Movie Review: Friday the 13th (2009)

The Towels Are Kind Of Scratchy
by Sylvia Bond
Movie Review: Friday the 13^th

You know how a roller coaster looks rickety and tenuous and has those signs that tell you to ride at your own risk? Where you get the idea that if you take that ride you will be courting death even though hardly anyone ever dies on those things? (General statistics indicate one rider in 150 million dies, or about six per year.) Those are good odds, but still, roller coasters deliver the goods, producing adrenaline by creating a situation where you honestly feel that You Might Die. Roller coasters are quite popular, and personally, I adore them.

On the other hand, this movie did not deliver the scary goods. And I’m not even saying that because I’m not a horror fan, because I have a pretty good idea of what horror fans want: they want chills and thrills, scares and startles, and at the end of it, they want a pile of bodies stacked up like cordwood. And although this movie had some of these elements, I think it failed to deliver on the promise of its previews. I rather got the feeling that the makers of this movie were betting of the power of the Friday the 13th franchise, rather than using the premise of Jason and his mommy issues, thinking it through, and coming up with something believable and new. 

Even horror movies should have some basis in reality, shouldn’t they? Something that the audience can connect with so that they get a sense that the horror on the screen could actually happen to them, even if the odds are highly against it? I didn’t get that from this movie. I didn’t get that even if I wanted to get that. I couldn’t relate because while I wanted to believe the premise, the movie kept throwing clinkers in my way that distracted me from the bloody fun and games of Jason’s rampage. This movie wasn’t scary, and I wasn’t scared. And I feel badly about that. 

Here’s the plot. About 30 years ago, at Camp Crystal Lake, Jason watched his mommy get beheaded. Since then, he’s been living in the woods, dining on who knows what, playing his ukulele, digging his tunnels, and waiting for hapless campers to wander by his place so he can kill them. The movie didn’t indicate how many people had disappeared during the past 30 years, but there obviously wasn’t enough to get the local law enforcement at all excited about it. Since then, the property formerly known as Camp Crystal Lake has remained undeveloped, in spite of real estate values of this prime, lake front location. 

Jason’s 40 now, when the movie begins (after the intro credits 15 minutes in), and a group of campers enters the woods. They’ve come to harvest the pot that they’ve heard was growing there, and from the looks of the buds, I’d say that the pot has been growing unchecked for quite some time. There’s five of the little buckaroos, and as they begin their bacchanalia, the moral of the story becomes quite clear: if you smoke pot, if you think smoking pot is fun, if you drink cheap beer, and if you engage in premarital sex inside or out of very elaborate and expensive tents, then Jason will get you. Which he does in such inventive ways, it was like he had a subscription to Serial Killer’s Digest or something. And he was fast. But the body count is the point in horror movies like this, so up to then, I was fine with it. 

My problem started with the “Six Weeks Later” indicator, which showed the lovely Clay (Jared Padalecki) riding into town on his motorcycle to continue the search for his sister Whitney, who was among the missing, pot-smoking, pre-marital sex-having campers. The sheriff tells Clay that his arrival in town is a foolish waste of time, and that his men found no evidence of foul play, let alone that there had ever been any campers in those woods. Since they found nothing, the search was ended. 

Stop. Ware the Clinker!

Five people went missing and are presumed dead, Jason did a tap dance all over that camp spot, and you’re telling me the local law could find NO evidence that people had been there? Not even considering typical markers of human habitation such as a burgeoning midden (sorry, too much anthropology in college), one chick got burned over a campfire while cocooned in her sleeping bag, and another guy had his leg mangled in a trap that was staked to the ground. (I think he got sliced through the head or something shortly after that.) I don’t remember how the other two died, but surely, surely there was blood evidence, signs of struggle, clothing fibers, hair strands, not to mention all that DNA left strung about like Christmas tree tinsel. Leavings that even Jason (with a bag over his head), without an education, much less access to crime dramas on TV, would even know about, let alone account for. 

