Friday the 13th ‘09 – An Exhaustive Review

February 16, 2009 · 17 comments

Forget the introduction, lets just get right to it. I only want to point out that this is all from memory, because I definitely wasn’t writing notes in the dark theater while trying to watch the movie.

X – WARNING – MAJOR SPOILERS – X

(I damn near transcribe the entire movie)

The opening scene recaps the origin with some classy black and white credits and some slick freeze frames, while simultaneously adding yet another plothole involving Jasons age and whereabouts. The name of the movie was in there somewhere, right? Just like the opening of The Ring remake… right???

Well, whatever, skip ahead to almost present day and some young adults are looking for weed. Odd coincidence? Stacie Ponder beat me to it, by pointing it out already, but if you were paying attention you might have noticed the beginning of a pattern. The filmmakers try to pull off the classic ghost story by the campfire, but the group could just as well have been texting it to each other on their cellphones because it doesnt serve any purpose other than summarizing what happened during the jump in time from the opening scene. The dialogue is surprisingly funny though, so that oversight is shrugged off and I let my guard back down.

The token nerd goes off on his own and even though he has some gps gadgetry going on, opts to walk around in a dark forest with nothing but a glowstick. Well, here comes the first non-jasons-mother kill and the theater is raring for blood to shed. Jason swings and it cuts to black. My eyes roll and my non-horror-loving non-movie-going friend turns and looks at me like I have dragged him to a PG-13 Disney movie. Im starting to wonder if they had to trade the blood and gore for the exposure of boobs and use of profanity.

Moving on, the girl gets strung up in her sleeping bag above the fire and Im thinking two things at this point: 1. Wow, this version of Jason is going to be much more sadistic and 2. Kudos to the filmmakers for sleeping bag related violence. Then, dude steps in a foothold which is a quick series of flashing frames inferring that the trap closed on his ankle and the audience cringes. Then, they show the skin being pulled off and the audience cringes again. An effective gag, maybe, but it is ultimately a hint of the onslaught of hand held frantic extreme close-ups that are to come, signifying the directors confusion of horror with action.

One of the few moments i really liked, though, was when Jason pops up from under the house and the light reflects off the sinister eye burning through the burlap hole. I was like, THIS is the Jason I wanted to see, the Jason that doesn’t just want to kill you, but everything you stand for as well. Then comes the most controversial moment from the trailer, when it appears as though he is running. However, he doesn’t actually run as much as he just gets a running start to swing his machete. I could be wrong, but I think that is the only time he came close to actually running throughout the rest of the film. He sure did speed walk a few times, but I cant remember seeing him actually run. I could care less if he actually did run, but to have the character even hint at such thing just to prove how hard he is about to sink that machete into somebody, cutting away right as the machete is mere inches away from taking care of business, and then later reveal that nothing happened, is pretty damn upsetting. And to what end? Well that part is even more upsetting. The girl is revealed to be unharmed and held captive.

So, we’ve been schooled on the topic of Jason’s past, twice. We’re a handful of bodies deep into the movie, complete with a fair amount of story development and what should happen next? BAM! The name of the movie that everyone already forgot about not seeing when the credits rolled initially, pop up, and I shit you not, the entire theater roared with laughter at the sinister red letters sitting casually on the screen. It wasnt a response to the girl whose face was about to receive a machete deluxe, as if it were the punchline, either.

Let me just say that as im sitting there in horror as everyone laughs around me, my expectations were lowered far far below the expectations I didn’t have already. Was that in fact an intentional wink to the audience, and if so (which I believe it wasn’t), what fun filled antics lie ahead? Well, we’re introduced to the group that the film follows for the rest of the duration, and it is already painfully obvious which caricatures each person in the group is supposed to play. Notably, as BC already pointed out, a dirty blonde surfer-like dude who bares a striking resemblance to Mike Vogel’s character in the Texas Chainsaw remake. The pattern is beginning to become apparent.

I forget which one, either at the gas station or the house ( I think the house), the group piles out of the SUV and we’re treated to the same shot of the camera starting at the dashboard and pulling out through the back of the SUV as we saw in the Texas Chainsaw remake, only that shot actually had the purpose of being creative by pulling the camera out through the hole in the girls head as well as the bullet hole in the back window.

We’re then introduced to Clay, who is searching for his missing sister. What kind of a souless shell of a human being would not only try to interject, but come across as harsh and brash at the same time, about such a sensitive matter, to someones face no less? That kind of person doesnt actually exist, and this is where the movie starts to lose the audience. On a side note, I was totally on board with the missing girl being the reason for Clay’s presence. When its revealed that shes still alive and that Jason is holding her captive, few scenes in movie history have felt as awkward and out of place, not to mention how the last frame we saw her in was so convincing that it eventually resulted in a flat out lie.

Onward still, the writers point out that the black guy is in fact black by answering a question that nobody asked with a conversation that I swear was lifted from one if not several previous movies that had the same conversation somewhere in them. I think the real question is why does the fact that he’s black have to be pointed out at all? Is it not insulting enough that a token black character has to be included? Cant they just have an actor who happens to be African American that doesn’t have any stereotypical dialogue? Which, only leads me to ask why any of the actors have to have stereotypical dialogue? And why do the characters have to be such over the top caricatures? Why were there EVER characters like this included in the franchise? Who thought it was a good idea to EVER put such bad ideas into a film? Isnt that why horror is held in such disregard by the film industry anyway? WHAT THE FUCK??? And so, the writers continue to alienate the audience by crushing any plausibility that might have been there, bit by bit.

Heeeeey, its Willa Ford! I haven’t seen anyone mention her at all! Does anyone even remember her short lived career as a one hit wonder pop star? She’s almost thirty! I had such a big crush on her, lol. So, you could imagine my excitement when she not only took her top off, but also went wakeboarding topless.

