Friday the 13th: Surprise! The Black Guy Doesn’t Die First
Okay, I admit it, I’ve seen every Friday the 13th movie. Yes, even the God-awful entries like Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X, and the shameless cash-in, Freddy Vs. Jason. Seen ‘em all. Guess I have a soft spot for movies about large men mutely chopping their way through a clot of teenagers. I probably need help. So it was with a mix of curiosity, hope, and dread that I sat down to watch the reboot of the Friday the 13th series.
You all know the story by now. Jason Voorhees was a deformed child who drowned at a summer camp on Crystal Lake while the counselors were off drinking and having sex. His mother went crazy and set out to avenge his death by hacking up a new group of drinking/sexing counselors at the same camp some years later. She was ultimately beheaded by the last survivor, which seemed to somehow resurrect Jason from his watery grave as an immortal creature and set him on a killing spree that’s lasted decades. (Look, I never said it made sense.) Donning his trademark hockey mask in Part 3, Jason has hacked, chopped, slammed, crushed, impaled, spiked, skewered, slashed, mangled, and filleted countless victims, and has himself been killed any number of times, but always managed to come back to life in time for the next installment.
This latest entry does away with the goofiness that crept into the series starting around movie number five, and instead gives us a more realistic Jason that is less an unstoppable force of nature and more of an actual human being. Granted, a highly disturbed, incredibly strong, and permanently pissed-off human being, but you don’t get the sense that’s he’s indestructible (well, for most of the movie). In doing away with the sillier aspects of the series, this new entry offers a Jason who is a bit more brutal. Gone, for the most part, are the inventive kills, replaced with more straight-forward machete slashings, although there is a nifty little number with a sleeping bag early on.
So, without the creative kills of the old days, and (thankfully) not going down the torture-porn road of the Saw and Hostel films, is the new Friday worth seeing? It’s not really scary as most of the “scares” are of the jump variety, with Jason suddenly appearing behind someone, usually accompanied by a totally unrelated sound effect. There’s no real tension, since you always know what’s going to happen, if not exactly how. There’s minimal plot and not a lot of acting; the characters are there merely to run, scream, be dispatched, and, in the case of the women, go topless. There’s some blood, but it’s hardly a gore-fest. So is it worth your ten bucks? I guess that depends. If you’ve enjoyed some of the previous films, it’s nice to see the somewhat new direction for the series. But if you’re looking for an original, truly scary horror film, there’s not much here to thrill you. Ask yourself this: Do you know what I mean when I whisper “ch-ch-ch ha-ha-ha”? If so, then you might like the movie.
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Tags: Movie Reviews
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3 Responses to “Friday the 13th: Surprise! The Black Guy Doesn’t Die First”
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February 15th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
You truly astound me by choosing to make this an “opening weekend” film for yourself knowing your attitude toward such things over the past few years. I did see it as well, and unfortunately, one of the most horrific parts of this experience for me literally, I shit you not, was saying to myself MULTIPLE times during the viewing “this is exactly why Zab (insert your real name, though) DOES NOT go to opening weekend films anymore.” Behind me was an entire row of people that came to do EVERYTHING but view the film. In fact, the only person in that row (I think that they were all together) that gave any indication that he, she or it was watching it was the one guy that insisted on reading every single sign or visual image with text on it out loud during the course of it.
Now I guess I can’t say that the entire row behind me didn’t have some courtesy, I mean, there was the one guy that answered his mobile phone and repeatedly tried to tell the other party that now was not a good time to talk: “[whisper tone] I’m at the movies…no, I’m at the movies…[escalating tone]…I’m AT THE MOVIES…I TOLD YOU I’M AT THE MOVIES.”
I’ll post my own review later on in the week. But I was amazed that they didn’t have one real mid-coitus kill in this one.
February 16th, 2009 at 8:35 am
It was a Sunday, I was bored, little touch of cabin fever, and just wanted to take in a film. Besides, I didn’t figure there’d be too many douchebags at the first Sunday-afternoon screening of a horror flick. Although I had the same sign-reading guy that you did. Weird…
February 16th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
There is no shortage of douchebags at any movie at any time these days. It’s gotten to the point where they are serving vinegar and water at the conession stand. Shit, almost 2PM, looks like I need to get in line for Watchmen tickets.