Friday the 13th (DVD, 2009, Extented Killer Cut)

Frankfurt born Marcus Nispel sure has had Carte Blanc in directing his films ever since his washed out style of cinematography was distinctively used in his 2003 remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I'd have to say the script was much more interesting in that film than this one. Let's just get down to brass tacks about this film. This version of Friday the 13th was extremely predictable & quite overdone. The film seemed to be 2 films in 1. It's much harder to believe that this Jason guy could get more and more cruel in his killings. In his younger years, he just did such a good job being a mediocre killer, yet an extremely terrifying stalker. Now that Jason has the time to stroll through this picture to set up each individual stunt to give us the most shock value, the feeling of originality is totally lost forever.

The time honored rights of passage about taking your girlfriend to her first rated R film is totally blown in this film. There would be no way that I could even beg someone to sit in a theater on a first date and watch all the fake blood & gore being delivered up to the audience so that they will go home & at least feel they didn't waste their 30 dollars on a dead dog. Let's just call this exactly what it is. A calculated formula to bring people back to the theaters at the exact time in order to get the reaction from the squeamish part of the audience. Guys, if you are like me, you will love watching your partner squirm more than you will like watching this film.

You know, the Camp Crystal Lake thing is so corny, we are still supposed to believe that the cops their are so convinced that nothing has ever gone on in these woods, that they spend a whole scene trying to convince us that the whole party of missing people just got lost & drove to Mexico or something? Give me a break!

Now if we actually count the times where the fear actually got extreme enough to keep our interest, then we are talking about why the film was actually made in the first place. The scariest scenes worth mentioning are the ones in which you least expect the victims to get away. The first of the scariest scenes was one in which Jason was sticking his machete up through the floor boards & slowly slicing up the young guy in front of his girlfriend. The most startling, scariest, & a bit funny to boot was the scene where the cocky Trent Demarco (Travis Van Winkle) was trying to get away in his truck when Jason tosses the body of his girlfriend Bree(Julianna Guill) out of the top window of the house and smashes the windshield of the vehicle he was hiding in. The character of Trent starting screaming like a baby, which I thought was extremely funny since was the one who was so tough and condescending to his friends about everything since we are introduced to his rich boy attitude which is extremely annoying. In my opinion, the sex scene between Bree and Trent was extremely distracting to the film. This typical pleasure/pain juxtaposition continues to be in slasher films, & too, actually enforces in peoples minds a sort of taboo thing for young lovers. It's almost like saying, if you have pre-marital sex, you more than likely going to get killed by a raging lunatic with a hockey mask.

The thing that seems to be hilarious is that our Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears) seems to be much more young, agile, & muscular. There seems to be no moral fiber in these people as well, thus we have to conclude that they must really deserve to die a horrible death.

I'm going to start off by saying that I'm a huge fan of the Friday the 13th series, even staying up all night one time watching the original 9 parts consequtively (took about 14 hours). I heard about this remake/reimagining around 6 months before it was set to release in theaters and I was psyched, especially when I found out that Marcus Nispel (Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake) was directing. The F13 remake did not disappoint me one bit. It had everything the original series had...and then some. The part I liked most about it was the new Jason...bigger, smarter, and of course, faster. Yes, he actually runs and shows him doing it, and it's frickin' awesome. This remake incorporates stuff from parts 1-3 of the original series. He starts off with the sack for a mask, and then shows him finding his infamous hockey mask. If you're a fan of the original series, I highly recommend it. If you're looking for a movie with babes & boobs, drugs, and a machete wielding killer slaughtering innocent people one by one, look no further. Non-fans of the original series and/or people looking for a smart and extremely well thought out horror movie, Friday the 13th will most likely leave you very disappointed.
I'd rate it a solid 9/10.

