I am not a superstitious person. I am totally cool with black cats, ladders, the occasional broken mirror. Y'know. Accidents happen.
And when Friday the 13th was remade in 2009, I thought "This won't be so bad. The series needs a facelift. It'll be fun!"
And that's when I gave up on "good luck" altogether because they decided to hand the facelift to the same guy that turned Joan Rivers into a small Chinese man and, thus, this remake tastes like shame.
For those of you not familiar with the reboot, this gives us two, two, two stories in one! Why they went for an almost anthology feel with this one, I'll never know. Oh, wait, I do know. It's because Marcus Nispel is a FUCKING DOUCHEBAG!
So, the movie starts with about the only cool thing for the next hour and a half. Nana Visitor gnawing on the scenery as Jason's mother. Jason gets to watch her get beheaded by the 1980 final girl which, of course, does not lend itself to proper mental health on Jason's part and we all know he wasn't right in the head to begin with..
PAY. For THERAPY!
Murdering teenagers may feel good for now but it doesn't solve anything.
Then, many years later, the ubiquitous gaggle of teenagers sets out to party in the woods. Two of them have an ulterior motive in that there's a huge marijuana patch there. Unfortunately, this patch happens to lie within spitting distance of Camp Crystal Lake. Because, duh. Jason hacks, cleaves, bear traps and slow-roasts all of them except one.
The "final girl" here, Whitney, just happens to remind Jason of his mother... so he keeps her captive in his subterranean lair of tunnels which also provides a handy means of popping up unexpectedly behind clumsy bitches that can't fucking stand up properly. (This doesn't get explored until later in the film but I'm not going that far.)
Enter NEW group of ubiquitous teenagers including rich asshole, kinda-hippie dude,Willa Ford and her boobs, other set of boobs, Token Stoner A (black) and Token Stoner B (Asian) and brown-haired smart girl. Also, there's Jared Padalecki who's looking for Whitney and is really only there to bring in the Supernatural audience (much like My Bloody Valentine 3D used Jensen Ackles).
Neither of these two get laid. This gives me hope for the gene pool.
Not because they're minorities. Because they're fucking stupid.
So, yeah. Ominous warnings from the locals. Useless cops. The introduction of the Hockey Mask. Every slasher trope in the world is all right here and it's not even ironic.
They just found Sarah Palin's sex tape.
See Nispel DELIBERATELY stepped back to the 80s in this one and didn't want to be at all self-referential like Scream and I'm pretty sure that was the number one failure in this film. Had it tried for even a TRACE of irony, it might have been good but, no. We did not get irony. We got the stoner Asian kid who actually brings a WOK to defend himself.
I came here for horror, not a minstrel show. Just FYI? Racism is not really all that funny.
On top of that, this is big budget Hollywood, assholes. We don't want digital kills. We don't want CGI blood. It's bad enough we had to deal with Willa Ford's fakeys and rich kid going all "awful pillow talk" with other set of boobs. If practical effects got the job done in the 80s, they can most certainly do the job, now.
Hated it. Hated every last minute of it.
THIS ONE, can be used as an example of the horrors of bad remakes.
Never before had I been so dumbfounded by a ham-fisted remake. I adore the Friday franchise. I grew up on it, by God (check me out here: http://tinyurl.com/bf4f8u8). Even so, I could never make a straight faced argument that any of them are particular good movies.
ReplyDeleteThis was such a golden opportunity to produce a remake that improved upon the originals. It really wouldn't have taken much. I believe you nailed it with your observation that this remake is served up without a trace of irony. Trying to make a FT13 movie that's anything more than a lunkheaded excuse to off some annoying teenagers was a fool's errand.
Choosing not to use old school practical effects (often the first and, in many cases, the only reason to watch a FT13) was also a colossal blunder. And Jason has an underground lair?!? No, he has a sheet metal and wood scrap shack. He's a frickin' mongoloid, for Pete's sake.
It should have been so easy to knock one out of the park here. Such a disappointment.
*particularly*
DeleteThere was just way too much wrong with this one to fix it and this is one of the major reasons why I think we should be examining remakes as unique films. At least the first Ft13 has a cohesive plot. It wasn't much of one but it was pure and simple and it worked. This was just a fucking mess.
DeleteThis is ALSO the reason why I fear for Hack/Slash if Nispel is at the helm.