SPOILER ALERT! This is my abridged critique of the Friday the 13 Remake.
1.) Jason’s mother dies in the first 5 seconds of the film. This wasn’t an immediate deal breaker for me but killing her off so quickly made it hard to really comprehend her importance in the story line and it also made it hard to understand why someone would kill Mrs. Voorhees in such a violent way. As a big fan of the original Friday the 13th series I wanted to like this movie pretty badly but this version just misses the nuances that made the original series (especially in the beginning of the original series) so iconic to me.
2.) One of the biggest most glaring omissions from this version to me is the fact that Jason NEVER KILLS ANY CAMP COUNSELORS! I mean doesn’t it make sense that the people Jason would most want to kill are camp counselors? They are the ones who left him for dead at the bottom of Crystal Lake and they are the ones who ultimately killed his mother, brutally decapitating her. So instead of wasting the first 20 minutes of the movie with the adventures of how stoner mcgee and generic victims 2 through 5 are brutally murdered by Jason (which are a footnote at best on his resume) wouldn’t it have been so much more fun to have seen what Jason did to Camp Crystal Lake for it to be shut down in the first place? Then we the audience would have a vivid understanding as to why the camp is so heavily revered by all the locals?
3.) The character design of Jason was ok. I thought that Derek Mears performed adequately as Jason but at the end of the day if felt more like a man in the woods pretending to be Jason the body language was just off. I thought putting more emphasis on Jason being a conscious hunter was an interesting concept but I really hated seeing Jason out and about during the day so much. Specifically the scene where he finds the hockey mask was really painful for me. Obviously I love when Jason wears the hockey mask but the moment of him discovering it was really cheapened by the fact that he is just bumbling around a barn in the middle of the day. This last part is more my own personal taste but Jason is just so much more menacing at night.
4.) Why even bother giving any of the other characters names? The only two who stand out and bring anything to the table were the characters of Lawrence and Chewie who were funny and actually made me kind of care about their fates. Now don’t get me wrong Friday the 13th has always been about the gratuitous nudity and the high body counts as well and I totally appreciate and enjoy that aspect of the series but it was hard to care about anyone in this story line at all. I spent the movie praying for Jason to come back in hopes of not suffering more terrible dialogue from generic victim #2 or his friends.
5) They totally left out Jason’s signature moves, just completely ignored staples of Jason Voorhees’s character. There is always a moment in the original series where Jason is about to kill someone or he is stalking someone where something else catches his attention and he violently jerks his head in the direction of the distraction, the move is always accompanied by a sharp musical cue. In the old movies, even as dated as they are now, that was a moment that always gave me a chill and made me smile. The other omission that really bothered me was that in the first few movies there was always a scene towards the end where one of the last survivors would be all alone sneaking through a quiet darkened cabin and you weren’t sure if maybe they might actually have escaped Jason’s attention for the moment. The tension would grow as the character tip toed through the silent darkness when suddenly one of Jason’s previous victims would come crashing sideways through the elongated cabin windows on to the cabin floor right in front of the tip toeing character shattering any sense of false security to dust. In part four when Jason grabs a kid through a glass window, that was classic or the part in six or maybe it was seven where Jason jumps through a dining room window and the lights are dim and he is standing behind some birthday balloons is just terrifying. Later on in another scene when people walk through the same room again it was revealed that Jason was standing in the back of the room watching them the whole time when a quick flash of light subtly reveals him in the back of the room motionless. That sense like in the first Jaws movie like at any moment anywhere terror was lurking. What was a major part of what made Jaws so effective? The music! We all know the iconic Jaws theme, so then why? Why was Jason’s theme so completely minimalized? The Jason theme is iconic and when used properly does fathoms to increase the tension of the movie. These were part of the elements that made the original series so awesome to me. Also I don’t think we ever really see the camera from Jason’s perspective just stalking his victims. This is also a great technique from the old series. We didn’t get any of that.
6) I will just say the final battle with the wood chipper just wasn’t very interesting or inspired. Not necessarily a terrible moment but for the grand finale of a reboot of such an iconic series that’s weak sauce man, it’s like you’re not even trying. Then of course the teaser where he pops out of the water, “oh boy, I mean you uhh, you just did that and well we all saw you do that and you’re going to possibly do it again? huh that’s just, uhhh, that’s something.”
Anyway to summarize I think this movie would have made more sense as a continuation than a reboot because so much of Jason’s beginnings are vaguely touched upon or flat out ignored and as mentioned earlier just plain lacking that spark to reignite such a beloved franchise. In the end though, I think that I would rather remember this one as a sort of bizarro world Friday the 13th than part of the actual lore. Yes I know I completely ignored the whole Jason taking a hostage arc of the movie. I didn’t hate that part but I also didn’t really understand it. Why would Jason take a hostage? Even with her wearing the necklace that reminded him of his mother what was his end game? Was Jason going to keep that girl chained up forever? It just seemed uncharacteristic of Jason to do such a thing and I know they were trying to reboot the story and I am open to new avenues with the Friday the 13th series but I just found the hostage arc to be ultimately unrewarding. I get why it was included but it just lacked umph for me. The bottom line with that arc is you got to give me a reason to care for the characters if they are so integral to your story and they just never did that for me.
The bottom line: Not enough attention to detail and the overall integrity of the Friday the 13th series or the character of Jason Voorhees. The film ultimately feels hollow lacking the spirit of the original series.
Critiqued by:
-Z3R0TH3RT33N
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