'sighs' I'm almost as sick of hearing people complain about remakes as I am watching them. A professional critique of this film can go both ways. If you are, as I am, a maniacal fanatic of the Friday the 13th films then there's about a 99% chance you will have a seemingly endless stream of problems with this movie, all of which I am more than happy to detail below. If you've never really cared about Jason Voorhees and you're just in for a decent slasher flick then chances are high that you will have a great time watching this.
And now I must rant about all of my complaints: This film absolutely disregards everything you've ever loved about Jason, and all the Friday films. The first Friday the 13th doesn't even show Jason but for a brief second at the very end (and well played at that by Ari Lehman - now famous for that 2 second role)his mother was the killer and single handedly birthed one of the greatest horror films of all time! She's in the remake for about 4 seconds right at the start giving viewers absolutely no sense of the history behind her and her motives for killing.
Secondly, it takes Jason several films/resurrections to become the unstoppable seemingly immortal brute force that he becomes. In perhaps part 6:Jason Lives does he possess such awesome strength and cunning visibility as he does from the very beginning of this awful remake.
Jason was a "mongoloid". A deformed mentally retarded child who drowned in a lake. He later had a small beat up sorry excuse for a cabin out in the woods, like something a mentally retarded person on their own would build. And it's perfect!! Yet somehow in this 2009 film, he operates generators, builds cages, sets traps, hollows out caves underground, changes light bulbs, makes beds, and takes prisoners whom he brings food to to keep them alive and healthy. His childhood home still stands, neatly dusted and bed well kept with his camp trophies well in place next to his neat little bed with his name engraved on it. Absolute doodoo.
His killings are very precise and well organized almost in comparison with Showtime's Dexter. No no no. Jason kills mercilessly and without any care as to where his blade will fall. He'll punch your head off your shoulders, rip your heart out with his bare hands, hack you into pieces with his machete. Nope, not in this film - he shoots a guy in the head from over a quarter mile away with a bow and arrow. No, that's just stupid. Throws an axe from about 50 yards out and hits a guy right in the middle of his back perfectly. Also very stupid.
Jason wasn't the only thing wrong however. The actors were all the worst of the worst. Not funny stupid like all the original Friday's, just plain stupid stupid people that you can barely stand to watch. The boobies were all very large and extremely fake as well, no fun ones like in part 5.
The dialogue was awful. What the writers thought was clever verbiage was just over the top hogwash - like in Scream 2.
Final synopsis - I hate hate hate this movie, but for some strange reason I've watched it half a dozen times like I'm waiting for something I didn't catch to pop up. I'll watch it again too. Like there's some strange unexplainable addictive substance woven into the film. Put all your memories and love for the original Fridays aside and you actually have yourself a very decent slasher flick that's fun for all, unless of course you're a harsher critic than me. Then you can just abandon all hope all together.

Jason is back and Crystal Lake is as deadly as it was in the 1980's.

Director Marcus Nispel takes his shot at the remake of the highly successful series that first appeared in the 1980s and does a very good job.

When the original movie came out in theaters it scared the heck out of everyone who saw it. This movie does not quite rise to that degree of horror but it comes pretty close to it.

The movie starts out in 1980 with Jason's mother and Jason killing the original camp councilors then jumps to the present. This is not just another remake, there are a few good changes to the plot that make this one worth watching.

The sex scenes are rather graphic at times and some of the slasher scenes are also so if your not into that type of movie you will not like this one. However if you like sex, violence and gore then make sure you get this movie. If you do not like sex, violence and gore then you better skip this one.

Rated 4 of 5 for good entertainment from a good director.

This review, especially the next comment is from a guy who grew up on Jason and has been in a fist fight
because someone said "Jason movies suck." I loved this movie!! It is so old school it isn't even funny. Now
all you people who badmouth the movie (much like you did for the remakes of Halloween & Texas Chainsaw)
have either A: Never seen the other movies, or B: Have no idea what Jason is all about. Jason movies are
about cheap scares, nudity, blood and gore. That's it, end of story. They're not meant to be classical, epic
landmarks like "Lord of the Rings" or even the "X-Men" movies. It's meant to scare you, show you some
naked people and gross you out with the gore. This movie does all of those things. Now, the story is very
different in a lot of ways, than the previous Jason flicks. He's back at Camp Crystal Lake (thank God) but
this movie is the first 4 originals through the magic of science able to make a new "Frankenstein" of sorts,
throw him in a lake and then when he's P'd off, the fun starts. Simple. The new elements are 1: Jason can
think, he's not a mindless killer anymore, 2: The explanation of how Jason can get from point A to point B
without you seeing him do it, 3: Smarter teens and 4: A good, realistic story. Some parts I didn't like much
at the beginning, but as the movie progressed I caught myself hating things for no reason other than the fact
that they were new ideas. The only things I don't like about his one, and will not change my mind are how
small Jason is compared to the previous films, and the fact that yet again, Kain Hodder isn't playing Jason.
Other than that, it's fine!! There's lots of scares & shock, lots of blood & gore, and even some nakedness!!
I guess all I have to say is that if you give this one a chance, it's good. But if you don't let yourself like it
then you won't. I recommend it for fans of gore, Jason, nudity and Horror / Slasher movies.

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