Harefooted Halloween: Friday the 13th (2009)

What I Liked: One of the best designs for Jason out there.  Sure he’s big and imposing but I like that they gave him some scraggily hair and his drooping almost Toxic Avenger looking face is great.

Jason is way more agile here than we’ve seen in a long time.  Not since Part 4 The Final Chapter have we seen him run and move this quickly and it’s awesome.  Stalker Jason is good but the filmmakers made a smart decision by switching up the athleticism and flexibility to make their version stand out.

Another welcomed change in Jason is he’s sort of a survivalist type who only goes after folks that invade his territory.  He sets a few traps, knows how to use a bow and arrow, utilizes an underground tunnel system to move around and employs hunting tactics to lure out his prey.  It’s important to make the distinction that he’s not out there looking for victims necessarily which gives him a very slight sympathetic edge.  If you stay out of the old abandoned Camp Crystal Lake you’ll be fine.  But if you venture in there you’re fair game.

What a fantastic looking movie this is.  The production design in particular is amazing.  Lots of junk and trinkets strewn about Jason’s home and tunnels presumably from his victims and whatever else he could find to live on.  The mansion on the lake is a beautiful location to shoot a movie that provides the perfect amount of isolation needed.  It’s also big enough for Jason to hide out in.  And this is shot and edited pretty well.  It reminds me of the original film where characters are always doing something giving the picture a kinetic energy.  Plus, crucially, the action scenes are shot and edited coherently.  I didn’t have to strain to make out make out what was happening during the kills or chase sequences.  I can’t stress enough how pleasantly surprised I was to discover this because that was not the popular way to do action at the time.

What I Didn’t Like: Unfortunately the one really big minus on this film is the majority of characters are extraordinarily obnoxious.  Not all, but a large chunk.  Horny, bro-y, arrogant, disgustingly creepy, etc.  I don’t understand why horror filmmakers have their victims be such dickholes.  A little annoying is ok but usually they’re over the top.  I guess so you don’t feel as bad when they bite it.  But I argue their deaths would have more of an impact if you cared about them.

Overall Impressions: Shockingly this is fine.  Nearly all the other horror remakes from the 2000’s are fucking trash: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (same director as this by the way), House of Wax, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes, etc.  The jury’s out on Halloween.  We’ll revisit that later.

Despite the movie simply titled “Friday the 13^th” this is more of an amalgamation of Part 2 and 3.  We open with Jason witnessing her mother getting beheaded by a camp counselor and then we flash forward to present day.  Jason starts off wearing the sack on his head like in Part 2 (which looks much better than the original sack, sort of a wrap motif that combines pieces of the mummy and the invisible man) before it eventually gets torn during a fight and he needs to find a replacement.  Luckily the brawl takes place in the loft/storage area of a barn so a hockey mask is right there waiting for him.  Nice touch.

There’s also the gross shriveled severed head of Pamela Voorhees that Jason worships, again, nodding at Part 2 and 3.  We even get a finale in a barn which is a mild tradition in the series (this marks the third time).

I’m really surprised at how much I enjoyed this one.  So now I don’t get why it got so much hate when it came out.  The box office numbers were pretty good so people were definitely excited to see it.  At least for me if it wasn’t for the awful teens acting like loathsome asswipes this would rank higher on my list.  Maybe that combined with putting Jason back in the woods like we’ve seen many times before and making him less of a robot was too much for everyone.

Look, I know this is gonna sound weird but this really is a smarter Friday installment.  It seems the filmmakers put more thought into Jason than probably ever before (one exception would be Adam Marcus’ unused idea from Jason Goes to Hell that the character is part of the Evil Dead universe) which leads to the rest of the picture making more sense than most of the other sequels.  There are certainly worse Friday movies and worse horror remakes.  Don’t dismiss this guy outright.  Give it a shot.