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yendiToday's film is the remake of Friday the 13th. I'll be reverting back to the formula I used when I first reviewed the series years ago.
Concept: Essentially a remake of Part 3, but with weaker acting, poorer treatment of minorities, and less 3D. That last one is a plus. The others aren't. After an extended opening sequence, a bunch of kids come to Crystal Lake to party, and hunky Clay comes to town looking for his sister, Whitney.
Killer: Human Jason. Well, actually it's Tiny Leatherface pretending to be Jason. Because instead of just being a killing machine, he's a country boy who sets traps, does long, slow kills, and has all sorts of family issues. Also, he's just tiny. I expected the twist ending to feature Jason ripping off his mask to reveal Warwick Davis, thus setting up the inevitable Jason vs. Leprechaun.
It's not just the size, though. Go watch the opening scene of Jason X, when Kane Hodder, strapped to a pole and (theoretically) helpless, exudes menace in a closeup of his face with merely one eye. There not one scene in the new movie -- even when Jason's in full attack mode -- in which he exudes even a tenth as much menace. I don't know whether the problem is Derek Mears -- who certainly looks pretty scary in the still shots on his IMDB page -- or with director Marcus Nispel, whose remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre conveyed a sense of "place as menace," but never actually gave us any menacing characters, either.
As far as Jason's outfit goes, for the first six kills, he's Old School Sack Over the Head Jason, and after that, he's Classic Hockey-Mask Jason.
Bonus feature: Jason may also be Weed-Smoking Jason, as the early batch of kills revolves around a group of kids who stumble across Jason's magic weed patch, and the townie that Jason kills for no other good reason (since it's established that he doesn't kill townies*) has also apparently found the weed.
Oh, and considering his network of tunnels (more on that later), he might actually be Groundhog Jason.
Kills: Jason kills thirteen folks on-screen (whoa! What an incredibly random number to end up with) with a bit of wiggle-room for the iffy ending. We also see Mrs. Voorhees bite it, and there are references to off-screen kills by both Jason and his mama.
Bad kills: You don't get much dumber than the killing of Nolan. While driving a motorboat at full speed, he gets an arrow shot into the back of his head by Jason, firing a compound bow at a 35 degree angle. From the shore. With only one eye. Ollie Fucking Queen couldn't make that shot (although he'd sure try; Nolan's easily the most annoying character in the entire movie).
Then there's Trent. He's on the run from Jason, and makes it to the road. A pickup truck nearly runs him over, and the driver stops and doesn't say anything. Trent, thinking that the driver might be Jason, just freezes there, not approaching the driver, but not running. Sure enough, Jason eventually makes it out of the woods and throws Trent onto some conveniently-placed spikes sticking out of the back of the truck. And then the driver just casually drives off! Because shit like this happens all the time at Crystal Lake!
Those are the only truly bad kills, but there are others that simply don't feel like Jason killings. Amanda, for example, is dragged out of her tent inside a sleeping bag, a clear tribute to Jason's best kill ever, the murder of Judy in Part VII**. But then he finds some rope, hauls the sleeping bag up over a tree branch, and dangles it over the campfire, roasting her to death. Then her boyfriend Richie comes back to the tent, hears her screams, and runs out to rescue her, only to get his foot caught in a bear trap, where he lies for a good ten minutes until Jason, having been killing folks elsewhere, finally puts him out of his misery. It's complicated, over-the-top, and has a sense of torture and cruelty that just doesn't make sense. It's not that Jason is a nice guy, but he's about brutality and efficiency. Torture is the Texas Chainsaw way***.
Really good kills: The four deaths preceding Trent's are the best of the lot. Chewie, trapped by Jason in a shed, does his best to fight back, and is killed when Jason takes his wrist and slowly bends it, forcing the screwdriver Chewie found into his own throat. Lawrence, sent to look for Chewie, sees the body and runs, but Jason throws a double-sided axe into him (and yes, I know that this isn't realistic either, but Jason usually gets one solid thrown-item death a film, and this one was nicely done). As Lawrence lies in pain with an axe on his back, Jason slowly walks up to him, lifts his body into the air, and throws in onto the ground, forcing the axe out through his torso. This is a perfect example of how to have Jason commit a murder that's both prolonged and stylish without making it seem out of character.
