Friday the 13th (2009)
Welcome to Crystal Lake.
Tomorrow is Friday the 13th again. That’s another excuse to drop one of those movies! I could go the entire length of the series, but that would require my disc player to stinking work, so instead I go to the one that’s still on streaming - which ignores all the other ones past the first anyways, so bonus I guess. Yep, I could have done anything - verily, I hadn’t originally planned to do this one but then I realized what today was and figured it’d be a good excuse to hop back into some sleazy dumb horror slashing for old times sake. Set it or forget it, tonight is the reboot-quel of Friday the 13th.
Our plot picks off at the end of the first, except Jason came back and saw his mother get killed off in the heroic finale. From there, he grows up to a big old man, murdering and making disappear anyone foolish enough to stray into his woods. Then enters our idiot young adults, out to camp and get into all sorts of promiscuous activities like drugs and sex. It’s unfortunate for them that their location of choice was within spitting distance of Jason’s old stomping ground, and it doesn’t take long before we realize that this is either a twenty minute long movie, or the batch of expendables isn’t our main cast. Indeed, turns out our main cast is another batch of deplorable folks out to get our attention by being jerks, stoners, or getting down and dirty - well, except a few who have a redeeming quality or two, and our main tie-in to the original batch of fodder whose looking for his missing sister that just so happened to be one of the girls on that opening scene. Will he find her, will anyone in the group survive their stay by the woods? I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Nor would you want to. In classic slasher movie fashion, the movie wastes absolutely no time in setting up characters at breakneck speed. This one? Yeah, their a jerk, you don’t want to like them. This one? I mean, totally an idiot but at least not a jerk. That one over there? Yeah, you can like that one, they seem nice. Character development? Well, i wouldn’t go that far, but it works in that super basic slasher movie sense where we don’t need to have a whole history for every character, but it’s not going to win any records for awesome characters. Of course, our killer returns - this time much more like some sneaky Vietnam soldier than the last seen space-born nanomachine infused demonic murder bot, and he stills has a mommy complex. Beyond that though, I wouldn’t go too crazy expecting a lot out of the characters outside of very blunt interactions towards what you would normally expect.
The actors don’t do a bad job though. I mean, yes, the characters are all pretty hate-able, forgettable, or otherwise groan worthy eye candy, but the actors do what they can to sell it and the sell it pretty good all considering. It doesn’t feel like people are unskilled, or that they don’t have the desire to do a good job - it’s mostly all just there isn’t a whole ton to work with here. Interactions work well enough between the characters - but again, it’s not always a dynamic that you particularly will enjoy or be rooting for. In the case of the murder machine, he’s played quite reserved compared to the largest gusto-renditions, but he’s still quite satisfactorily menacing until he has to fumble or be distracted because the plot cares for it. Again, I think everyone here does a good job, and pretty near all complaints in regards to this are more towards just the classic slasher movie trope writing than it is anyone on screen.
The mysterious stranger.
Well, the setting is a bit more dilapidated than it once was. Most the rest of it looks pretty rural area and woods, but the camp itself is in all sorts of disrepair. The darkness can be pretty dark, but not AvP:R advanced darkness that makes it impossible to see. Costumes are pretty mundane, although you won’t get the characters confused with each other despite outfits being modern. Of course, the killers started off with a sack and levels up into a hockey mask, but even his costume is surprisingly mundane - brand recognition and all. Coming off of the space one it’s a step to normalcy that some might be happy about, but it is sad in regards to variety of interesting outfits.
The effects work is good. I mean, I don’t think you’ll really be convinced people are getting murdered for better or worse, but they don’t look obviously faked like they sometimes can. There is actually even a few scenes of trading blows in here, which helps bring our Killer back down into the realm of just a bit better than average man in power levels. People look banged up as they should, although at times I feel like injuries aren’t entirely treated as much like injuries especially in regards to our killer who, despite my previous comment of being brought back down into a more realistic realm of power still benefits from the “quickly forgetting I’ve been stabbed or injured as I go into the next targeted murder mode.” The variety of kills is good for the fans, with plenty not even really being foreshadowed at all. That said, some will totally be disappointed by a bunch of unused checkov’s floating about where the camera hangs just long enough to feel like it’s emphasizing something being used in a kill and then not (like that darn bug zapper).
Audio is fine. Balance is done well, and there’s plenty of the noticeable modern songs (at least for the time) for people to bop along with. There isn’t as pronounced a usage of the original stings and score as some would prefer, but in fairness to the movie there also isn’t nearly as much build up to kills as there once was - I mean, half the time there’s not musical indication or anything, just all of a sudden kill. They also like to use those stings to queue you into details that aren’t necessarily leading up to anything as a bit of misdirect - so in that sense the audio might vary in levels of appreciation for sure. At least it doesn’t do the jump scare thing of just sudden super-loud noises to make you jump.
The true expendables.
I would say I prefer the original to this one, although I’m not so sure about the direct comparison between this and the one it would technically replace (the original second). It’s an alright movie that doesn’t really feel like it does anything to really add to the franchise outside of giving it the possibility of a new branching point of sequels after the absurdity of Jason X. I feel that they could do a lot of things to bring this into a more “respectable” movie - but at the same time, I’m sure that despite all the dumb decisions of characters and teleporting of the villain and ridiculous over-kills that put off many from the genre as a whole, the rest of us are still relatively happy with more of the same, as long as it’s more polished or at least a little different to set it apart.