Jason Voorhees Still Mad About His Mom - 'Friday the 13th' Review...
There comes a time in every overly long horror movie franchise when it's no longer necessary to add numbers at the end of the titles of the horizonless stream of sequels. This happened in the Friday the 13th series for the first time in part 4, The Final Chapter, which incidentally was also the first time they put a bald-faced lie right into the title, although not the last time (hear that, Final Friday?). Then the numbering system disappeared until part VI (one of the only sequels worth watching), VII and VIII, after which the whole titling process changed completely. In fact, no Friday the 13th movie has had "Friday the 13th" anywhere in the title since the stupendously bad Jason Takes Manhattan, which was released a full two decades ago.Now, the newest entry in the series is released with exactly the same title as the original! I don't really want to contemplate what this means as far as the end of the series, if it will ever come. I tend to doubt it.
Thankfully, the movie was a lot better than I expected. It would be something of an understatement to say that I had low expectations to begin with, but in the cinematic world of horror sequels, the new Friday the 13th is one of the better ones.
[caption id="attachment_23815" align="alignleft" width="297" caption="No points for the casting department."]
[/caption]The movie opens with a scene that shows little promise for a good horror movie. Anyone who has ever seen pretty much any Friday the 13th sequel will be immediately dismayed to see that they have elected to start this one off with the same thing - a bunch of idiot college kids wandering into the forest to get high and get laid, laughing and joking over a campfire about the legend of Jason Voorhees.
"It all happened right here in these woods! Right here where we are! Jason could be right behind those trees! Huh huh huh huh!!!"
Morons.
This is, however, all part of a set-up that sets the stage for the rest of the movie, which thankfully takes a slightly different tact from the myriad of sequels that came before it.
There's an opening sequence that's more than 20 minutes long that takes place before the opening title card, and then during the rest of the movie there's a college-age kid surveying all the people in the surrounding area of Camp Crystal Lake to find out if anyone has seen his missing sister, who was one of the kids in the beginning of the movie.Okay, maybe I lied. That's the only thing that's different. There is an unmistakable feeling that the only thing that ever changes in Friday the 13th movies is the kind of cars the kids drive and their accomodations. This time they're cruising along in an Escalade and staying in the vacation home of one of their parents. Evidently someone thought to buy a beautiful lakeside cabin at Crystal Lake, which until now never really struck me as a big vacation destination.
[caption id="attachment_23817" align="alignleft" width="300" caption=""Hey, you're a cliche, too!""]
[/caption]The performances are uniformly bad throughout. They are exactly the same sophomoric idiots that star in every horror movie ever made that has high school or college kids in it. They show up making the same stupid jokes, wearing the same stupid halter tops and each representing the same stupid caricatures. The geek, the black kid, the jock(s), the nervous good girl, the hot chick(s), etc. But at least the paper thin characters make the admittedly clever and gruesome kills that much more satisfying. Kind of makes me wonder what a slasher film would be like if there was a single character in it that we cared about, you know?
Friday the 13th follows exactly the same formula that the series has followed who knows how many times before - a group of kids go into the woods together and manage to get separated from each other within usually less than ten minutes - but as Jason gets on in age (by my calculations he should be somewhere in his early 60s by now) he has gotten bigger and faster and stronger. This doesn't speak well for the logistical consistency of the series, but when has logic ever applied?
The Friday the 13th movies have always been the kind of movies that you watch at home on a late rainy night, usually best enjoyed with a bunch of friends and a 12-pack. I can't remember a time when a Friday the 13th movie has ever been scary, but I would be lying if I said I don't occasionally get a huge kick out of having a couple beers with my buddies and watching an old, bad horror movie, so what's so wrong with having a couple beers with my buddies and watching a new, bad horror movie?Note: At one point in the movie, one of the characters says this line of dialogue - "Let's all be one big, happy cliche!" I don't think I even need to comment on that.
Also, the next entry in the series will be the 13th Friday the 13th movie. I hope they don't screw it up!
[caption id="attachment_23819" align="aligncenter" width="258" caption="3.5 Beans out of 5."]
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