DVD Review: Friday the 13th (Extended Killer Cut): Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Aaron Yoo, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Derek Mears, Marcus Nispel: Movies & TV
DVD Review: Friday the 13th (Extended Killer Cut): Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Aaron Yoo, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Derek Mears, Marcus Nispel: Movies & TV
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If you thought a bigger budget and an A-list producer (Michael Bay) would go to Jason’s head, well, forget it. The indestructible villain of so many bottom-of-the-barrel shockers isn’t about to change his shtick, and the 2009 Friday the 13th proves it. This, the umpteenth sequel (nope, it’s not a remake of the origin story) to the original 1980 movie, gives us a clever prologue that manages to fit an entire Jason Voorhees killing spree in a brisk and bloody 20 minutes. Jumping ahead six weeks, the film introduces a carload of clueless teens headed for a weekend at a lakeside cabin, plus a lone motorcyclist (Jared Padalecki) in search of his missing sister (Amanda Righetti). When the “lakeside” happens to refer to Crystal Lake, of course, there can be only one outcome. Cue the hockey mask, and pass the machete. Bay and director Marcus Nispel, who collaborated on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, are surprisingly indifferent to changing up the formula this time, although there’s more care taken in building up a few characters, and for once the comic relief (mostly supplied by Aaron Yoo and Arlen Escarpeta) is pretty funny. You might even regret the slaughter of a couple of these young folk, which is an unusual feeling in Friday-watching. The film’s Jason is quite the athletic fellow, and he’s assembled an elaborate underground corpse-hiding lair in the vicinity of Crystal Lake. How he’s been able to live down there for 30 years (if the film’s own timeline is to be believed) and had enough unwitting campers pass by to keep himself entertained is anybody’s guess. But if they keep coming, he’ll keep slashing. –Robert Horton
Product Description
FRIDAY THE 13TH: KILLER CUT EXTENDED 2009 (DVD MOVIE)
Adds nothing new, just a greatest hits album, but if you like this franchise, you should like this movie.,
By David J. Brown -
This review is from: Friday the 13th [Theatrical Release] (Theatrical Release)
This is a straight forward slasher film. No jokes. Simple story. Cliche’d setting, and one dimensional characters that show maybe one recognizable and memorable trait before they’re dispatched. This is exactly like the earlier Friday films on every level. I knew going in that this was billed as a remake, even though Jason is the star, and he didn’t really appear in the first Friday the 13th, but this isn’t really a remake of the first film. It’s more of a greatest hits album of Friday’s 1 through 4. I swear. Jason gets his mask in this film(part 3), the main characters are just partying up at a cabin(part 4), Clay is searching for his lost sister and eventually becoming a Jason hunter(part 4), we get a quick recap of the end of the first Friday with Mrs. Vorhees and her loss of head, the way our ‘final girl’ tricks Jason at the end is similar to that of part 2, the ending of the film has basically the same ’surprise’ jump scare, and finally Jason himself is more like he was in the first four films. The way he’s built, the way he moves, the fact that he’s still human. We even get an appearance of the sack doning Jason from part 2. Fans of the series will smile when they see some of the kills from Fridays’ past making cameos as well, but they have been tweaked or put in different locations. Just two quick examples are an arrow through the head and a death by sleeping bag. Yes, they are throwbacks, but they play out in a slightly different manner in this one.
Here’s the problem and the reason for the average star rating: THERE’S NOTHING NEW OR ORIGINAL IN THIS FILM. The writers and director don’t subvert or transcend the material, in other words they don’t really make it their own beyond the new glossy look. The only original thing they seem to have added was Jablonsky’s score, which if you thought the original score was obvious, wait ’til your ear drums are blown out by the soundtrack in this thing! To say the music has scary stings would be putting it lightly. They are more likened to musical explosions whenever something scary happens or Jason just happens to appear. It’s cheap scare stuff, but it will make you jump just for the startling nature of loud noises out of nowhere. It’s kind of like clapping your hands together really hard right next to a sleeping geriatric’s ear. Not horror movie innovation or genius going on here.
People are going to go on and on about how much faster and stronger Jason is in this thing, but it’s all just revisionist history. Watch the original five, Jason was very agile and quick. They’ll also go on and on about how he’s smarter. He’s not. He’s about as smart as he was in the originals. The only wrinkle that is new to Jason’s character is the whole survivalist in the woods thing. Sure, you could surmize that about the originals, but this film gives you the visuals to show what an accomplished woodsman and hunter our friend Mr. Vorhees is. Plus, we get a Jason lair. This is an upgrade from the shack he used to have in part two where the only valuable thing it held was his mother’s severed head, YUCK.