Stereotypical resident teen slut Bree dies next; while searching the upstairs room for a gun to use against Jason, she notices that the window is open, and sure enough, Jason has snuck into the bedroom. In one of those rare "telegraphed but still fun" murders, he lifts her off the ground and impales her head on the deer antlers mounted on the wall****.
Finally, the local cop***** shows up, and as he's knocking on the door of the cabin, Jason leaps down behind him and sticks him through the head (and the solid door) with a fireplace poker. It's a stylish and brute-force kill, and pulled off quite nicely.
Notable celebrities: Mrs. Voorhees is played by none other than Nana Visitor, for the DS9 fans.
The rest of the cast consists of no-names and the sort of pseudo-celbrities that populate The CW and Maxim magazine. Nolan is played by Ryan Hansen, who basically played the same character on Veronica Mars and in Superhero Movie. If you're the sort of person who considers Willa Ford anyone of consequence, then you'll enjoy knowing that she plays Chelsea, and manages to go topless before getting killed. Jenna is played by the delightful Danielle Panabaker, who stole so many scenes in Sky High. Whitney is played by Amanda Righetti, who was the "hot actress" on Reunion -- AKA the one of the three female characters with no real personality. And our lead, Clay, is played by Jared Padalecki, of Supernatural and Gilmore Girls fame. He was also in House of Wax, so this movie will not be the worst horror remake he'll have on his resume.
Denouement: Jenna and Clay make it Jason's Super Secret Underground Lair of Tunnels, and find Clay's sister Whitney. Jason's been keeping her hostage because she looks like a young Pamela Voorhees. Seriously. They find an opening, and Clay and Whitney escape, even as Jenna gets a machete through the chest. Then we get the usual fight, and Whitney uses her Magical Pamela Doppleganger Powers to distract Jason while Clay stabs him with a machete.
But wait, there's more! For reasons that wouldn't make sense to a crackhead with a case of paranoid schizophrenia, the two crazy kids decide to not immediately get the hell out of Dodge, but to instead wait until Dawn, then take Jason's body and throw it in the lake, giving it the burial at sea that the US Serial Killer's Code demands. Naturally, as they walk away, Jason bursts through the dock, and we fade to black.
Miscellany: As mentioned above, director Nispel also gave us equally lifeless Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, which is sadly superseded by its own sequel. So that offers hope for future Friday the 13th films, assuming they turn over directorial duties to someone else.
Writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon co-wrote Jason V. Freddy. At their current rate of improvement, expect a good movie out of them slightly after your great-great-grandchildren have died of old age.
Overall: God, what a piece of crap. In fairness, this movie probably has the most talented cast of any F13 movie. But with a screenplay this awful, there's simply not much that the cast can do.
I can't ignore the handling of the minority characters here. There are three of them. Amanda gets treated no worse than the others -- like Chelsea and Bree, she follows the horror movie tradition of getting naked then getting killed. But the Korean -American Chewie and the African-American Lawrence are the only characters in the main part of the movie with no social skills or connection to the other characters, both of them tossed into the mix purely for comic relief and drug humor. There's little more pathetic than the scene featuring Lawrence smoking pot, reading porn, and deciding to masturbate in the middle of the cabin's living room. Well, except maybe for Chewie's klutzy beer pong game. Even in a movie filled with annoying and worthless characters, these roles were low.
That's far from the only sour note this movie strikes, though. I don't think I've ever seen less of an attempt to give personalities to the cast in any Friday the 13th film. Once you account for Jenna and Clay, the rest of the characters are practically interchangeable victims, all driven by the same need for sex and drugs. Yes, there's a lot of that in the other movies, but even in Part VII******, the characters had distinct personalities.
And then there's Jason and his ludicrous network of tunnels, with exits all over town, cages for prisoners, and bells to alert him when new victims come walking by. Between the underground lair, the mask, and the kidnapping of the ingenue, it's almost like some rural version of Phantom of the Opera. Although nothing as horrifying as an Andrew Lloyd Weber song (or even worse, a song sung by Sarah Brightman) appears in this movie.