Am I the only one who thinks about these things? Or have I been watching too much CSI? Hell, an aging hound dog could have traced Jason from the camp spot to his lair, but then, this movie would have been over in two seconds flat. Which might have been better than sitting through an additional hour that I will never get back, and which my friend (who went with me for moral support, in case I got scared), only stopped hounding me about when I bought her a steak dinner. 

Clay proceeds with the search for his sister, checking in with a local shop clerk and a lumber yard worker for permission to hang his flyers. Both workers tell Clay that their boss wouldn’t like it, and we get some lengthy indicators that those bosses are cruel, mean, thoughtless jerks. And although the bosses never materialize, I got the feeling that I was supposed to be thinking about unseen, predatory elements, as well as notice indicators of future methods of death (hay loading spikes on the back of a truck, rusty wood chipper, etc.), but, honestly, I was too distracted by Clay’s buff outline to worry about that overly much. 

Then Clay encounters the Rude Kids at the store, the leader of which is the Rich Blonde Kid (RBK), and he and Clay butt heads over who was first in line, who was taking too much time, and so on. You know, playground battle type stuff that some men feel compelled to engage in. This is supposed to set up some sort of character conflict so that we care about these people, or something. I don’t know, all I could think about was how confusing it was that when Clay set down the kickstand on his bike, he got off on the “off” side, rather than the “near” side, like most riders do. I guess it was his long legs that allowed him to do this for the camera angle, but it looked unbalanced to me. 

There’s a funny scene (well, it was funny to me), where Clay goes up to this shack in the woods to have a chat with the elderly occupant about how maybe she’s seen his sister Whitney. There’s an interesting couple of camera shots through the screen door, the usual, fierce, slavering guard dog (which every grandma has), and when Clay asks her about Whitney, she tells him that when people go missing in those woods, they stay missing, and in fact they’re dead, so he’ll never see his sister alive again. I instantly thought of that Verizon Dead Zone commercial where the woman tells the people who’ve just bought the Old Miller Place that they’ll never get their cell phone calls because the house is inside a Dead Zone. When they tell her that they’ve got Verizon, she grouchily tells them they’ve got crab grass. After which, this was all I could think about, which probably contributed to my inability to suspend my disbelief.

The Rude Kids are staying the cabin in the woods that the RBK’s father owns, and when I say cabin, I mean that in the loosest sense; this place has leather couches, polished wooden floors, a stocked liquor cabinet, and a shed that could house at least three families. In other words, not a cheap place. But considering Jason’s rage whenever anyone impinges on his territory (the cabin is not very far from the location formerly known as Camp Crystal Lake), I had to wonder (and I did) why didn’t anyone get offed while building the cabin? Why hasn’t Jason stalked the RBK’s family before this? Wouldn’t Jason have been pissed and start killing long ere this? Clinker.

The Rude Kids in the cabin start doing those things that kids do while at an expensive weekend place. And I’m reminded, again, of the moral of this story: if you smoke pot, if you think smoking pot is fun, if you drink cheap beer (or imbibe in whiskey that is overly fraught with Scottish overtones), and if you engage in premarital sex inside or out of the bedroom at a swank weekend cabin, you will die in interesting ways. The fun starts when two of the kids go out to the lake, break some rules by taking out the boat that they promised not to take out, there is some topless waterskiing (always a risky business), and the Jason gets them. Apparently he knows how to shoot arrows at a moving target across water because he gets the kid driving the boat directly in the back of the skull. (Or directly in the back, I can’t remember.) The skill required for this type of shot would take a lot of practice, but then, since nobody goes in and nobody goes out of those woods, no one noticed him practicing. Go figure. Clinker.

Clay arrives at the cabin to leave a flyer where he encounters the RBK and his Little Girlfriend (LG). The LG invites him in so that he and RBK can butt heads again. Clay and the LG go around the lake to check it out for signs of Whitney, and are gone a long time. Long enough to stumble upon Jason’s lair, espy Jason carting around dead bodies, and realize that there is Trouble Afoot. They race back to the cabin to warn the others, and when phone calls are attempted, one of the kids shouts, “We can’t get any bars!!!” All I could think about was whether that hotel clerk from another of the hysterical Verizon commercials would come in to snottily announce that the towels are kind of scratchy, too. 

