Babble #5: Jason Gets The ReBOOT!

Well, I saw the new Friday the 13th movie yesterday, and I decided for this babble I should give my thoughts about it. Now I want to say that I’ve been a fan of these movies since I was 10, and Jason Voorhees is my favorite movie monster… err… killer… yeah, movie killer works best… at the moment. Anyways, I was originally pretty against this whole reboot thing when I first found out about it. I know Poinko and HPK sure heard me rant my ass off about it.

There was a lot of reasons why I feared this reboot. I was afraid it would end up being like a lot of the lame new horror movies where they’d substitute cinematography and choreographing with that stupid shaky camera shit or weirdly sped up footage that has been popular in the last several years. This fortunately didn’t happen. I was afraid that since Jason was the killer in the movie, they were going to completely redo his origin, fortunately this didn’t happen, either. Lastly I was afraid it was going totally forgo the fun over the top kills and instead just go for suspense. Well, it does go mostly for suspense, but still has a few really great deaths, so it works. It feels like the compromised the two, and I really liked that. Another thing that made me against a reboot is it keeps us from ever getting a Friday the 13th Part 13, but to be honest, after Jason X there was really no where else you could go. Oh, and by the way, I liked Jason X. It was good, campy, over the top slasher fun. If you can ignore how ridiculous the plot was in that movie and watch it purely for the creative death sequences (and good Lord were they creative), then you can get yourself an honest to God fun movie. Definitely has two of my favorite kills in it, but back to the new movie.

The new movie was, to my surprise, actually quite awesome. I’m serious. I really liked it, well most of it. This, I’m sure, helps from the same factor that allowed me to totally enjoy the Transformers live action movie. The fact that I had my expectations so low, had myself so convinced it was going to suck, that I was surprised by getting a good movie instead of a shitty movie. In fact, the only thing I can say I didn’t like was the very end, but I’ll get to that later in this Babble. I’m not going to give out any spoilers, or at least try my best to give away as little as possible.

The best thing in the movie by far was the intro. It has to be the longest intro in history, clocking somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes. This intro was a clever way to get all of Jason’s back story out of the way, since he wasn’t the murderer in the first movie (if you’ve never watched a Jason movie, you should at least know this thanks to Scream), but the way they did this was rather ingenious. Rather than just outright explain it, they did what felt like a little mini-movie to explain the most important elements of the first two movies, but in a different way. It works well, and I really enjoyed it. Had some great funny moments, too.

Now to be honest, if you’ve ever seen a Friday the 13th movie, you should know what to expect. Some stupid college kids are hanging around Crystal Lake and Jason discovers them and tries to kill them all. Basic stuff. One nice change of pace is Jason is actually a lot more clever in this movie. It’s kinda’ neat how he stalks his prey, and they use a few clever and new ways to have him kill people in scenes. I’d like to mention some of my favorite deaths, but like I said, no spoilers. Jason still uses his trademark machete, but he also uses other methods of attack as per usual. It even has his transition from bag face Jason to hockey mask Jason kinda’ like the original part 2 and part 3. Also like parts 2-4, Jason is a deranged human being rather than an unstoppable zombie killer. While I prefer big lumbering zombie Jason, it was kinda’ neat to see deformed human Jason again. So it was cool, worked well, and still quite faithful to the source material.

Derek Mears, who played Jason, did a rather excellent job. Some people might think it’s a role that’s easy to do since Jason doesn’t speak, but that honestly makes it harder. Jason is not only silent, but since his face is deformed (and kinda’ looks like Sloth from The Goonies), he hides his face at all times. This means the guy has no voice to work with and no facial expressions. He has to do everything with 100% body language, which is by no means an easy task, and this guy did a great job. Kane Hodder is still my favorite actor to portray Jason Voorhees, but Derek Mears may be a close second on that list.

Like all slasher/horror flicks you can’t help but look forward to seeing how people get killed. I know that sounds horrible, but it’s a movie, and not real life, so seeing people die can kinda’ be fun. Hrmmm… I don’t think there’s a right way I can write that statement, so I’ll just skip to the point and say the deaths were good in this movie. They don’t go as insanely over the top as the last several movies (which were admittedly a bit more fun and creative kill wise), but the still pull off some great kills in this movie. Unlike several of the last movies Jason appeared in, this movie was taken the series a lot more seriously, and honestly it kind of needed that. That being said the deaths still had a few really great scnes and some cool build up. It also had some hilarious fake outs. You know the types where you think something is going to happen, but it doesn’t, you as well as the character sigh… and then BAM! That being said, there was also a few rather predictable death scenes as well, but hey, they all can’t be perfect. And like I said early, they do a good job of balancing the deaths with building up suspense, so it all plays off really well.

I also want to mention the soundtrack, Steve Jablonsky, who had already impressed me with the Transformers soundtrack (my favorite track in that movie is “Arrival To Earth”), does an even more amazing job in this movie. The music builds up really well, really amps you up in the action scenes, and makes a great use of the themes used in the previous movies, especially the infamous Jason chu-chu-chu-chu-ha-ha-ha breathing sound effect. It’s great, and I plan to pick it up at some point.

As mentioned before, the ending was… well… stupid and the only thing I really didn’t like about the movie. It felt awkward, forced, predictable, and insanely cliche. While the whole movie was doing a rather good job of taking itself seriously, outside the comic relief provided by the various idiotic teens in the movie, to give us the end segment it did just kinda’ felt like it ruined a lot of the serious effect it was going for. My fiance mentioned that the ending probably would’ve worked better if they showed the part that bugs me after the credits, and honestly she’s right. It would’ve still been predictable and cliche, but it would’ve at least made the scene seem less awkward and overall jarring.

Nonetheless it was a fun slasher movie, I saw Jason kill people, stupid teenagers, and got a few surprises along the way, and hell, the intro alone is worth watching the movie in my opinion. So I give it, four out of five Sinistars. I’d definitely be willing to watch it again, and I’m totally getting it on DVD.