Friday the 13th is an obvious attempt to bring some credibility back into the Jason franchise, in essence it's cramming three film's worth of Friday the 13th mythos into one movie in the hopes of giving the film enough back-story so that the audience doesn't notice that nothing has actually changed.
The film is definitely enjoyable. It has its cheezy moments, its dark moments and genuinely good production values. Jason for once seems like a thinking killer, a truly scary killer, and not just a mindless shape that goes and dismembers everything in his path. The main three characters are also a sympathetic bunch, but the rest fail to stand out.
Whereas the teen-group of the original movie was wholly sympathetic, more or less everyone else in the movie is depicted as complete morons. Also, I hate how the morality-rules of the Slasher genres are spelled out so blatantly for the audience. We all know that characters who smoke pot and have sex die in each film, why did the film-makers feel they needed to keep reminding us of this. It's okay for the movie to have some comedy, but in all it seemed like they were pushing for the almost intentional self-parody seen in so many other films in this specific franchise.
And yet the movie has plenty of genuinely disturbing and gruesome moments which throws the film into a bit of an unbalance. What it does is water down the films attempt which I already described in the first paragraph of this review. Really, is this just another addition to the franchise than a real, experimental remake? Is it really just more of the same? Unfortunately, yes. It's a horror movie with its strong points but ultimately you would be better off just watching the originals and only this if you wanted to spare the time of having to see all of the same plot stretched out over 4 hours.
The film is definitely enjoyable. It has its cheezy moments, its dark moments and genuinely good production values. Jason for once seems like a thinking killer, a truly scary killer, and not just a mindless shape that goes and dismembers everything in his path. The main three characters are also a sympathetic bunch, but the rest fail to stand out.
Whereas the teen-group of the original movie was wholly sympathetic, more or less everyone else in the movie is depicted as complete morons. Also, I hate how the morality-rules of the Slasher genres are spelled out so blatantly for the audience. We all know that characters who smoke pot and have sex die in each film, why did the film-makers feel they needed to keep reminding us of this. It's okay for the movie to have some comedy, but in all it seemed like they were pushing for the almost intentional self-parody seen in so many other films in this specific franchise.
And yet the movie has plenty of genuinely disturbing and gruesome moments which throws the film into a bit of an unbalance. What it does is water down the films attempt which I already described in the first paragraph of this review. Really, is this just another addition to the franchise than a real, experimental remake? Is it really just more of the same? Unfortunately, yes. It's a horror movie with its strong points but ultimately you would be better off just watching the originals and only this if you wanted to spare the time of having to see all of the same plot stretched out over 4 hours.