Directed by: Marcus Nispel
Written By: Damian Shannon & Mark Swift
Cast: Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, & Amanda Righetti
Runtime: 97 min.
Rating: R
Trailer

Well, it seems the time has come again for morally and artistically bankrupt movies. Usually, these so-called tent-pole movies infest the multiplexes during the death throes of the summer season (and ironically enough have Michael Bay’s name on them) but this latest travesty, Friday the 13th, arrives early to appease the ignorant and the stupid. I shouldn’t blame the audience for this, not entirely anyway; most of the blame goes to the inept screenwriters and the director of this awful, putrid excuse for a horror movie. First off, is this a remake of the original or the 11th sequel in the franchise? Who the hell knows, and honestly, who cares? The film opens with a flashback of Jason’s mother, Mrs. Voorhees, getting decapitated at Camp Crystal Lake, but Nispel and the writers change the story enough so that Jason is now a silent witness to her death. In other words, Jason is on a revenge kick and has mommy issues. But that’s enough of the psychobabble. Before long we are introduced to a group of college assholes, oh, sorry, college seniors, who arrive at the abandoned camp for a night of debauchery and cliché. It takes a whole 10 seconds for these people to become unlikable and boring. They are so irritating that I had hoped Jason would dispense with the systemic killing and go straight ahead to plan B and spray them all with machine gun fire. Unfortunately, this did not happen. After the opening 20 minutes – that’s right, there is so little story to tell that the opening is 20 minutes long – the story, if I may call it that, begins proper with another round of asshole college students.

Intent on finding his missing sister, Clay Miller (Jared Padalecki), of the CW’s equally putrid The X-Files rip-off, Supernatural, stumbles his way into the house of a bunch of rowdy, idiotic characters at a secluded house near Camp Crystal. What follows is a mind-numbingly boring “horror” movie that alternates between plodding exposition and unimaginative killings, both of which shot by director Marcus Nispel as though the camera were covered in excrement. The look is bland and ugly: shaky camera-work, choppy editing and absolutely no sense of style. But most insulting of all is this: the movie isn’t in the least bit scary. It’s just boring. Nispel forgoes suspense and heightening tension for a by-the-numbers approach to the killings. For example, a jerk-off character goes into a dark place alone, looks around, talks to himself, and then out of nowhere Jason appears behind him and kills him. Exposition comes next and then an identical killing follows that. The only time Jason’s murderous rampage creates any kind of excitement is when he shoots an arrow through the face of a character driving a boat. The attack is shocking, but not the least bit scary. I can’t speak for the rest of the audience but I hoped Jason would speed up his killing frequency so I could go home early and wash the stench off me. The original film is no masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination: it’s silly and pretty boring, but at least it had a certain kitsch value and occasionally was scary.

Nispel and Bay teamed up prior to this for the equally stupid remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but at least that one looked good for Christ sakes! Could it be that after three terrible movies Nispel has already reached his creative peak? If that’s the case, he can always go back to directing Billy Joel music videos. As for Friday the 13th, I can only hope the movie bombs at the box office so no one will attempt another go-round. The only thought that kept passing through my head during its running time was the line from Bo Catlett, the character played by Delroy Lindo in Get Shorty: “I’ve seen better film on teeth.” Truer words have never been spoken.

Richard X
© Cinephile Magazine, 2009