Jason (and the Audience) Does Not Like Remakes!: Friday the 13th (2009) Review

This remake's only distinction in the series is that it isn't as bad as Jason Goes to Hell and Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.

Released by New Line Cinema

Release Date: February 13th, 2009

Starring: Jared Padalecki, Amanda Righetti, Derek Mears, and Arlen Escarpeta

Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift

Directed by Marcus Nispel

Rated R (strong bloody violence, some graphic sexual content, language and drug material)

There have been many "Friday the 13th" movies, ten in fact, so the formula is getting a little tired. So when they announced a remake I was hopeful. Could a reboot be just the thing that slasher fans needed? The answer is an astounding no.

This remake isn't really a remake at all. Well it is for the first minute or so, but after that it back to the usual business. After I watched the movie I asked myself "How can you take an entire movie and boil it down to a minute?" The answer to this is answered very quickly: you can't.

The problem lies in the fact that this movie was written by two people who apparently know nothing about the "Friday the 13th" movies. What they do know is public knowledge. Jason was thought to have drowned when he was a kid, but according to this movie he didn't. He watched his mother be decapitated and ever since has vowed revenge.

This may or may not be the case if you are a fan oF the series. Some believe that he did drown and is now the living dead, while others believe that Jason didn't drown and that he lived off the land until he could take revenge on the one who killed his mother. I like to think that Jason died and came back, but who am I to know?

Anyway, the after the opening we meet a group of twenty somethings who are venturing into the forest to find a hidden garden of weed. We get to know the group as they hang out by the fire., then they split off into groups of two to go have sex and explore. Soon enough Jason makes his appearance and kills off all of the group except for one. What I took away from this scene was that Jason was merely protecting his weed. How else would he get through all the years of being lonely?

The sequence above last for about twenty minutes. The reason I mention this is because after this sequence we get the title of the film. I have always been a fan of pre-credit sequences, but not twenty minutes worth.

Now we are into the meat of the story, but you know what? I didn't care. I don't like the fact that we were given time with the first group of people only to have them killed off so quickly. It didn't work in "Death Proof" and it doesn't work here.

There are nods to some of the previous movies, but they are so badly handled that you even wonder why they even tried. The writers said that they were bringing "Friday the 13th" back to classic form. I guess they did in a way, but they forgot that "Friday the 13th" movies are supposed to fun, not boring.