FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)

(2009)

written by Damian Shannon & Mark Swift

directed by Marcus Nispel

reviewed by Adam Armstrong

3.20.10

Machetes and breast implants.

A deformed boy drowns and his mother takes her vengeance out on the Crystal Lake camp counselors who were supposed to be watching him. Her son, Jason (young played by Caleb Guss, older by Derek Mears), wasn’t dead and witnesses as his mother is beheaded. Thirty years later a group of teenagers come to the now defunct Camp Crystal Lake to harvest marijuana they’ve been growing only to be killed by a man with a burlap sack over his head. The brother (Jared Padalecki) of one of the missing girls comes looking for her only to have to confront Jason with a second group of young people.

This film takes elements from the first four movies and combines them with a modern update, which oddly enough can be done without losing much of the four other films. I actually enjoyed this film. It made more sense to me to have Jason run after people. In the last few Friday movies, it was too much like Michael Myers to have Jason slowly walk behind his victims and somehow catch up to them. There was the right amount of blood and gore in this movie. We see something disgusting for a second and then the camera goes to a different angle. When we’re inundated with too much gore it always feels like we’re watching a surgery show on the learning channel instead of a horror movie.

Will they take all the good they’ve done here and ruin it with a bunch of lazy sequels…probably, but enjoy it for now.

4 out of 5