But as stated above, what's really wrong here is the complete lack of any sense of menace from Jason. Part of this is the fault of the actor, f/x folks, cinematographer, etc. The other part is the result of the writing and directing; here, unlike every iteration of Jason other than Jason X (who didn't really have time to do so), Jason doesn't stalk his victims. This means no time for character development, no time for any sense of false menace (something essential to any good slasher movie), and no sense of patience. Jason has always come across as a methodical killer; yes, he's all about the bloodlust, but he watches his prey, waits for them to split up, and tries to pick them off in such a way that they're not aware there's a killer out there until it's too late. Here, he just says, "fuck it," and leaps into the fray.
So, given that the original set of picks was a countdown, ranking the Friday the 13th movies from worst to best, where would this have stood? Probably on Day 2.5. It's certainly better than Freddy vs Jason and Jason Takes Manhattan. But it doesn't match the maturity or brutality of Jason Goes to Hell, or the sheer zaniness of the murders (and victims) in A New Beginning. Strong recommendation to avoid unless you're a Friday the 13th completist (like me).
*Another possibility is that he's "you kids get off my lawn" Jason.
**Of course, we've already seen a very good tribute to this kill in Jason X.
***Also, when I think of laying down traps and luring folks into them, I think of the Assassin in Diablo 2, not of Jason.
****Thus fulfilling the age-old adage, "if you see a pair of deer antlers mounted on the wall in Act 1, you must kill someone with them in Act 3."
*****Who appears to be the only cop around, and who has about eight zillion unsolved murders and disappearances on his record.
******AKA "Jason's on a Motherfucking Boat."
Concept: Essentially a remake of Part 3, but with weaker acting, poorer treatment of minorities, and less 3D. That last one is a plus. The others aren't. After an extended opening sequence, a bunch of kids come to Crystal Lake to party, and hunky Clay comes to town looking for his sister, Whitney.
Killer: Human Jason. Well, actually it's Tiny Leatherface pretending to be Jason. Because instead of just being a killing machine, he's a country boy who sets traps, does long, slow kills, and has all sorts of family issues. Also, he's just tiny. I expected the twist ending to feature Jason ripping off his mask to reveal Warwick Davis, thus setting up the inevitable Jason vs. Leprechaun.
It's not just the size, though. Go watch the opening scene of Jason X, when Kane Hodder, strapped to a pole and (theoretically) helpless, exudes menace in a closeup of his face with merely one eye. There not one scene in the new movie -- even when Jason's in full attack mode -- in which he exudes even a tenth as much menace. I don't know whether the problem is Derek Mears -- who certainly looks pretty scary in the still shots on his IMDB page -- or with director Marcus Nispel, whose remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre conveyed a sense of "place as menace," but never actually gave us any menacing characters, either.
As far as Jason's outfit goes, for the first six kills, he's Old School Sack Over the Head Jason, and after that, he's Classic Hockey-Mask Jason.
Bonus feature: Jason may also be Weed-Smoking Jason, as the early batch of kills revolves around a group of kids who stumble across Jason's magic weed patch, and the townie that Jason kills for no other good reason (since it's established that he doesn't kill townies*) has also apparently found the weed.
Oh, and considering his network of tunnels (more on that later), he might actually be Groundhog Jason.
Kills: Jason kills thirteen folks on-screen (whoa! What an incredibly random number to end up with) with a bit of wiggle-room for the iffy ending. We also see Mrs. Voorhees bite it, and there are references to off-screen kills by both Jason and his mama.
Bad kills: You don't get much dumber than the killing of Nolan. While driving a motorboat at full speed, he gets an arrow shot into the back of his head by Jason, firing a compound bow at a 35 degree angle. From the shore. With only one eye. Ollie Fucking Queen couldn't make that shot (although he'd sure try; Nolan's easily the most annoying character in the entire movie).
Then there's Trent. He's on the run from Jason, and makes it to the road. A pickup truck nearly runs him over, and the driver stops and doesn't say anything. Trent, thinking that the driver might be Jason, just freezes there, not approaching the driver, but not running. Sure enough, Jason eventually makes it out of the woods and throws Trent onto some conveniently-placed spikes sticking out of the back of the truck. And then the driver just casually drives off! Because shit like this happens all the time at Crystal Lake!
