Friday the 13th (2009) / Netflix revisit

While I still consider this way down towards the middle or bottom of the franchise, I don't really dislike it. I just don't really love it. I think when I watch it there is just not this connection I have with it. I don't think it is all that badly made, but there were eight films in the 80s that just built up Jason while Nispel has 93 minutes to do so in the 2009 film. I do like Mears' Jason more and more with each viewing even if I don't really care for most of the cast; they are just disposable human targets. I always seem to enjoy the casts in the Friday films of the 80s, though. And there is this feeling of "seen that, and seen that, and seen that" familiarity of homage moments throughout that might be welcome for fans, I get that. I dunno: I watch this and once it is over, I'm okay with not watching it again for another five or six years. While that is certainly not the case for the Paramount 8.

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This does have some qualities I like about it. I think this does have some gnarly kills. I definitely liked the screwdriver through Chewie's throat, poker through the eye of Officer Bracke, bear trap ensnaring Richie's shin and the machete between his eyes, Crossbow arrow through Nolan's forehead while he's woo-wooing driving a motorboat, wicked machete stab into Chelsea's head (jerking her up with bare breasts into a wooden ramp) while she tries to keep quiet in the water, ax throw into Lawrence's back, sliced throat of Donnie with subsequent gushing blood, and, especially, Amanda's "trapped in sleeping bag and held over an open campfire" burning.

I am still bummed with Jenna's machete death, but I get the shock value of it. I am not a fan of how Jason finds the hockey mask (why in this particular building is a hockey mask there?), but the mask itself, how weathered and dirty it is, is rad. I now think the whole underground tunnels were made before Jason's time by miners perhaps so I have explained that away in my own mind, though the electrical system is not so easy to necessarily explain. How Jason learned to be a crossbow marksman, the complaint about kidnapping Whitney, how Whitney put a machete right into his heart while he was pulled into a woodchipper by a chain around his neck, and Jason emerging from Crystal Lake despite that machete stab to grab Whitney still remain legit issues I have as others critical of the film.

But I think how Nispel shoots Jason (especially when reaches for Whitney through a door in a turned-over bus and how he grabs Whitney's boyfriend through the floor of his mother's home), with the industrial score and a sense of "oh shit" pursuit that presents him as this monster that isn't about to waste any time, was the right one. This Jason isn't Booker taking his time. This Jason smells blood and wants to shed as much as possible. When you tread on Jason's territory, unless you look like his mom, all bets are off.

That shot of Jason looking at his reflection in the filthy, discarded attic mirror with the hockey mask and in the woods as he gazes at Willa Ford, who is in the water just a distance away remain my two favorite scenes. This is a great Jason. I think the film itself is so-so. Guill with her little dance to some hip hop while taking champagne swigs (and her playful sex scene with the undeserved dick, Trent) is also quite memorable.

Yeah, this is a "greatest hits" of Jason. That still is very much a rather lazy screenplay option they took while writing this film, but most remakes/reboots/requels do that. Like Jason bursting through the window to grab Clay, emerging like a CGI shark to grab Whitney at the end, and there is even a homage to "Silent Night Deadly Night" with Guill stabbed through deer antlers.

This still remains somewhere in the middle with me. I still have an affinity and affection for the Paramount 8. Those are just the Friday films I grew up with and remain near and dear to me.

But I am a Supernatural fan so Padalecki as the hero is cool, Pannabaker is such a sweetheart I crush for, and Righetti has that Jessica Biel look to her that seems to be a type Nispel likes to cast in his movies (and I'll never complain about that!)