Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Marcus Nispel
Cast: Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Aaron Yoo, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Derek Mears
RunTime: 1 hr 37 mins
Released By: UIP
Rating: M18 (Violence and Sexual Scenes)
Official Website: http://www.fridaythe13thmovie.com/

Opening Day: 23 April 2009

Synopsis:

From Platinum Dunes and director Marcus Nispel ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") comes a re-imagining of the classic horror film "Friday the 13th."

Searching for his missing sister, Clay heads up to the eerie woods of legendary Crystal Lake, where he stumbles on the creaky remains of rotting old cabins that lie in wait behind moss-covered trees.

And that's not the only thing hiding under the brush.

Against the advice of police and cautions from the locals, Clay pursues what few leads he has, with the help of a young woman he meets among a group of college kids up for an all-thrills weekend. But they are about to find much more than they bargained for.

Little do they know, they've entered the domain of one of the most terrifying specters in American film history—the infamous killer who haunts Crystal Lake, armed with a razor-sharp machete... Jason Voorhees.

Movie Review:

Let's see, there are a few horror film icons that we would already be chummy with on a first name basis, for the sheer number of identical films that get churned out from the mill. When fresh ideas are not forthcoming, there's always the path of the sequel, prequel, "in-quel", remake and reboot. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween have already gone there, and soon we may be revisiting the Nightmare on Elm Street. Until then, here's Jason!

Welcome back to Camp Crystal Lake, where camp counsellors were taken to task for supposedly causing the death of Jason Voorhees, only for horror-dom to celebrate the birth of a cult-favorite who shares notoriety on a first name basis with the likes of Michael (Myers) and Freddy (Krueger). So here comes the 12th film where we go back to basics and return to where it all started. Except that the fans on one hand may celebrate the one with the hockey mask's cinematic return, while on the other would wonder, "That's it?"

Directed by Marcus Nispel who also helmed the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, this version is undoubtedly spruced up for the new generation to introduce them to what scared audiences for some 20 odd years, but with a number of peers getting into the same genre bandwagon, there's little here that makes Jason, or Friday the 13th, stand out from the competition. You can just rattle off the number of cliches found in the formula with ease - bunch of hot teenagers, check. Sex-crazed, check. Vehicles that run out of gas/no keys/tyre puncture, check. Multi-ethnicity, check.

It's formula all over again and I don't see anyone doing a reboot in the same fashion as how Casino Royale reinvented James Bond. What you do get though are some little bits of origin thrown in, pertaining to that hockey mask, and the nice touches from the original score. Otherwise, the gratuitous violence here struggles to hold their own against audiences who are jaded from popular gory flicks. Jason still wields that mean machete as weapon of choice, but from time to time switches to other equally deadly weapons that you can see being used to dispatch his victims (read: Spoilers in the trailer)

And what's the violence in a typical movie like this without the sex element that comes hand in glove? To reinforce the point that these are really horny teenagers, there are enough sex scenes and nudity to serve as interludes between the killings, which I don't think the intended audience would complain anyway for the stupendous assets on display. And you know the rule, that there will be some ironic death scene just around the corner. One thing's for sure, this film doesn't scrimp on displaying flesh, or body count, even giving you a prologue to rake up the numbers.

Unless this is your virgin foray into the slasher genre, or your very first Friday the 13th movie, Jason would hardly interest you any more than how rudimentary he goes about settling his unfinished, and probably never-ending, business. C'mon Jason, surely you can do better than this!

Movie Rating:



(For the slasher flick virgins and fan boys only)

Review by Stefan Shih