2009’s Friday the 13th is remembered by most as a failed attempt at rebooting/reimagining Jason Voorhees, born 30 years prior in 1980, for present day audiences. The film grossed close to five times its $20 million budget - a nice haul for a horror movie. That unmistakable hockey mask comes with lofty expectations however and $92 million wasn’t enough for a return to Crystal Lake save for a forgettable 2017 video game. I’ve always found the movie eminently re-watchable. It achieves the challenging task of bringing the Jason character, played here by the hulking Derek Mears, and his three decades of increasingly ridiculous, quasi-mystical mythology and literal scars into the present day. In doing so, the film maintains Jason’s physicality, intimidation factor and great-white-shark-with-legs presence. Once you know he’s there, it’s too late. It’s a delicate balance as sharing too much about Jason’s upbringing runs the risk of humanizing him to the point where he is no longer scary and no longer Jason. By not showing too much and allowing our imagination to create specifics, the film intelligently informs of the Jason basics: his mom loves him dearly, he was born disfigured in at least a couple ways, he was once an athlete, and he experienced trauma which left him alone to fend for himself and live off the land. The film establishes Jason as smart and resourceful enough to design traps and tripwires – a plausible explanation for why he is able to pick off victims before they know he exists. Rather than changing Jason into something new and unrecognizable, the movie cleverly shows us Jason using his environment to his advantage. It has always been implied that Jason is a master of his surroundings. This movie gives just a little bit more of the how and why. It works. Add in a series of fairly rudimentary (to the overall high film series standard) but creative in their own right kills and you have a satisfying to watch Jason film with a Jason that feels like he could be lurking in the woods somewhere in real life. I certainly don’t want to run into him.
Friday the 13th (2009) receives a 6/10 for general audiences and an 8/10 for Jason/slasher aficionados. I’d love to see Derek Mears put on the mask again.
The Quick Critic
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