Friday The 13th
- Year:2009
- Rating:R
- Director:Marcus Nispel
- Cast:Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle
- Release Date:March 12, 2009
- Distributor:Paramount
- Running time:97 minutes
- Film Worth:$9.00
- FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
“...almost pantomime...”
Today's young audiences are seemingly incapable of watching anything that isn't on the new release shelf, providing the perfect chance for producer Michael Bay (Transformers) to work his way through the horror classics, retooling them into bankable box office fodder. Bay oversaw the similarly re-jigged The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which despite showing ten times more gore than the original, was a fright-less exercise in gross-out shocks and an interesting showcase for Jessica Biel's abs. This latest revamp, this time of the original Friday The 13th, opens with a pre-credit sequence in which a group of youths decide to pitch tents near the fateful Camp Crystal Lake, the scene of innumerable brutal slayings. After fireside ghost stories prove boring, the group pair off for (a) sexy shenanigans, (b) marijuana consumption, and (c) reckless exploration of the nearby creepy camp. Mask-wearing psychopath Jason Voorhees appears and, with supernatural speed, proceeds to machete, bear-trap and burn anyone he sees. Of course, that's just pre-credits. Once we're into the ludicrously thin plot, yet another group of beautiful people venture lake-side for more partying and more needless exploration of creepy buildings.
In keeping with the eighties horror ethos, graphic nudity precedes a brutal slaying, drug use also means that you're about to cop the business end of a pitchfork and, of course, gratuitous sex means that you're about to die horribly, but only before you explore the creepiest, darkest room in the house. It's almost pantomime in its "He's behind you!" stupidity, but for all its goofiness, there's still an all-encompassing enjoyment in watching a bunch of reckless, hedonistic morons being axed to death. You'd almost think this stuff was designed to appeal...
