Friday the 13th (2009)
I went into the new Michael Bay "Friday the 13th" with varied expectations. Most of them were low. For starters, it looked like they made it completely into a torture porn, which is the exact opposite of Jason, but it's the way horror movies work now. Jason is quick hack-n-slash, modern horror is drawn out gore. Jason is a victim of the times. Second, it's supposed to be a remake of the first three Jason movies, yet only clocked in at 95 minutes. Those are the two major ones - the rest were in the details I could draw out of the commercials. Fortunately, upon seeing the movie, most of the low expectations turned out to be unfounded.

In other words, I did quite like this movie. For starters, while they made everything LOOK like it was going to torture porn (everything was filthy and covered in hooks. Hooks = torture porn) it was completely not. No death lasted longer than it took Jason to make a quick movement. Hack-n-slash. On top of that, they weren't just quick, but they were, occasionally, corny/funny. Not to ruin anything (because this movie is super predictable) but the two deaths around the boat are pretty damn funny. Second, they got through Part 1 in the opening credits, and Part 2 (in that he had a burlap sack instead of the hockey mask) in the next 8 minutes. It was nowhere near a "remake" of Jason cannon; instead it was a new Jason movie with a summation of his background. Sort of. While about 11 minutes might seem like a short time (and it was, really) nothing in the movie seemed rushed. It felt longer than 95 minutes - but in the good way. Not dragged out, more worth the money. However, they did completely remove the sense of mystery. Some guy came looking for his missing sister, and people basically said "Oh, she would have been killed by Jason. Stay away from him. He's crazy."

But the important thing in reviewing this movie is, of course, Jason himself. Several points on this: Jason was massive. Like, super massive. Like 8 feet tall, and proportionally wide. Huge, huge man. He was also super fast. Old Jason was pretty slow - he just ended up in places before anyone else because... well, he needed to kill them. This Jason was a faster runner than everyone else, which made him all the more threatening. However, it also took away his child-like clumsiness. I like Jason because he just kills quick because he doesn't know the difference. This Jason seemed really calculated and scheming. Not terribly oafish. But, he was a fine Jason overall.

All the other characters that needed to be there were there... more or less. Jason's mom was there, and the rest were classic Camp Crystal Lake archetypes: the damsel in distress, the nice girl, the douchebag, the rogue-ish good-guy, the slutty girl, the dumb friend, the non-believing cop, the crazy old lady, the crazy old man, and of course all the random early-movie knife-fodder. All your favorites, right where you left 'em!

There are still a few complaints about this movie. First being Jason kills teenagers having sex! That's what he does! However, in this movie, he distinctly waited for people to finish up before killing them. Was he trying to not be rude? I dunno. Though, this did add to the number of boob-shots required for a movie to be classified "Friday the 13th-worthy." The crappier thing still with this was that they replaced most of the sex-stuff with weed stuff. At least half the characters were obsessed with weed. Camp Crystal Lake became an abandoned grow-op! Why? It's like Michael Bay told the writers "No one just camps anymore; there has to be some promise of finding a field of weed for them to be out there." My other major complaint was one of cannon. A fairly major change. The teens stumble across a house (Jason's shack from Part 2) near the campground, only now it's a small house instead of a one-room shack. The major problem is, apparently this was Jason's house that he lived in as a child with his mother. That... that can't be right. Jason lived at Crystal Lake? Then, why did he go to camp there? Why, in "Jason goes to Hell" is his house in the suburbs? Or, was this new house a Transformer that moved to Crystal Lake later in life? Who's to say?

4 / 5 - I mostly give it such a high mark because it was much better than I expected. It probably only deserves a 2 - 3 tops, but there we are. Plus, some of the deaths are straight out of 80s horror, and I appreciate that effort.

PS - the ending is both expected and unexpected. A nice twist, if you will.