My final stop on a marathon of the ‘Friday the 13th’ movies, and this was a first time spin for me, I missed this when it was out in theaters after being told it really wasnt worth the price of admission. However; a ‘Google Movies’ sale a few months back put this on in HD for a good enough price that I thought it was worth taking the risk on it. Honestly? Im kind of glad I did, as 2009’s ‘Friday the 13th’ is probably the best entry in the series since the Paramount years…That’s not really saying much. But it’s nice to see a bit of a return to form!

The plot is pretty straightforward, the film opens with a quick (slightly altered) recreation of the end of the original ‘Friday the 13th’ (they do get the dates wrong here as this film has those events taking place in 1980…but the original film itself states the events took place in 1979…splitting hairs I know but…That did bother me a bit)

We then jump forward to the present day (2009) as a group of teens are heading up to one of their dads hunting lodge near crystal lake to party down! On the way up there, the gang bump into ‘Clay’ a guy who’s handing out missing persons flyers trying to find his sister Whitney, who dissapeared under mysterious circumstances alongside all her friends a number of months ago while hiking in the woods…You can guess who’s responsible for THAT little encounter…

Anyway, the gang get to the lodge, they start playing drinking games, having lots of sex and doing naughty drugs…Clay turns up at the lodge to hand out fliers not knowing the teens he ran into a short time ago are staying there, which causes some friction with members of the group…In any case, it doesnt take long for Jason to re-emerge to teach these teens a lesson, with only Clay and a handful of survivors finally getting to the bottom of what happened to Whitney and what fate may lie in store for them!

And, given the last two Jason movies were bad enough to put me off EVER checking out ANYTHING New Line Cinema wanted to do with the character ever again, I have to be honest and say I actually kind of liked this one.

It fits in with the other movies pretty nicely (barring the odd minor continuity issue) You could either jump straight from the first movie to this one, OR you could watch ‘The Paramount Years’ and then skip ‘Final Friday’ and ‘Jason X’ and just head straight into this thing with a minor bit of headcannon being that ‘Jason took the Loooooooooong way back to Crystal lake from Manhatten’ and It fits in pretty much fine.

The script isnt exactly breaking new ground, Its essentially a mishmash of the first 4 Friday movies but with looser censorship laws meaning the sex is more graphic and the kills more bloody and violent. Again; to me? given the last 2 films in this franchise couldnt have gotten further AWAY from what a ‘Friday the 13th’ movie is supposed to be all about, I absolutely understand why for this 2009 soft reboot of the franchise, they chose to play things a bit safer. In fairness, this is the first time Jasons been picking off teens in the woods since 1988. and things have kind of moved on a fair bit since ‘Part 7’

The scripts fine. I have no major issues with it really, its maybe a little bit slower on the pacing than i’d have really liked. but we have a clean 3 act structure that transitions well, there are a couple of nice twists here that help make things a bit more interesting and the characters actually do have a bit of personality about them beyond a surface level interpretation.

The tone emphises horror over dark comedy, but it isnt afraid to have a bit of a laugh if it suits the nature of the movie, which is nice. I think…really, my only main criticism is it’s overly safe and a bit generic. there are some scenes where things slow down a bit too much, if you’ve sat through the other 11 of these (like I have) you can pretty much tell from the get go who’s not going to make it to the 3rd act. and the deaths are (mostly) all plays on stuff we’ve seen before, only…because of a relaxation on censorship around violence, here; we get to see even gnarlier and more bloody after shots of bodies being hacked, burned alive and mangled.

In short, it reads like an F13 film, as written by a team who’ve been tasked with recentring the series after deviations into psychic battles, trips to Manhatten, mass MASS possession and futuristic cybernetic space upgrades. I feel it achieves that, and had it not been for the legal troubles the franchise encountered shortly after this films release, i’d have actually kind of been interested to see how they developed this on.

