Friday the 13th (2009)

Dir. Marcus Nispel

When his younger sister becomes the latest person to go missing during a camping trip to Crystal Lake, Clay Miller sets out to find her, with or without the help of the local police. Falling in with a crowd of teens staying in a holiday chalet on Crystal Lake, he is joined by sympathetic Jenna in his search of the local area, while her friends remain at the house to party. Before long it becomes apparent the area is stalked by a hulking psychopath who abducts and murders anyone who encroaches upon the grounds of an old summer camp… It would seem those old campfire tales of a hermetic psycho named Jason Voorhees may have had more of a grounding in reality than anyone ever dared dream of… Let the blood run free!

When it was originally conceived, the remake of Friday the 13th was intended to be an origin story, detailing the genesis of mass murderer Jason Voorhees. Writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, who had previously worked on Freddy vs. Jason for New Line, were brought in again to pen a screenplay. They eventually fashioned a script that was envisioned as a reboot of the series. Amalgamating elements from the first four movies, this reboot manages to provide a fitting sense of history and is as much a loving homage to the series as it is a continuation/retelling of its story.

When I first saw the reboot of Friday the 13th, I didn’t really think much of it. Then I thought carefully about the original and what Platinum Dunes had done with it. The original is considered a classic, sure, and as much as I love it and enjoy watching it, there’s no mistaking it was conceived to cash in on the success of Halloween. While far from a flawless movie, it is still held in an almost defensive reverence by purists. A second viewing of the reboot convinced me that what Nispel, Shannon and Swift have attempted to do is craft an old school slasher in the vein of the original Friday the 13th movies and it is easy to see that attempts have been made to at least capture the spirit of the original series. Shannon and Swift have taken the fact that characters in Friday the 13th movies exist solely to be murderlised and just run with it. They’ve deliberately created characters who are (mainly) unsympathetic - with the exception of a few - so their deaths, when they come, will illicit cheers from the audience. While this detracts a little from the tension, it is at least in keeping with the core audience reception of slasher movies - in particular the Friday the 13th titles. A few genre conventions are side-stepped without the nudge-winkery of the Scream-era slashers - though most clichés are stuck to like flypaper. The usual notion of the Final Girl is slightly skewed in that the young woman who was signposted to be the last one standing (Danielle Panabaker), turns out to not be, and in her place we have a 'final boy.' As the resourceful and determined Clay, Jared Padalecki's sincere performance convinces. His desperate search for his missing sister provides the film with an emotional core. The surprisingly likable local sheriff is played by the always sturdy Richard Burgi, who proves only slightly less ineffective than most slasher movie cops.

Aside from talk of cell phones and GPS gadgets etc, the rest of the film and its script could have been made back in the slasher heydays of the early Eighties. It certainly exudes that mentality and outlook. Characters still smoke pot, drink beer and have copious amounts of sex. The screenplay is adorned with a nostalgic sheen as the writers fondly recall and recreate slasher scenarios from the subgenre’s glory days. Even a few of the Friday the 13th movies’ recurring motifs are added to the mix. It seems no Friday the 13th flick is quite complete without someone’s slashed-up body being chucked through a window. A number of inventive deaths also manage to shock - none more so than that of the unfortunate girl hung over a campfire in her sleeping bag. While not directly lifted from past movies, these moments at least feel like they could have been. Indeed, much of the film unfolds as a loving homage to its predecessors - the majority of the running time is given over to the building of suspense as the oblivious teens drink, smoke and fuck their way around a creepy location and are picked off one by one in increasingly grisly ways. In keeping with the usual tradition of slasher movie teens, this lot are always bickering and goading each other. Alpha male Trent is particularly unsympathetic, played with smug aplomb by Travis Van Winkle, who has a blast as the egotistical schmuck. 

The only characters even remotely fleshed out are the ones who survive longest. Shocker. Even they aren’t remotely three dimensional just because they are at least ‘nice’ and less annoying than the others; we root for them on a purely human level. Having said that, writers Shannon and Swift know that we don’t watch these movies for delicately nuanced characterisation or insightful deconstruction of the human condition. We watch ‘em to indulge in carnage and suspense - smug (and safe) in the knowledge that we would never be as stupid or make the same fatal errors as the oblivious characters.

The reinvention of Jason (Derek Mears) is a solid one. He’s leaner, meaner and much more calculating and actively sadistic in this version. While the back-story fleshes him out, it isn’t to the detriment of the character - a la Freddy vs. Jason. He still maintains an air of mystery, and instead of the lumbering zombie he eventually became in the original series, here he is presented as a feral, ferocious, conniving maniac - closer to his incarnation in Part II - whose mortality makes him all the more menacing. He’s just a calculating psychopath skulking about the woods. We glimpse him as a disfigured boy, the 'baghead' version from the second instalment of the original series and eventually as the iconic hockey mask-wearing killer he will always be remembered as. The location is effectively realised and the labyrinth of tunnels under the old summer camp go some way to explain how it is that Jason is able to stalk his prey and seemingly pop up behind them from out of nowhere. The old cabins and the usual sort of imagery associated with the series is recreated lovingly, with Daniel Pearl’s now tell-tale atmospheric cinematography in all its mist-shrouded creepiness ensuring events play out in a fitting no-man’s-land where the teens are totally at the mercy of nature. Primal fears and back to basics survival never looked so slick.

One small (personal) gripe is the distinct lack of Mrs Voorhees. While her memory faded as the series progressed, it was hoped that her presence would make itself known again in a reboot of the franchise. As the wronged and vengeful matriarch, Nana Visitor graces the screen for too short a time during a brief prologue that plays out under the opening credits. However the impact of her blood-stained actions resonates long after, as it is made explicitly clear her son witnessed her murder and picked up where she left off. Teens = BAD! Must. Be. Punished. The usual sex equals death mantra of the series is also splayed across the screen during a particularly wrung out scene where two obnoxious teens are having sex in the holiday chalet. We cut ever rapidly between them and Whitney (Amanda Righetti) making a break for it with Jason stalking after her as she runs toward the chalet for help. Just as it seems she’s about to pound on the window for help, Jason roughly intercepts her. The scene plays out in the heady cornucopia of exploitation, titillation and sleazy suspense that made the first movie so dubiously compelling.

The reboot also works well as a companion piece to the Platinum Dunes remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and is just as slick, with the same stylised grittiness that pales in comparison to the original’s stifling carnal-house atmospherics. Both films though, while shadows of their originals, manage to be entertaining and well made. Most wouldn’t doubt Nispel’s ability to wrack up tension or spin a good yarn.

A well made and solid outing which manages to bring a much needed air of menace back to the series and even though it is just a glossy take on a tried and tested formula, it is still immensely enjoyable - and retains the same familiar (and popular) sensibilities of the original flicks.

From a geeky point of view, it was also really cool to see the film begin with the Paramount logo and Jason’s unmistakable motif echo across it: Ki Ki Ki Ma Ma Ma…