Online Movie Review
Friday the 13th
Mark DeWitt
Issue date: 2/23/09 Section: Campus & Life
Slashing through the competition...
On Friday, Feb. 13, countless people packed into theaters everywhere for opening night of "Friday the 13th."
On opening weekend, "Friday the 13th" slashed through the competition in sales with a genre-record $45.2 million. The other films that did not come close to beating "Friday the 13th" for the win are "He's Just Not That Into You," which made $23.4 million and "Confessions of a Shopoholic," which brought in $17.3 million, and rounding out the bottom of new releases was "The International," which made a measly $10.7 million
While Warner Brothers claims that it was a remake, any long-time fan of the series will quickly notice it is nothing of the sort. The first 20 minutes or so quickly ran through the end scene of "Friday the 13th" (1980), where Jason's mother is decapitated and also echoes the second film in the series when Jason finds the hockey mask, even though it is found in a completely different place.
Now I understand that producer Michael Bay and director Marcus Nispel wanted to revamp the series for contemporary audiences but they do not have to completely change everything. And since they essentially did decide to change everything, they should have called the film Friday the 13th part 11: (insert cheesy horror tag-line here). The film could have just as easily flashed back to the first two films and had a fresh, new movie. This however would not have been smart marketing and I really can not blame them for trying to cash in on a so-called remake.
WIth the Bay-and-Nispel collaboration, who have churned out such "gems" as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (2003), and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" (2006) films, one can only expect them to completely ruin another classic horror franchise by taking away what made the characters distinct to begin with.
Bay and Nispel take away what made Jason, Jason. In the original films he was a very strong, slow-walking guy that was hard to kill (until Friday the 13th part VI: Jason Lives, in which he essentially became a zombie). He slaughtered people in almost a puritan manner. His reasons for killing relate back to counselors whoneglected him which caused him to "drown." If Jason caught a person participating in premarital sex, doing drugs, drinking alcohol, skinny dipping, or other activities that a person's parents would likely frown upon, they were killed.
On Friday, Feb. 13, countless people packed into theaters everywhere for opening night of "Friday the 13th."
On opening weekend, "Friday the 13th" slashed through the competition in sales with a genre-record $45.2 million. The other films that did not come close to beating "Friday the 13th" for the win are "He's Just Not That Into You," which made $23.4 million and "Confessions of a Shopoholic," which brought in $17.3 million, and rounding out the bottom of new releases was "The International," which made a measly $10.7 million
While Warner Brothers claims that it was a remake, any long-time fan of the series will quickly notice it is nothing of the sort. The first 20 minutes or so quickly ran through the end scene of "Friday the 13th" (1980), where Jason's mother is decapitated and also echoes the second film in the series when Jason finds the hockey mask, even though it is found in a completely different place.
Now I understand that producer Michael Bay and director Marcus Nispel wanted to revamp the series for contemporary audiences but they do not have to completely change everything. And since they essentially did decide to change everything, they should have called the film Friday the 13th part 11: (insert cheesy horror tag-line here). The film could have just as easily flashed back to the first two films and had a fresh, new movie. This however would not have been smart marketing and I really can not blame them for trying to cash in on a so-called remake.
WIth the Bay-and-Nispel collaboration, who have churned out such "gems" as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (2003), and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" (2006) films, one can only expect them to completely ruin another classic horror franchise by taking away what made the characters distinct to begin with.
Bay and Nispel take away what made Jason, Jason. In the original films he was a very strong, slow-walking guy that was hard to kill (until Friday the 13th part VI: Jason Lives, in which he essentially became a zombie). He slaughtered people in almost a puritan manner. His reasons for killing relate back to counselors whoneglected him which caused him to "drown." If Jason caught a person participating in premarital sex, doing drugs, drinking alcohol, skinny dipping, or other activities that a person's parents would likely frown upon, they were killed.
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