Friday the 13th (2009) (100th post!)

Preface #1: Hey, my 100th post! And it only took, what? A year and a half? I only update this thing now whenever I skip class or work due to some illness, which I guess has been pretty often lately.

Preface #2: As explained in my Jason X review from the first month I had a blog, I’m not exactly a Friday the 13th fan. Most of the films, at least the ones I’ve seen throughout the past 12 years of my life (which is all of them except probably 6 and 7, and maybe 2) just run together to me, the exception being 8, 9, 10, and Freddy vs. Jason, which generally take place outside of Camp Crystal Lake. I guess I’m still learning to distinguish the films, and I generally take them all in dumb fun, but I don’t think I have it in me right now to try to sit and watch all of them back to back. Part of me doesn’t care to really. So this is why I wasn’t too appalled at the announcement of a Friday the 13th re-make. I’ve been curious about it, wondering if I would for once prefer the re-make to the original. And although this is probably going to come bite me in the ass when we find out about The Birds re-make next week (you know it’s coming) or even worse, an Evil Dead re-make, I guess I’ll take my chances. If I mistake which sequel the Friday the 13th re-make snatched a bit from, feel free to correct me in the comments section.

When the re-make of Friday the 13th was initially announced, the story was hinted as taking place between “parts 1 and 2″, then later as taking place between “parts 2 and 3″. Right out the gate, parts 1 and 2 are generally condensed into 90 seconds, with Mrs. Voorhees now in a vaguely Victorian dress instead of a proto-Cosby sweater, and Lil Jason hanging out in the woods and arriving just in time to see Mommy get beheaded. What I’m presuming is your part 2 is condensed into about 15 minutes, with a group of people visiting the woods outside Camp Crystal Lake on the search for a weed crop. Part 3 seems to be skipped over more or less  other than Jason getting his hockey mask almost halfway into the film, while we’re already into part 4 with the handsome older brother looking for his missing sister, who was apart of the group of kids looking for the weed, while another group of kids are already in danger.

I’m not quite sure if bros existed in the 80s or 90s, but they exist now in the oughts. I know, some live below me in my apartment building and they’re the bane of my existence when I’m at home since they like to have loud parties most Saturday nights and have band practice almost every night in the basement (no one wants to hear your shitty, derivative, post-rock/jazz rock/metal, dudes). This is what the second group of kids mainly consist of, bros. The one whose family owns the house, Trent, is an asshole insecure rich boy who says doofus things like “you have perfect nipple placement” during sex. There is a blond guy, and two blond girls whose names I’m not sure we ever learn. The token minorities, we don’t learn their names until they die (Lawrence, and Chewy, respectively). New rule by the way, if you’re a token minority in a slasher movie, you have to make a joke about being the token minority character or take faux-offense at stupid white people comments at some point, although I guess Lawrence and Chewy were not portrayed as completely stereotypical African-American and Asian guys. Chewy is not portrayed as a geeky math wizard or anything. He drinks beer out of his own shoe at one point. There’s the brown haired girl who may be the girlfriend of Trent, but runs off with Clay to help him find his sister. Trent does not like this. Trent is jealous and/or crushing on our hero, because shit, have you seen his abs?

Clay would be our hero, folks. He is played by Supernatural’s Jared Padalecki, and he is a stand-up guy, and not a bro, so basically, the type of charater Padalecki has been playing since his Gilmore Girls days. He’s pretty good at it, a little mouthbreathery in this one, but not bad, although I still think he’s the weaker actor compared to his TV brother Jensen Ackles. Because he is the star of the movie, the producers decided that his handsomeness and great head of hair would protect him in case of a crash, since he is seen riding a motorcycle without a helmet frequently. I guess it does protect him at one point later on in the movie in one of his fights with Jason. Unfortunately, he doesn’t take his shirt off.

Anyway, Jason seems to like bros about as much as I do, which is to say, not very much. Jason does like pretty young ladies who look like his mother. Jason for some reason, has had a lot of time to become the serial killer equivalent of Danielle Rousseau from Lost, meaning, he’s built an underground lair with a series of entrances that go out to the woods. Is Jason also the guy who has grown the weed crop? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a hobby. That’s one of the movie’s plotholes, along with “Why didn’t he kill the other people who came out for the weed crop that the weed kids knew?”, “If the rich guy’s family has had a house on Crystal Lake for years, why hasn’t Jason attacked them before?”, “All the people in town know there’s a serial killer at the lake, and yet they, nor the sheriff have never bothered looking around there?”, and “Yes, you’ve seemingly killed Jason, let’s take his corpse and drop him in the lake. Good idea. Yes, why would you run and GTFO?” Not to mention, “So are they saying that Jason has been alive, well, and serial killin’ all these years, and has never been killed? Does this negate the long, exhausted debate of whether or not Jason is a zombie whenever I listen to the Mail Order Zombie podcast?”

Overall, I did like this re-make more than I liked the My Bloody Valentine 3D re-make, although it could have been trimmed down in some places. The major difference between the old Jasons and this Jason is that, and this can be construed as more of a directorial decision,  the deaths were usually not quick and somewhat lingered over. Jason doesn’t beat one girl in a sleeping bag up against a tree, he ties the girl in the sleeping bag to a tree branch over a campfire and she is burned alive while her guy has his leg stuck in a bear trap. Poor Lawrence is left outside crying for help with an axe stuck in his back while his friends inside the house debate whether or not to go outside and help him. So it’s a little disturbing when you’re used to say, the Kane Hodder Jason who is done with a person in five seconds or less. For some reason, maybe it’s how some of the deaths were handled coupled with the plot with the kids staying at a rich friend’s house to party (or alternately, Jason killing off rich, popular kids), but I saw some shades of All the Boys Love Mandy Lane in this movie, although Friday the 13th wasn’t as good.