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Blu-ray review: Friday the 13th (2009)
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Your favorite killer goalie is back
Some kids go in the woods, get their hands on some pot, get drunk, have some premarital sex, and a masked killer offs them all. Just your usual, run-of-the mill camping trip....if you know anything about horror films.
It's been 8 years since the atrocity known as Jason X (aka Jason Goes to Space, aka Someone's Been Messing With the Sci-Fi Channel's Cameras Again), and 6 years since Freddy and Jason went toe to toe in perhaps one of the most anticipated horror pairings in history, Freddy vs. Jason, a movie that was shockingly decent.
Now, nearly 30 years since the original Friday the 13th, writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, and director Marcus Nispel, have brought us a re-imagining of the Voorhees story. Nispel, who did work on the poorly-received Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, brings his dark and gritty style to Crystal Lake. Instead of following Mama Voorhees on her creative birth control rampage, the story only shows a made-over version of the events of the first film during the opening credits, including an adorable little Sloth-like Jason coming out of the woods after witnessing his mother's beheading. While this initial sequence is gratifying, it raises the biggest question mark of the film. What is Jason? Is he human? Is he a soulless being? For Jason to be human, he'd have a certain capacity for reasoning. If he is inhuman, or simply the "curse" of Crystal Lake, as some call him, there would be no reasoning to his brutality.
In the original series, Jason was a deformed child visiting Camp Crystal Lake when he drowned due to the oblivious behavior of the promiscuous pot-smoking camp counselors; hence, his mother set out to take revenge and kill them all. In the end, as also shown in the 2009 opening credits, she gets her comeuppance when a feisty blonde chops off her head. The films that follow show Jason taking revenge on the counselors for killing his mother. It's revenge on top of revenge. The later films began taking liberties with this story, often focusing on the mythology of Jason, the transference of his evil to others, and for some reason, his Muppet-like endeavors to travel to Manhattan and space. The most widely-accepted logic was that Jason was more of a curse, an evil entity that could not be killed.
In the 2009 version, it seems that Jason is more human. The story follows a group of friends who go for a camping trip near old Camp Crystal Lake. Premarital sex and a search for a fabled marijuana crop in the woods ensue, catching the eye of Jason Voorhees, a local urban legend. He descends upon the campers, killing them one by one. It's in these first scenes that we get a slice of the good ol' Jason we all know and love, including a creatively vicious homage to his famous sleeping bag kill from Part 7. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is not filled with such inventive kills.
A few weeks later, another group of friends head out to vacation at their buddy Trent's lake house. They cross paths with Clay, a brooding stranger with a motorcycle, while he's looking for his sister Whitney. She was in the group of campers from a few weeks ago. The townsfolk give the impression that they know about a certain evil that lurks in the woods, but no one is talking. The kind-hearted Jenna from the lake house group decides to help Clay out. There's a lot of plot going on here for a slasher film.
During this plot-overload, Jason is killing the lake house crew. These kills are not nearly as entertaining or inventive as some of the film's predecessors, although Jason is a bit more outdoorsy. The writers have given Jason a little more credit by fashioning him as this sort of frontiersman who sets bear traps and has turned an old, run-down mine into his labyrinthine home, making all areas of the woods easily accessible. But this once again raises the question of Jason's humanity, and makes certain plot points absurd. If Jason didn't really drown, why, instead of reuniting with his mother when he saw her stalking the woods at the camp, did he just follow his mom around watching her kill people until she herself was murdered? And, if we're taking a more human approach to Jason, why is he still so immune to death? Taking the side of the opposing argument, if Jason is more of an evil entity or curse with no logic or reasoning, why would he set traps or create a cozy home underground for himself? Why, when a character who resembles his mother calls out to him, would he respond favorably?
There are unanswered questions like this littered throughout the film. The writers should have kept things more simple, and taken a stronger stance on the human vs. inhuman debate; however, Friday the 13th isn't a horrible film by any means. While the kills do lack a certain creativity, they're still entertaining, more so when doled out to such obnoxious characters. The end is a real homage to the previous films, especially Parts 1 and 2. As far as pacing, there isn't a dull moment, and the secondary characters make for some good laughs, chiefly Aaron Yoo and Arlen Escarpeta. There's no lack of nudity, another joy for Voorhees purists.
Aside from a few sloppy writing points, and some poor choices in camera work (there are a few notably dark scenes, that, even on Blu-ray made it impossible to see anything going on), Friday the 13th is an enjoyable film. Perhaps Shannon, Swift, and Nispel will take note of the few complaints and bring the viewers a vastly improved second outing with bigger and better kills. For a movie brought to you by Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes, Friday the 13th is strides better than the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and follow-up. Here's hoping Shannon, Swift, and Nispel continue down this path.
Friday the 13th (2009)
Rated: R
Genre: Horror
Formats: DVD, Blu-ray
Running time: 97 minutes
Starring: Jared Padalecki (Clay), Amanda Righetti (Whitney), Danielle Panabaker (Jenna), Willa Ford (Chelsea), Travis Van Winkle (Trent)
Written by: Damian Shannon and Mark Swift
Directed by: Marcus Nispel
You can rent this at Netflix, or buy it at Amazon.
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