When I first heard that someone was going to be doing a remake of the original Friday The 13th, a true horror classic, I did what I'm pretty sure every other fan of the franchise did. I cringed.
The idea of going back and remaking the original Friday The 13th felt like a sin against nature. Why remake it? Why not just make another film in the series. Jason Vorhees is, afterall, immortal. He always comes back, so just have him come back again. And besides, how in the hell are you going to remake the original Friday the 13th film and even have Jason in it. He wasn't in the first film. The killer in the original Friday The 13th was Jason's mother Pamela. Jason didn't show up as an adult killing people until the second film. And even then he didn't get his trademark hockey mask until the third film. He spent the entire second film running around with a burlap sack on his head that had eye holes cut out.
I could understand the desire of the movie studios to want to bring the franchise back to its basics. After Jason X where Mr. Vorhees ended up in space and got upgraded to a giant cyborg killing machine, the films had obviously nuked the fridge as hard as they possibly could. But again, why a remake? Why not make a new film that just ignored that last little bit about futuristic space travel? It's been done before in Hollywood. Just look at Superman Returns, which basically pretended as if Superman 3 and 4 never happened. It was a new sequel to an existing franchise that kept the original films intact without having to pull a Batman Begins style reboot to the series.
Having seen the film now, I'm happy to report that is pretty much exactly what happened. This new Friday the 13th is in no way, shape or form a remake of the original. It doesn't even try to be. Instead, it is almost like a giant love letter to the original three films in the series while at the same time bringing Jason powerfully into the 21st century. The movie is directed by Marcus Nispel, whose only other major directoral projects were the movie Pathfinder and the remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He does an amazing job with the film and it completely comes across that he's a big fan of the original films. He must have studied the original pictures a lot when doing research for his new film as it actually looks and feels exactly like the originals.
Friday The 13th opens suprisingly with the ending moments of the original film. We're taken back to 1980 as Palema Vorhees is chasing the teenage Girl Alice through the woods. They have a final confrontation where Pamela rants about her poor boy Jason drowning due to the negligence of Camp Crystal Lake's camp counselors. They fight and Pamela's killing spree is brought to an end by Alice as she manages to decapitate Pamela with her own Machete. The young child Jason, who obviously isn't drowned, sees his mother get killed. After Alice leaves he grabs her necklace, head and machete and marches off into the woods.
By the end of this scene, most of my worries about the film had already gone away. By beginning the film with the end of the original Friday the 13th, the director immediately informs us this isn't a remake. The original film happened, the storyline isn't being rewritten, and now we're brought to the present, 30 years later where Jason has been living and hiding in the woods his whole life and killing anyone foolish enough to enter into his area. But he's not the classic hockey mask wearing Jason just yet. In a beautiful nod to Friday The 13th Part 2, Jason actually spends the first half of the film or so running around with a burlap bag mask on. It was a really nice touch for the director to include that. To a degree, the new film really is a condensing down of the Friday The 13th Mythos of the first three films into one new film. Of course, at one point his bag mask gets torn off and he has to find a replacement, which is when he comes across the hockey mask. Having Jason start off without the mask was a smart move too because it created a great moment when he sees the mask and puts it on for the first time. It was a real audience treat getting to see that.
As for the new film's plot, it pretty much included everything one could hope for in a Jason film. A bunch of horny teenagers go out into the woods. They do drugs, drink alcohol, have sex, and then die one by one as Jason hunts them all down. It was as perfect a story as you can get. And I couldn't help but be amused that since the current styles of the day are sort of throwbacks to 1970's and 80's style, the characters in the film all looked like people out of the original films. The guys all had long bushy 70's style hair, and everyone was wearing tight jeans or short shorts. It really added to the classic feel of the film, but at the same time it was still fully in the present.
When it comes to the killings, I was also happy to see that the director didn't go for over the top levels of gore. While a ton of gore can make for a great film too (see the new My Bloody Valentine in 3D), a properly withheld level of violence can also really add to a film's tension. Sometimes, not seeing what happens is almost scarier than actually seeing it, and this director definitely understands that concept. At the start of the film, the violent murders are understated to a degree. As soon as Jason strikes the first blow the scene cuts away to different characters. We don't get to see what happened until someone stumbles upon their body. Only as the film progresses do the killings get more violent and do we as the audience get to see more gore. It was a wonderful job of pacing that made the build towards the finish actually feel like a build.
Overall, I wash highly pleased with how this film succeeded in modernizing the Friday the 13th franchise while at the same time sticking to the series' roots. I honestly felt like I was watching one of the classic films that had just been updated a bit. Most remakes of popular classic films fail to ever compare to the original, but this new Friday the 13th is one of those rare gems that manages to accomplish this. I certainly hope this film does well and spawns more sequels like it. I don't think the world can ever get enough of Jason Vorhees chopping his way through horny teenagers. When done right, like this film was, it just never seems to get old.
Final Grade: A
Just saw Friday the 13th and loved it. Your review got me very interested in this film, because admittedly I thought a remake would be pointless. You were dead on about it and I was stoked! Thanks again for a great review.
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