Friday the 13th
Blood, Gore and Not Much More
Friday the 13th is back in a new interpretation by Michael Bay (he of Transformers fame). But in truth everything old is new again and this is just more of the same old same old. You spend one hour and forty-five minutes watching people being butchered by a clown in a hockey mask. To coin a phrase, I am just not that into that. Oh the people are pretty and the violence is fairly low key, but there is no acting talent on view and the plot is non-existent.
The movie starts off with a prequel of sorts showing the first six kids who happened to stumble into the camp grounds of Crystal Lake for sex and drugs. Jason hacks them up pretty quickly. A few weeks later the brother of one of the victims comes looking. Clay Miller (Jared Padalecki) is certain his sister Whitney (Amanda Righetti) is still alive.
He meets up with a group of college kids headed to one of their parents cabin. The group is headed up by Trent (Travis Van Winkle), an obnoxious boor with a cute girlfriend named Jenna (Danielle Panabaker). Most of the group just want to have sex and do drugs but Jenna seems above all that and she reunites with Clay later in the movie.
As quickly as these guys and gals doff their clothes or get out their bongs Jason dispatches them. The message seems to be that if you have sex or do drugs Jason will kill you. And wasnt that the same message the first Friday the 13th” sent
Why a movie such as this is popular is beyond me. I know there is some visceral thrill in being frightened but to watch a gore fest of this type escapes me. It is hack, hack and hack some more until the movie is over. There is no logic to the movie. No ability to see how or why things happen. Jason (Derek Mears) is some kind of super human being who takes a lickin and keeps on tickin.
The movie is rated R for violence, profanity and nudity.
Horror movies have always been with us and probably always will be, but why cant they be just a little better than this poor excuse for entertainment.
I scored Friday the 13th a daily 3 out of 10.