The lines to the regular phone are cut, the lights are out, the kids can’t get any bars, and the body count starts rising. Somehow they are able to raise the sheriff (the same one from before), and when he arrives, he gets pinned to the door like a note that ends, “Love, Me.” One funny scene happens when the RBK tries to get away in the sheriff’s car. His New Blonde girlfriend drops dead on his windshield and he screams like a little girl. I actually sniggered out loud in the darkened theater and thought, um, this isn’t how this is supposed to go. Horror movies are supposed to generate tension that increases with each scene, not that jigs and jags all over the place. Clinker.

The movie moves in predictable ways, screaming towards the final frame. All the Rude Kids die horribly, Clay and the LG go off to rescue Whitney, or something, they find her, the LG dies, Clay and Whitney terminate Jason, then they’re at the lake, Clay kicks the hockey mask off the docks while Whitney sits and shivers, and then Clay pushes Jason’s body (he died horribly in the wood chipper) off the dock. Only…they retcon the whole thing because Jason (with the mask once again on his face somehow) pushes through the wooden planks of the dock to grab at them. So is he dead or isn’t he? How hard would his head have to be to be able to break through the planks like that? Is the lake magic somehow? I don’t know if I care. 

Which brings me to my biggest problem, and that is Jason. This movie is so proud of its Jason, all new and re-invented, and supposedly being more terrifying for the fact that he can run, and run, and run. You’d think that would be more scary, but it’s not. In fact, I can come clean here and acknowledge that the shuffling, shambling walk of a zombie is more scary than this guy. Even if zombies aren’t very fast or nimble, they keep coming at you, and since they are tireless, they will, at some point, catch you. And you know it. With as fast as Jason was going through this movie, you had to figure that he might trip over a tree root or something himself, which is not a very intimidating image.

The other part of Jason that bothered me, in addition to the not-very-scary running, was the not-very-scary posing. Because this was the Jason, the camera acted like it wanted to make the most of him. Thus, every time he appears on screen, either behind, below, or beside (anywhere a mouse can go), he posed. Like a cat who wants to announce its presence so you can admire how sleek and beautiful it is. 

Each time he posed, it was for several long minutes, and each time I contemplated asking him for his autograph. I also had time to admire the Stupidity of each Rude Kid who Failed to Realize that a Man in a Hockey Mask (ostensibly splattered in blood from his most recent victim) was dangerous. Even though Jason moved too quickly through the deaths for them to totally figure out what was going on, compounded by the fact that the kids were either too bombed, drunk, or in the throes of passion to care, there was enough stupidity flying around for me to, at this point, lose any facet of concern as to what happened next. 

Overall, I did not enjoy this movie, and could not recommend it to any horror fan I know. I won’t even go into the weird editing, which, at one point, showed Clay and the LG under the cabin and then all of a sudden behind the archery targets. Or how Jason was at the house looking in the window one second, and then, in the next, he’s back out at the shed, whacking away at some hapless victim. Even a fit and toned Jason can’t move that fast. Then there was how Whitney managed to have makeup on after being held captive in one of Jason’s tunnels for six weeks. I could go on, but I won’t. I don’t expect horror movies to have a point, because, like candy, they’re not supposed to have a point. But I expect them to be logical within themselves. This movie was not. It was more, as my friend archly pointed out as we walked out of the theater, like one of those bad songs that never begins and never ends. The steak dinner I bought her was very expensive. 

Was there anything good about this movie? Well, even though the good parts weren’t enough to make up for the haphazard whole, I’d say that there was. The music was good. I’m not saying it supported the horror movie dynamic, in that it didn’t help build tension at all, but it was good instrumental music. The production values were good; the movie had a nice, glossy, high-dollar feel to it that indicated that there was some thought put into the look of the thing. And the acting was good. All the actors who played the kids were a nice surprise. Yes, they were playing Stoopid Youngsters who take off their clothes at every opportunity, but in between, they acted like real kids do, teasing and talking and messing around, and, with the exception of the character of the RBK, without the kind of cruelty that would merit them getting whacked by a Psycho Killer in a Hockey Mask. So I wanted to feel for them and their bright, shiny faces that were soon to die, I really did. (Even though halfway through I stopped caring.)