Those are the only truly bad kills, but there are others that simply don't feel like Jason killings. Amanda, for example, is dragged out of her tent inside a sleeping bag, a clear tribute to Jason's best kill ever, the murder of Judy in Part VII**. But then he finds some rope, hauls the sleeping bag up over a tree branch, and dangles it over the campfire, roasting her to death. Then her boyfriend Richie comes back to the tent, hears her screams, and runs out to rescue her, only to get his foot caught in a bear trap, where he lies for a good ten minutes until Jason, having been killing folks elsewhere, finally puts him out of his misery. It's complicated, over-the-top, and has a sense of torture and cruelty that just doesn't make sense. It's not that Jason is a nice guy, but he's about brutality and efficiency. Torture is the Texas Chainsaw way***.
Really good kills: The four deaths preceding Trent's are the best of the lot. Chewie, trapped by Jason in a shed, does his best to fight back, and is killed when Jason takes his wrist and slowly bends it, forcing the screwdriver Chewie found into his own throat. Lawrence, sent to look for Chewie, sees the body and runs, but Jason throws a double-sided axe into him (and yes, I know that this isn't realistic either, but Jason usually gets one solid thrown-item death a film, and this one was nicely done). As Lawrence lies in pain with an axe on his back, Jason slowly walks up to him, lifts his body into the air, and throws in onto the ground, forcing the axe out through his torso. This is a perfect example of how to have Jason commit a murder that's both prolonged and stylish without making it seem out of character.
Stereotypical resident teen slut Bree dies next; while searching the upstairs room for a gun to use against Jason, she notices that the window is open, and sure enough, Jason has snuck into the bedroom. In one of those rare "telegraphed but still fun" murders, he lifts her off the ground and impales her head on the deer antlers mounted on the wall****.
Finally, the local cop***** shows up, and as he's knocking on the door of the cabin, Jason leaps down behind him and sticks him through the head (and the solid door) with a fireplace poker. It's a stylish and brute-force kill, and pulled off quite nicely.
Notable celebrities: Mrs. Voorhees is played by none other than Nana Visitor, for the DS9 fans.
The rest of the cast consists of no-names and the sort of pseudo-celbrities that populate The CW and Maxim magazine. Nolan is played by Ryan Hansen, who basically played the same character on Veronica Mars and in Superhero Movie. If you're the sort of person who considers Willa Ford anyone of consequence, then you'll enjoy knowing that she plays Chelsea, and manages to go topless before getting killed. Jenna is played by the delightful Danielle Panabaker, who stole so many scenes in Sky High. Whitney is played by Amanda Righetti, who was the "hot actress" on Reunion -- AKA the one of the three female characters with no real personality. And our lead, Clay, is played by Jared Padalecki, of Supernatural and Gilmore Girls fame. He was also in House of Wax, so this movie will not be the worst horror remake he'll have on his resume.
Denouement: Jenna and Clay make it Jason's Super Secret Underground Lair of Tunnels, and find Clay's sister Whitney. Jason's been keeping her hostage because she looks like a young Pamela Voorhees. Seriously. They find an opening, and Clay and Whitney escape, even as Jenna gets a machete through the chest. Then we get the usual fight, and Whitney uses her Magical Pamela Doppleganger Powers to distract Jason while Clay stabs him with a machete.
But wait, there's more! For reasons that wouldn't make sense to a crackhead with a case of paranoid schizophrenia, the two crazy kids decide to not immediately get the hell out of Dodge, but to instead wait until Dawn, then take Jason's body and throw it in the lake, giving it the burial at sea that the US Serial Killer's Code demands. Naturally, as they walk away, Jason bursts through the dock, and we fade to black.
Miscellany: As mentioned above, director Nispel also gave us equally lifeless Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, which is sadly superseded by its own sequel. So that offers hope for future Friday the 13th films, assuming they turn over directorial duties to someone else.
Writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon co-wrote Jason V. Freddy. At their current rate of improvement, expect a good movie out of them slightly after your great-great-grandchildren have died of old age.
