than it was supposed to. I mean, has there ever been anything that interesting about it? If you’re going to make something as unabashed in its appeal to the reptile part of our brain, you’d wish that they looked like they were having a little more fun with it. Maybe that’s what’s so depressing here. Whatever the shortcomings of the original (and there are plenty), it was at least sincere in its desire to make a socially irredeemable, commentary-free horror film. And we love it for that. Here, it’s just too slick. It’s too pretty. It’s too obvious that they had more money than those were ever given in the 80s even though they were bringing back something along the lines of quintuple their budgets. And they still didn’t try any harder than this. A few new murder weapons? Something cool with the set? How about a chainsaw battle? Please? No? Alright. Damn it.
It’s hard not to think of Rob Zombie’s Halloween while watching this. While Zombie is not an exceptionally more talented director than Marcus Nispel (whose own Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake ran rings around this), you could tell that the man was trying. He brought in actors who managed to keep a straight face while chewing his terrible dialogue, he came up with a few new interesting scenes, and generally, at least tried to evoke something of a character from Michael Myers. Here, Nispel just doesn’t seem to care. If we accept that the tropes of the series are as irrelevant as they really are, it makes you wonder why they didn’t just create a new series instead of something that you get the feeling was sold at the pitch meeting as Friday the 13th Part 2 meets Friday the 13th Part 3. Then you realize why: the brand name. We can see a poster referencing the hockey mask, or Camp Crystal Lake, or even Betsy Palmer, and know exactly what we’re getting into. Which begs the question: if the only thing keeping this franchise alive is nostalgia, isn’t it time we start re-evaluating why we go to the movies?
I’ve made it sound like it’s all bad, and that’s not fair. There is minor consolation to be found in the fact that no character, at any point during the film, takes Manhattan.
"Friday the 13th" opens February 13, 2009 and is rated R. Horror. Directed by Marcus Nispel. Written by Damien Shannon, Mark Swift. Starring Amanda Righetti, Danielle Panabaker, Jared Padalecki.