And then, lastly, but certainly not leastly, the reason for my climbing out of my warm burrow in the middle of winter to see a movie in a genre I consider normally reserved for my teenaged niece: Jared Padalecki. He is currently playing Sam Winchester (who is my own true love) on the horror/angst/emo/roadtrip show Supernatural, which I have been reviewing for Pink Raygun. When I heard that he had chosen a slasher remake as his summer project, I was a tad skeptical and desirous of him to ask for more for himself. Granted, he had a limited time frame to get work over the summer, and, as I understand it, he’s a Big Fan of Jason, so I can only acknowledge that people must do what’s right for them. 

Plus, he did right by the movie, I’d say, throwing himself completely into the role of Clay, the Grieving Brother. The character of Clay was tall, strong, a loner, disconnected from his family, all sorts of fun stuff that I like to pay attention to. That he loves his sister is apparent in the tenacious way he persists on hanging those flyers, none of which ever do any good. Padalecki played Clay as a quiet outsider, drifting through his little life without much thought until called upon to play the big hero and rescue his little sister. I liked the way Clay would stride into stores and barns and cabins, looking a full two heads taller than anyone around him. What’s more, I liked the way his eyes, taking in the world, would narrow, telegraphing his convictions that something Wrong was going on. Which everyone else, being Stoopid, ignored. (Except for the LG, but she died for her support.)

That Padalecki’d been working out for this role was common knowledge, but since I’d been avoiding spoilers and interviews, I just didn’t realize how much he’d been working out until I saw him get off that bike and peel off his coat. Holy cow. He’s like a walking advertisement for what protein shakes and progressive overload can do; he’s tan, lean, and wearing clothes somewhat tighter than he normally does for his role on Supernatural, which was quite a nice eyeful for yours truly. When the movie gives that first, ten-foot tall shot of him walking across the floor, the friend that I was with made a sound I’ve never heard her make before. This sound was echoed by me a second later. 

Padalecki didn’t borrow from his character of Sam, which I was looking for, and I’ll admit that of my own free will. (Hey, it’s human nature. I mean, who among us, when watching the opening scene of Gone With the Wind doesn’t study the Tarleton twins to figure out which one is George Reeves, who was more famous for playing Superman?) He moved different, he walked different, he talked different. However, much to my delight, I did find a Sam moment, at the end, when Clay is standing on the docks, covered with mud and drizzled with blood. Trying to take care of business, reminiscent of Sam attempting to tie up the loose ends of a hunting gig. 

Then there was the hair. By this time I have somewhat of a reputation for being fangirly about Padalecki’s hair, but my lord, have you seen it? During this movie it tumbles and it falls and it moves, practically a character in its own right. I know it’s shallow of me, I know it, and while admiring it, I’m totally ignoring every other aspect of him that I could shallowly fangirl about with much glee. Like his axe-handle wide shoulders, those narrow hips, and those legs that look like they know how take the whole width of the state of Texas in two strides. Not to mention those glittery, green eyes of his. Face it, the guy is just hunky and dizzyingly sweet at the same time. Plus he’s talented, he’s got loads of talent that I don’t think this role even came close to tapping. Since this movie seemed like a walk in the park to him, here’s to hoping that for his next summer project, Padalecki chooses something a little more challenging. 

Sylvia Bond is a ten-year technical writing veteran with too many degrees under her belt to count. She lives in Colorado, but does not ski, preferring instead to spend her money and time at the annual Great American Beer Festival, taking road trips across the United States, and reading historical fiction from the comfort of her fluffy green arm chair. She has been involved in fandom since 1993 and been writing fanfic since approximately 1993. What she finds most amazing about fandom (besides the open heartedness of fans and the sheer amount of creativity) is how visible fandom has become. “In my day,” she says, “we had to hide behind P.O. boxes to get fanfic. But nowadays, people wear t-shirts that shout their affiliation and share their shiny toys on the internet.” It’s a wonderful world.

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