Premise: A reboot of the classic tale of Jason Voorhies killing teens in the woods around Crystal Lake.
This Friday the 13th reboot was being made at almost the exact same time as the horror comedy Cabin in the Woods. I find this very funny, because as I watched this movie, I kept thinking about Cabin in the Woods. While Cabin in the Woods is a satire of the horror genre in general, I think it's going especially hard at Friday the 13th and movies of its ilk. Both Cabin and this movie have the over-the-top deaths, unnecessary nudity, and isolated woodland settings. They even have stoner comic relief characters. Since both were made around 2008, the looks and quality of the films are very similar. Comparing the two movies is like if Walk Hard was being made at the same time as Walk the Line. Everything that Friday the 13th was trying to do with genre seriousness, Cabin in the Woods was lampooning at the same time.
Now, Cabin in the Woods had some studio shuffling that pushed its release by a couple years, which made it look more like a response to the late 2000s run of mediocre horror remakes than it actually was. Upon closer examination though, it's even savvier a movie than I thought.
There's a school of thought that you should review a movie based on how effective it is at being the movie it's trying to be. You know, judge a comedy by how well it earns its laughs. Judge a legal drama by how compelling the legal theatrics are. I mostly try to adhere to this, but I'd be lying if I said that personal taste didn't get in the way. I'm not a fan of traditional slasher movies. I don't mind the same elements when moved to something like V/H/S for some reason. In the Friday the 13th or even Nightmare on Elm Street mold, it does little for me. I don't care about creative deaths, the design of the antagonist, or about how many boobs are in the movie*. So, a movie that lovingly recreates the 80s formula for a modern movie does nothing for me. That goes to say that this Friday the 13th doesn't transcend the genre. It's not making a fan of people who don't think they'll like this kind of movie going in.
*Don't get me wrong. I'm not above boobs in a movie. I just don't need them in horror. Frankly, I find it confusing seeing a naked woman who then gets a harpoon shoved through her chest.
I guess it's decently successful as a "dumb slasher". The Jason design is nice and imposing. There are some very loud onscreen deaths. I think it tries a little too hard for camp. I'm just not a big fan in a horror movie of when you can tell how much silly fun the filmmakers are having on screen. It's way too easy for me to imagine Marcus Nispel and company on set, gleefully discussing the blood splatter needed in a certain scene. I can hear them telling Ben Feldman at the beginning "Don't worry. You can't go too big". I do kind of like Danielle Panabaker and Jared Padalecki in the lead roles. I think they work alright for this kind of movie. That's most of what I found to keep me going though. They rest of it was simply effective at being a kind of movie I don't care that much for.
By my metrics of good horror, there wasn't a lot to like in this. Did it scare me? No. There was no sense of dread in this. The jump scares were mostly unearned. Were there any stakes? Not really. I figured which people would and wouldn't die pretty early, and I was never that interested in why Jason was killing people. Did the comedy have anything clever to say? I don't need horror to have any humor, but if it's there, I want it to have something smart to say about the genre. When this movie was trying to be playful, it only served to undercut the movie by saying "We aren't taking it that seriously either".
More power to you if this is the kind of horror you're into. It's got the baseline thrills and a pretty good cast. I didn't hate watching it. While it didn't do any of the stuff I love in horror, it also didn't relish the sadistic stuff that normally turns me off either.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
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