The direction is just above the studio standard, This was produced by Michael Bay…which kind of blew my mind. and you can see a bit of an influence of his style and tone present in this movie. The film is very styalized in line with similar remakes and more modern productions from the time (See, ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ (2006), ‘Halloween’ (2007), ‘The Strangers’ (2008) ) It looks the part, but it is very reliant on Blues and firelit oranges to give a faux sense of style, and while for this series, its a definite step up in quality. I cant say that it’s anything we hadnt already seen 3 dozen times before in previous years leading up to this. It doesnt break the mold, but; it does have some strong visuals when compared to its predecessors.

Direction of the cast is fairly solid too, clear communication seems to have been on the cards as the cast are animate, know their marks, are well blocked within the shot and get through their scenes cleanly with little in the way of issue. Again; its kind of expected on studio pic’s for that to be the case, but here I think it does go a little extra.

The cine is really quite solid as well, we have some really nicely composed shots, Jason is obscured for a large chunk of the movie, which im kind of on the fence about, on the one hand; it’s nice to have a little mystery thrown in there. But on the other hand, I do miss those nice lumbering shots the older films had of our guy making his way to the next kill.

Theres a solid use of colour throughout, though that over-reliance on blues and oranges does get a bit bothersome after a while, to it’s credit, this is one of the few 2000’s movies that DIDNT desaturate the everloving crap out of the picture, leaving it a sludgey uninteresting mess. Instead, it actually does have some nice contrasts going on, though it is of the era of crushed blacks and no vibrancy…so…be prepared for colour…but subdued colour.

Additionally; this film also has the same issue a lot of movies from this time have in the horror genre, in that a LOT of the shots are handheld, quick cut close ups and frantic B-roll usage. Its to try and create a sense of unease and confusion…In short a quick, cheap and nasty way to put the audience on alert. But I always personally found that style incredibly frustrating. I enjoy cinema for the worlds it builds, not to spend every other 10 minutes stuck in a 5 minute extreme closeup of some actress bawling her eyes out, while flickers of b-roll crash into the sequence from time to time. I find it very annoying.

Beyond that though, the edits fine enough, I kind fo wish the film was 10 minutes shorter as theres a lot of flab present here that could have been tightened up for a significant improvement. But Im willing to be a bit more forgiving of it given it isnt inoffensive…and again, we’ve just come from 2 of arguably the worst films in the series.

Performance wise, there isnt a single likeable character in this thing, everyones either aloof, an asshole, or some combination of the two. Mercifully non of them really cross the line into being utterly unlikeable. they’re all just varying shades of dislike. Which is something I can work with really.

Its nice to see the cast have a bit of nuance about them…well…the cast that matter at least. Its a mild spoiler, but basically the ones who get backstory? they’re the ones making it to the end. The ones who are just here to drink beer and be horny? yeahhhh…they aint hanging around for too long.

Beyond this the cast are bright, animated, seem to know what they’re doing and give solid performances for this franchise. I cant say they’re great OUTSIDE of this run of movies…but here at least? they’re one of the better lots to come up against Jason…Who might I add is MORE than back on form. here? he looks the part, acts the part, and has a wonderful menace to him that I really appreciated. With some rumblings that the franchise may be getting another movie in a couple years time, I for one really hope they bring Derek Mears back to the role. as, if what I saw here was a taster of what he’s capable of. I think he’d be great in a sequel.

The scores kind of mixed, its got a few jukebox tracks in here, its kind of missing the F13 stuff…but honestly? I didnt miss the original score style too much at all, and I think the new one, while very generic. was inoffensive.

All in all? colour me actually kind of impressed with this thing. while it does suffer from trappings of the era it was made in, and it IS overly safe and generic in places. I feel like the franchise really did need a recentring after the supernatural elements had begun to run rampent and the franchise had begun to come loose from its moorings.

Friday the 13th (2009) doesnt break new ground, but it does set the grounding for what could have been a really solid run of new movies to be built on top of it. Its kind of a shame that this one will probably be relegated to ‘just a one off’ as I think there really was rich soil here to mine.

Not an essential watch by any means, if you DO like the paramount years though (1-8) and were dissillusioned by the new line years up to this point, i’d maybe say check it out.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/friday-the-13th-2009/