So, the film is watchable and fairly fun in that old Friday the 13th way, but it’s nothing special. It’s not really scary. It’s violent, but no more than the originals and far less-so then the recent Saws and others of that ilk. To call the characters card-board would be an insult to card-board. But, in Friday the 13th land the characters were never the point. The actors play their stereotypes as believable as possible, which is something this installment has over the originals, which were peppered with bad dialogue and bad acting. And yes, I call this an installment, because it plays less like a remake and more like FRIDAY THE 13 PART 3.5. This film could easily fit between parts 3 and 4 and it would feel natural.
***SIDE NOTE—Friday the 13th 3.5 is not a literal opinion on how this film could fit into the whole series. It’s a glib reaction to the lack of originality in this remake. It was a reference to certain films that get re-released on dvd with new scenes and are given a .# added to the title. Example would be Spider-Man 2.1. Geeeezzzz people….***
So, old-school fans won’t hate it, I suspect, but will rather feel comfortable in it’s old-school conventions, but at the same time feel slightly empty at the fact that nothing new was offered to an already paper thin mythos. New-school fans may love it, and find it original, especially if they’ve never seen an true balls-to-the-wall slasher film, but rather post-modern stuff like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. This film’s violence hurts and there are no cute remarks from the characters right before they buy it. Death hurts again in this film.
My only thought at the end is, why remake this? If they had nothing new to say or add to the franchise or character then, what was the point? How was this creativly satisfying to anyone? I dunno, you decide, but that’s just the thoughts running through my mind at the moment….
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES UPDATED REVIEW 6/07/09
Yeah, New Line really skimped on this one, at least on the dvd end of things! We only get two special features, an 11 minute making of doc and three deleted scenes. All the deleted scenes are uselss. We get an alternate death scene for the Donnie character who helps Jason make an important fashinon decision with his hockey mask, it’s more gory and really poorly filmed and edited. We get another scene with some cops, YAWN, and finally a shorter and less gooey demise for Mr. Voorhees. The doc is filler. No extenssive details about anything, just how excited and ‘kewl’ the whole experience of remaking Jason –BLAH, BLAH, BLAH…Totally LAME! Though, we do get some glimpses of Derek Mears suiting up and being put into his Jason make-up. Plus, we get some alterante angles from the opening ‘death of Mrs. Vorhees’ prologue that gives the viewer a good look at Jason as a deformed child.
The movie itself looks great and has been extended by about 1 minute. Yes, there’s more Jason and some of the violence has been put back in with gory results, which is the real reason these films have endured anyway. Though, the only major difference I noticed was in the token Asian guy’s death by screw driver, it’s longer and bloodier. Either the movie is going to get some double dipping action in the near or far future or the newly sold New Line, now with Warner Bros., will be putting the good special features on their Blu-Rays. Though, after looking up the Blu-ray specs, not really. There’s one extra special feature called ‘Hacking back, slashing forward’. This may be the more informative doc on the film’s making, dunno. There’s also some BD live stuff, but who actually gives a crap about that?
I would’ve appreciated a commentary by the director and especially the very funny screenwriters. Though, on the upside, there are extenssive and more telling interviews with them, and actor Derek Mears(Jason), on the very good 2-disc dvd release of HIS NAME WAS JASON.
Smart approach to a remake,
By Hellbilly DRP (NC Piedmont) -
This review is from: Friday the 13th [Theatrical Release] (Theatrical Release)
This movie is a hard call. Its better than most horror remakes, though not in the same class as the Dawn of the Dead remake was. The problem is instead of a group of random people some stuff happens to, there is a horror icon involved. They take a smart approach by picking up a couple decades after Friday the 13th. They blend in elements of parts 2 and 3, and ignore the stuff that followed. This approach pays respect to the original and grounds the franchise in the present while freeing it from the crazy story lines of the later installments( they’re fine and they are still there, no need to freak out). The only real complaint is a question. What’s with the tunnels? Has Jason been an understudy to Harry Warden while he was away from his mine for ten years? Concerning Jason, Derek Mears ROCKS!
Jason Strikes Again!,
By Melvin Hunt (Cleveland,, Texas United States) -
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Friday the 13th [Theatrical Release] (Theatrical Release)
The lead in to this movie was scary and action packed and never let up
during the length of the movie. A group of college who are hunting for a
marijuana patch travel to Crystal Lake. Unknown to them Jason Voorhess
is still among the living and resides at Crystal Lake. The original
house is in shambles. It is not long before Jason starts killing off the college kids. In no time at all they are all gone. A few weeks later one of the missing college kids brother comes hunting for her. There is also another group of college kids who are visiting the Crystal Lake area. One
by one they start falling victim to Jason.Jason has added some new weapons
to his killing arsenal. He employs a bear trap, a bow and arrow and also shows the ability to throw an axe. You are also exposed to two masks. One
is the gauze mask and he later starts using the infamous hockey mask.The
action is nonstop and exciting to the very end. There is a surprise ending as well. Once again Jason has made an exciting movie. Be sure not
to miss it.
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