Friday the 13 (2009), Film Review
Remake Delivers Surprises, Rakes in the Cash
Mar 5, 2009 Jennifer L Mashuga
While it’s true that the newly revamped Friday the 13th probably won’t end up on anybody’s “Best of...” lists, the addition to the long-running series has a lot to offer horror fans.
Friday the 13th begins with a group of friends - three men and two women - who are on a vacation together. They decide to stop and camp for the night in an area where there’s supposed to be a large amount of marijuana plants. Their plan is to take as much marijuana as they can, and then leave first thing in the morning for their real destination.
Wade (Jonathan Sadowski) starts to tell the story of the Crystal Lake murders twenty years before. He tells his friends about how Pamela Voorhees was a camp cook with a deformed son, Jason. One day Jason snuck off to go swimming while she was at work, and the counselors that were supposed to be watching him went off to to have sex. Subsequently, Jason drowned, and Pamela, blaming the counselors, embarked on a killing spree.
This part of the film is where the first “surprise” comes into play. The viewer thinks that this is the film, and that these characters are the ones they’re going to be rooting for, or perhaps, against. Instead, the beginning is more of a tease, a prelude to the rest of the film and a way to work some background history into the story. Soon these characters will outlive their usefulness, but provide a introduction to the main characters of the film.
This element of surprise obviously helped attract viewers to Friday the 13th, which had the highest opening weekend at the box office out of all twelve films in the franchise, nearly $41 million. Director Marcus Nispel must be doing something right, as his first horror remake, 2003’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, was the highest grossing film, with $81 million, in that series, also.
Nispel has been slowly creating a name for himself by reinventing classic horror films, such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is considered to be the first of the successful horror remakes. Nispel also directed Pathfinder and a TV-version of Frankenstein. This is his second time working with Michael Bay, who produced both the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th. Nispel is currently planning to make two original films, Pod and Immaculate Conception.
Friday the 13th (2009)
Directed by: Marcus Nispel
Written by: Damian Shannon, Mark Swift (Screenplay and Story), Mark Wheaton (Story)
Starring: Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti
Run Time: 97 minutes
Friday the 13th movie poster
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Scene from film Friday the 13th
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