Friday the 13th (2009)

Going to rewatch this movie, I thought about the time when I loved this movie because of how different it presented Jason and the kills and gore were actually surprisingly good but upon rewatch, this is definitely one of the worst horror movies I've seen in a while. Don't get me wrong, most of the Friday the 13th movies are pretty dreadful which can especially be applied to the ninth and tenth Friday movie which were so dreadful that it would never be topped but I think I've been proved considerably wrong.First off, the story is completely derivative from the original movie which to be fair, is a recurring problem with these movies. Bunch of superficial young adults to a place near a lake and evil person kills them. Sound familiar?The characters are all so shallow at most points that it alone makes me want to throw the disc out of the window or as a matter of fact, any device you could watch it on. All of them are oblivious idiots who are honestly just there for a quick buck which makes this movie so much worse as you need good characters to carry a convincing plot and story which this movie has none of the aforementioned.Some of the acting is actually so obnoxiously dreadful, that it made me laugh out loud. You may think that just because Ben Feldman is in this means that I'm wrong and I'm a false critic and yes, he's actually decent but the script that he has to work with is actually so baffling that it's hilarious.There is also a scene that doesn't make me laugh, but just makes me angry. About two thirds of the way through, there is a gratuitous and elongated sex scene with two of the worst actors and characters in the movie and actually has about four to five minutes of screen time which is so awful that it makes me angry. With a producer like Michael Bay on the team, is it that much of a surprise that this scene exists?Overall, Friday the 13th (2009) is actually one of the worst movies I have seen in a long while and I'm giving it the lowest rating possible with a one out of ten.

Friday the 13th is a classic horror film. This remake is just beyond stereotyped. There is no character development. Jason is not horrifying in this film. Just another bad remake

This is pretty much what you'd expect from producer Michael Bay and director Marcus Nispel (whose 2003 "Texas Chainsaw" revamp wasn't bad at all, but there's not much to say for his films since, including the "Conan the Barbarian" remake): It's slick, loud, has a lot of action, no interesting ideas or individual style, and is watchable but just not very good-in short, an acceptable time-waster you probably won't even remember whether you saw in a year or two. It feels more generic than some of the original "Friday" films, even though it's better produced than most were. Here we get a brief prologue of the (restaged) first film's ending, then what seems like the very hasty dispatch of a new set of modern-day victims-but it turns out they comprise just ANOTHER prologue, and the "real" story starts twenty-odd minutes in and six weeks later. Now we've got yet more nubile young campers on the chopping block, this group slightly more differentiated by virtue of being including a black guy, an Asian guy, and a gay guy, plus the usual blonde babes and alpha male jerk rich kid who owns the deluxe country "cabin" where they're spending the weekend. Not traveling with them is the brother of a missing girl whom we know didn't make it past the first reel. We also meet a few of the local rubes, who are mean toward outsiders and thus deserve their own grisly fates. In addition, we briefly see Jason after he loses a hood and before he finds a hockey mask. He is not pretty, but it really seems a bigger deal should be made of his unmasking than this movie bothers with. The script doesn't really replicate the first film's narrative, such as it was, but neither does it come up with any notable updates beyond the news that the woods around old Camp Crystal Lake are now full of illegal marijuana-itself a more recent horror cliche. (Like sex, you covet the weed, you're gonna die.) The deaths are violent, natch, but rather perfunctory, as if Nispel weren't all that interested-but come on, what's the point of making a "Friday the 13th" movie if you're not going to make the deaths spectacular? I guess you could say "To expand upon the mythology/backstory," but this movie doesn't make the least effort in that direction. If anything, Nispel's "Friday" de-mythologizes Jason to no obvious benefit, as we eventually see way too much of him, and have to accept the far-fetched notion that he's simply been living in the abandoned camp for nearly four decades undetected while people frequently disappear forever in the area. Yet as before, he's here, he's there, he's everywhere without ever making a noise, like the semi-supernatural Jason of yore. There's a bit of a "Texas Chainsaw" vibe to the fact that we realize Jason sometimes keeps victims alive for a while in the catacombs beneath a cabin, but no explanation whatsoever why. This being a Michael Bay joint, there is some routine loutish humor and Hooters-level ogling. I'm pretty sure if someone actually came up with a script that exploited T&A but was actually kinda clever about it, he'd say "That's too smart for my audience." (No, you're underestimating your audience.)This movie is well-shot and energetic with OK performances, but I'm pretty sure at some point in the near future I won't even be able to remember whether I saw it, or am simply confusing it with some other horror sequel/reboot.

In the beginning you already know who's going to live and who will get killed. The stoners and the people who are having sex or are horny are going to die, and the others live. Jason wasn't scary and the ending was so predictable it made my horror-loving heart cry. Why was this tragedy made?