Halloween reboot #3 Friday the 13th

On a Tuesday the 13th I review....

VS.

Well unless you know nothing about the horror genre or pop culture then the six of you out there do not know about Jason Voorhees and the Friday the 13^th movie series. A kid drowns at summer camp due to counselors making sexy time. It isn’t just a kid though, he is missing a few or has extra chromosomes so he looks deformed. Plus his mom is extra protective. You know to the point of murdering all the camp counselors to avenge her son’s drowning. The she buys the farm and her now fully grown and undead son roams the camp following in his murderous mom’s footsteps. You know that old murderous revenge ghost/revenant/undead slasher bit.

Jump to 2010 and we get a reboot of the Friday the 13^th franchise.

This is not a reboot of the first Friday the 13^th film. It is more like a rehash of the first few movies. You get a beginning that tells the story of Mr. Voorhees and her murder spree. You get Jason taking up his mother’s “hobby.” There is the potato sack wearing Jason. Then donning of the iconic hockey mask. There is also the typical 20-somethings getting slaughtered. The movie seems to fall right into place with the original films…..and then it doesn’t!

What Jason starts with, the potato sack.

 

The plot revolves around a guy from the Supernatural television show looking for his lost sister. This occurs when Jason kills the group she is with when they stumble upon the ruins of Camp Crystal Lake. Jason kills everyone, but one girl. Yeah Jason takes her and keeps her chained up in a secret underground tunnel complex where he lives.

WHAT!

Girl in a pit? Well a tunnel.

Holy crap I’m out right now! Jason keeps hostages? Jason has an underground lair!? He captures a girl that looks like his twenty-something mother? What the frak is that about?! This is just ridiculous nonsense! How and why does he have a Viet Cong series of tunnels? This is just so stupid!

Alright well there is another group of 18-20 something’s headed out to a lake house for a party weekend. A group that includes: slutty blonde # 1 and #2, token black guy, token Asian guy, loud mouth preppy a-hole, surfer/hip stoner looking dude, and virtuous (yet dim) brunette. You expect this, but the entire group is pretty damn useless and I was begging for them to die sooner rather than later. They are all pretty repugnant, shallow, annoying or dim beyond belief. These are the victims you want to not get killed because that means you are rooting for the villain. That is not the way it is supposed to work right? You want at least one or two to survive, but just barely. Here I wanted them all dead! They were just drek!

Hey there were boobies! That is a plus right fellas! BEWBS!

Then there were the changes to Jason. First off he runs! HE RUNS!? That is nuts! The whole point is he trudges along. You can run as fast and as far, but he still manages to find you. He is the relentless approaching doom. He doesn’t run after victims! What the hell?!

Then add in that he now sets traps. See this new Jason just doesn’t kill, he traps his prey. This is just stupid. The only reason, I can see, for doing this is so that Jason can torture his victims a bit before offing them.  The years of quick stabby deaths in these films has been replaced by prolonged agony for some reason.

Fresh slut roasting over and open fire?

He can fashion alarms, trip wires, run electricity and set a series of punji pits and tiger traps…but he can’t tell that a 20 something girl isn’t his mom? What? You know the girl he takes prisoner in his underground lair. Yeah! I’m not letting that one go either!

Hey! There is no functioning camp. That means no camp counselors. Why is he killing these people in the lake house? His bag was always getting the people in or near the camp. Does he kill everyone around this lake then? If s…then why are people still going to this area? If that is the Wait what about the locals? Why does my head hurt so much?

A slasher film is easy to make. A good slasher movie is more difficult than it seems. A slasher film based on a tried and true fun and gruesome franchise…well that is just impossible to make. Well it was in this instance.

Next I’ll stumble my way through the reboot of I Spit on Your Grave.