this movie has raised my opinion of the halloween remake, iwasn't even a friday film , just saw the bluray ( jippi) and realized I didn't know which one of the two final girls survived even . That says a lot for me 13 in the friday films is also last one the list of fridays I will watch again.
I agree with a lot you are saying so here is somthing I posted on another forum. '10 things that would make Friday the 13th (2009) Better' As far a remakes go the new Friday the 13th was one of the better ones. As a longtime/diehard Friday fan there are some things that hurt the movie for me and would have made it perfect if they were fixed. So let me be the voice of the Friday fans for a moment: 1. The underground Lair. This bugged me more than anything else. Keeping a captive girl was way too SAW and way too far from the world of Jason Voorhees. It adds an over the top unrealistic tone to the movie. 2. Pamela Voorhees was way to Norma Bates with the 20's looking dress and broach/locket. Why not a sweatered casual Pamela. What made Betsy Palmer so scary in the original was how normal everyday woman she seemed to be at first. Also the line "kill for Mother" was way too Psycho. 3. The score was way too subtle. I miss those intense strings. a slow 'swooshing' sound during the chase deflated the intensity of the moment for me. 4. The campfire story was too jokey. "that Jason guy". A more moody and intense telling ala Part 2 would have set a better tone. 5. Ok, heres a big one for me and this has been a problem since part VIII. The unmasking of Jason. Where is it??????? When I was a kid and went to these movies Jasons unmasking was the cherry on the sunday, the big moment the movie built up to. What will he look like? how scary will his face be? Way too little if any effort has gone into Jasons unmasking since 1993. Needs to be the event moment again. 6. The shooting location. Texas is just not passing for Jersey. 7. Jasons look. Another thing that has become a trend in recent years is seeing Jasons eyes. Jason is much more ominous and scary when you can't see his eyes. Derek Mears did a great job I just wish you didn't see Jasons eyes until the mask comes off. 8. The Voorhees house. Modern horror films too often make the mistake of 'everythings gotta be creepy, old and scary'. Ground things in reality and the scary stuff will be more scary. Jason dosen't need to come from a creepy old house in the woods. It's scarier to think he was a 'normal' city kid who came to camp and accidently drown. Jason's machete dosen't need to be some gnarly sword, A standard machete will do. Mrs. Voorhees drove a modern jeep in the original. In a modern film I'm sure they would put her in some huge black 40's buick with tinted windows. Simple and real infected by terror is far better than dripping with creepy old shit. 9. The glossiness. This is also a problem with most modern horror. you don't need to pump 100 million into a 10 dollar concept. The look of a lot of these films is over saturated and too clean. Again subtlety is lost on most of these movies. 10. The characters need to stop being characters and start being people. Now I will say that I liked the kids in the new Friday ALOT more than I thought I would. I usually hate kids in modern horror films but these kids seemed a little more real. Even the douche bag was more of a fun 80's Ski movie douche bag than the testosterone laden frat guy that ruins most modern slasher films. They were a little too pretty but it seems that no horror movie has gotten that right since 1989. My problem here is with all the deliverance style hicks. I live in PA and I am in Jersey a fair amount. I've seen some scary people there but no backwoods yokels like in this film. Again too much Texas shining through. I think so much of this movie was handled right. I like the combining of the first 4 films, the bag coming back, the Rob character (Clay) and I didn't even mind Jason running. I liked it. It was creepy and people often forget that Jason ran in part 2, part 3 and part 4,the best ones! It hurts when so much is done right yet so many little things ruin it. thats my 2 cents.
Good review, though I disagree with your opinion of the film. I still can't understand people complaining about fallacies in the plot with this film, yet at the same time hail Friday the 13th Part 2, where Jason somehow uses the yellow pages and takes a greyhound to Alice's house to kill her, as the best film in the series. (I'm not saying the remake is as good as Part 2 because it certainly isn't, but you get my point.) I think a lot of it is just nitpicking, but whatever. It'd be a boring world if we all thought the same.
I actually prefer how Jason gets his mask in the deleted scene that's on the DVD. Better kill and the mask isn't just something that was laying around, gathering dust. Still hate that Jason had a compound complete with lights and tunnels.
Great review. I love the "Is his CPU a neural net processor" line. I agree with everything you said even though I think I liked the movie more then you did.
That's an awful lot of nitpicking in this review. I mean, Nispel did follow the basics of a Friday film: 1) Lots of naked girls 2) Gore 3) Jason chopping up brain-deprived victims 4) Nods to the original series This review makes it sounds as though the 1980s Friday series was a genre-setting set of classic horror films. It's not, and PD and Nispel followed it to the letter. So... what's the deal? Can't producers take different steps and establish a fresh, different mythology with the character? Jason Voorhees ain't rocket science to figure out.
Loved this remake and I enjoyed the killer cut, most of the extra stuff was great. Only thing I'm not sure I was in love with was the escape part.
Rented this at my local Library, I couldnt even finish it, the characters were so unreal and unlikeable!!! After the old country licked the porn mag I was like "DONE!"
It took me a fucking eternity to finally be able to watch this flick and I liked it a lot. First of all, it tries to make sense, which was never taken into account in the first movies. Jason's motive and actions are clear (unlike the first movies - I chalk up any sort of logical explanation as to why Jason is randomly killing people that aren't even in Crystal Lake as hogwash) and the pace is fast and furious. There's no Jimbo or Teddy in this one, but then again, only about half of the F13 movies created a character that was worth remembering, and I think they do it here with Clay. Jason in the movie has some big balls, and this style of Jason is what we should have got in 2-4. Ted White, eat your heart out.
I think The Friday the 13th remake is great! It just might be my favorite movie of the year and might go down as my favorite Slasher movie of all-time. Friday fans should be rejoicing that it was as faithful to the source material as any remake I've seen. The cast of victims was perfect, the kills were sensational and pacing was relentless. I can't wait for another.
I dont like this movie very much but is also in the dvd very dark and hard to see out what happen? I think is the quality in the dvd is shit also to it but dark seen is very dark maybe a mistake for trasnfered to dvd?