Overall: God, what a piece of crap. In fairness, this movie probably has the most talented cast of any F13 movie. But with a screenplay this awful, there's simply not much that the cast can do.
I can't ignore the handling of the minority characters here. There are three of them. Amanda gets treated no worse than the others -- like Chelsea and Bree, she follows the horror movie tradition of getting naked then getting killed. But the Korean -American Chewie and the African-American Lawrence are the only characters in the main part of the movie with no social skills or connection to the other characters, both of them tossed into the mix purely for comic relief and drug humor. There's little more pathetic than the scene featuring Lawrence smoking pot, reading porn, and deciding to masturbate in the middle of the cabin's living room. Well, except maybe for Chewie's klutzy beer pong game. Even in a movie filled with annoying and worthless characters, these roles were low.
That's far from the only sour note this movie strikes, though. I don't think I've ever seen less of an attempt to give personalities to the cast in any Friday the 13th film. Once you account for Jenna and Clay, the rest of the characters are practically interchangeable victims, all driven by the same need for sex and drugs. Yes, there's a lot of that in the other movies, but even in Part VII******, the characters had distinct personalities.
And then there's Jason and his ludicrous network of tunnels, with exits all over town, cages for prisoners, and bells to alert him when new victims come walking by. Between the underground lair, the mask, and the kidnapping of the ingenue, it's almost like some rural version of Phantom of the Opera. Although nothing as horrifying as an Andrew Lloyd Weber song (or even worse, a song sung by Sarah Brightman) appears in this movie.
But as stated above, what's really wrong here is the complete lack of any sense of menace from Jason. Part of this is the fault of the actor, f/x folks, cinematographer, etc. The other part is the result of the writing and directing; here, unlike every iteration of Jason other than Jason X (who didn't really have time to do so), Jason doesn't stalk his victims. This means no time for character development, no time for any sense of false menace (something essential to any good slasher movie), and no sense of patience. Jason has always come across as a methodical killer; yes, he's all about the bloodlust, but he watches his prey, waits for them to split up, and tries to pick them off in such a way that they're not aware there's a killer out there until it's too late. Here, he just says, "fuck it," and leaps into the fray.
So, given that the original set of picks was a countdown, ranking the Friday the 13th movies from worst to best, where would this have stood? Probably on Day 2.5. It's certainly better than Freddy vs Jason and Jason Takes Manhattan. But it doesn't match the maturity or brutality of Jason Goes to Hell, or the sheer zaniness of the murders (and victims) in A New Beginning. Strong recommendation to avoid unless you're a Friday the 13th completist (like me).
*Another possibility is that he's "you kids get off my lawn" Jason.
**Of course, we've already seen a very good tribute to this kill in Jason X.
***Also, when I think of laying down traps and luring folks into them, I think of the Assassin in Diablo 2, not of Jason.
****Thus fulfilling the age-old adage, "if you see a pair of deer antlers mounted on the wall in Act 1, you must kill someone with them in Act 3."
*****Who appears to be the only cop around, and who has about eight zillion unsolved murders and disappearances on his record.
******AKA "Jason's on a Motherfucking Boat."
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-30 12:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-30 12:51 pm (UTC)(And the victim was running straight away, which is why I'm more tolerant of this one than of the bow killing from earlier.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-30 01:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-30 04:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-30 04:36 pm (UTC)That said, I wouldn't have been upset if they'd done a false tease about a wood chipper; I'm actually not a huge fan of chainsaws, weed trimmers, wood chippers, and other gas/electric-powered items in these movies.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-30 04:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-30 04:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-30 05:35 pm (UTC)Hee. I haven't seen this yet (honestly, I've never seen any Friday the 13th, which may make seeing this one passable) but I plan on it, given my love for Padalecki. (Hey, a girl has to have hobbies.) But even before seeing it, because I've seen HoW, I'm quite sure that your statement is correct.
(Also, Jared Padalecki is like eleventy-feet tall-- do you think that contributed to how short Jason seemed?)
(Also, also, I'm weirded out that one of the leads has my first name. I'm going to be jumping the whole time I see the movie, but not 'cause it's scary.)