Friday the 13th (2009): A Slasher at the Wrong Time
The 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th is a movie that gets a lot of shit from most people, but I think it’s fine. It was written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift and directed by Marcus Nispel. On the surface, it seems like it was so bad that it killed the franchise since it is 15 years later, and there hasn’t been anything about Jason or Friday the 13th franchise since. However, there have been lots of lawsuits with the rights to the franchise and profit splitting that is more likely the cause. It’s so stupid that they can’t come to an agreement, so they’d rather make no money than split money. Additionally, the film was successful in terms of a return on investment as it cost 19 million dollars to make, yet brought in over 90 million. I don’t think this movie is bad at all, and it is far from the worst film in the franchise. Spoilers ahead for this 15-year-old movie, though it’s a horror movie, so who gives a shit.
The movie starts with campers running away from something and getting murdered while a voiceover of the original plays. I hate this opening because of the cuts to the credits every two seconds. It reminds me of some current-day brain rot shit, so this film was truly ahead of its time.
Classic-style dumbass, sex, and gore slashers have to make a cultural comeback. I know they can be formulaic and stupid, but they are usually very entertaining.
The movie properly starts as a group of friends go camping to look for some weed they heard was planted around this campsite. One of the couples goes to fuck, and the nerd obsessed with finding weed goes off alone, and literally everyone knows what’s going to happen to him. Jason kills the entire group except one of the girls. The best death of the bunch is Amanda, the sleeping bag girl who gets roasted over the fire.
Travis Van Winkle is perfectly cast as the 2000s douchebag frat bro dickhead, Trent. Essentially, the whole premise of the movie is that Clay, played by Supernatural dude Jared Padalecki, is looking for his sister, who has been missing for a month. If you have ever seen a slasher, you’ll know exactly how this movie is going to play out, but it is still a fun watch nonetheless.
A majority of the characters in this movie are giant assholes; it reminds me of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (same director.) The redneck hick licking the Hustler magazine is the wildest shit in this movie until a minute later when he talks about losing his virginity to a mannequin.
One of the reasons this movie failed is because Scream had dismantled most of the tropes and cliches that appeared in this movie a decade before this was released. Some bizarre things happen in the middle of this movie. For example, there is a sex scene where the douche character literally uses the line “Your tits are stupendous. Your tits are fucking so juicy, dude.” Now that line is funny as shit and a wild way to compliment titties, but at least he wasn’t wrong. Julianna Guill, who plays Bree, has some fantastic tits.
Another baffling thing that happens is when this Chewie (played by Aaron Yoo) goes to the garage quickly to grab something and the others go upstairs to fuck. While this is happening Lawrence (Arien Escarpeta) starts to jerk off. Bro your friend is going to the garage and is only going to be gone for like a minute what are you doing? Go to the bathroom at least geez.
The death of the policeman is gnarly, and the frat douche shortly after also had a decent death scene. Jenna dying is a little fucked because the only thing she did wrong was have some shit-tier friends. Jason’s death is pretty cool, but the one-liner preceding it is pretty weak.
This is a fun movie or just something to have on in the background during a party or something. It feels strongly like a movie plucked out of the 1980s and dropped into the late 2000s, which is probably why so many people hated it at the time.