Speaking of which, everyone seems to have a problem with Jason being able to use a bow. A really nice hunters bow, no less. Yet, no one has mentioned how a runaway boat runs over the only other person in an entire lake. Think about that sequence for a second. Surfer dude looks back to see how shes doing, after she wiped out and is already in the water, and they cut to him looking back having missed the wipeout and he says “Ohhhhh!” as if he saw it. Then, he turns to look back to the front of the boat, preparing to turn around, and is hit with the arrow. The arrow in the head caught me off guard and was not a cut away, so that was another part of the movie I actually liked. Yet, and maybe I missed it, somehow the boat not only turns around, but happens to line up perfectly with the girl in the water. How many lapses in judgment can the audience endure from the filmmakers?

Im getting slightly ahead of myself though. On Clay’s mission to go door to door to ask the locals of his sisters whereabouts, he approaches a house with a screen door that Nispel felt necessary to pan up on for one of the longest damn shots in the history of cinema. It might seem like im exaggerating, but I seriously shit you not, during the time it took for Nispel to pan up the screen door, the douchebag of all high school teen douchebags, who was sitting in front of us and I knew didn’t give a shit about the movie much less horror movies or movies in general, says “DOG” out loud. And just as I think to myself, “Wow, who is REALLY the douchebag here, this guy? Or THE FILMMAKERS?” …the effing dog pops into frame barking its head off. Have you ever counted the number of jump scare fake outs in the Texas Chainsaw remake, before anything scary actually happened? While youre at it, remember the old lady from the gas station in the Texas Chainsaw remake? Yeah, the character owns the barking dog. Not the same actress, mind you, but the resemblance is too much to be a coincidence. Sure, I liked the notion that the locals consider Jason to be a boogeyman… a local curse, if you will. But holy shit, how dumb do the filmmakers actually think we are? NONE of the jumpy teen girls sitting around me were scared, much less the guys, or anyone in the theater for that matter. If ever there was a moment, as if this movie isn’t full of them, to point out that Nispel doesn’t “get it”, this would be a good one.

As if the movie had not fallen apart already, Clay runs into the most over-the-top character in the film. The redneck hillbilly who is so ridiculously greasy and backwoodsy that I don’t even want to get further into it. Feeling short of cliches, the writers have the guy inspect a strange noise in the attic. Yeah, the attic. In the middle of the day. Hack slice chop, and a hockey mask happens to be laying on the floor. Being the handsome man that Jason is, he cant help but check himself out in the mirror with his new mask on. He’s probably thinking to himself, “Damn, Im wearin this to the club tonight.”

It might just be me, but in the same way someone thought it would be cool to have Jason act like a cyborg in space, it seems like the same methodology was used for the idea that it would be cool to make Jason act more like survivorman in the woods. I know he was supposed to have grown up in the woods on his own, but was it really necessary to carve out exactly what he was doing all that time? How often do people trip on his homemade alarm system and how did the police search the area for previously missing victims without finding that huge mechanical device sticking up out of the ground with a string leading straight into his underground hideout?

Back on track, or whatever there is of it, Clay shows up at dudes cabin and not only accepts an invitation in, after realizing whose cabin it is, but teams up with dudes supposed girlfriend. Ive gotten ahead of myself again, but remember back when she turned Trent down right after they got to the cabin? Would a handsome guy like that, who obviously has a lot going for him (aside from being a douchebag), bring a girl like that who isnt interested in him enough to have a little sex? Would a guy like that even hang out with girls like that? If the metric ton of guys ive known who are exactly like him are any indication the answer would be a resounding No.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out the photography of the film. Even though there are way too many extreme close-up flash cuts, the tight framing in other areas worked for me a few times and I appreciated some of it. There are some complaints about the saturated colors, blown-out hightlights, and crushed blacks, which were a staple of the Texas Chainsaw remake, but I really didn’t mind it and could also appreciate some of that as well. As a reference, the same techniques were also used in All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. Which, by the way, may have tied with the Friday remake for number of times a light source was shined directly into the camera lense. Anyway, they find the campground and Clay leaves his bag out in the open when trying to hide. Why, because he didn’t have time to reach down? Why were they even hiding? Sure, it turns out to be Jason carrying a dead body, but they didnt know he was there.

One of the things that did work was the slow burn kill of the character everyone liked the most cause of his witty jokes. Some are complaining that it was just another uninspired kill, but I don’t think they got that part. Which is sad because its one of the rare moments that something the filmmakers were trying to do worked on some level, at least.

Clay and Whitney are on their way back to the cabin while Trent has moved on to the amateur porn director who wants to videotape their sex, yet she only wants to record his face. Im guessing that is what Jason was wondering about as he stood outside their window just enjoying the view. It’s a good thing the director doesn’t believe in mixing sex with violence, or these two would totally die. Er.. yeah.

Clay and Whitney make it back to the cabin and piece everything together for everybody, and now, all of the sudden, Trent has a problem with Clay being there, even though they are trying to warn everyone of impending danger. Another good point that Stacie beat me to is why did Jason wait so long to kill off the people at that cabin, if they had been so close to each other all those years? The broken logic is really starting to shine at this point.

The token black guy finally gets to deliver his token black guy line about surprising the white people, yet heads out to battle Jason with a frying pan.

To make matters worse, he goes out to inspect the storage shed and decides for no reason at all that the best place to look would be the freezer.

Cue deady body hanging from the ceiling for an ineffective jump scare. I guess Jason rigged it with some twine and an hour glass.

Somebody mentioned that they were glad the filmmakers only stuck to practical effects, but I guess they completely missed the two CG-Iest kills in the movie. The first being when the black guy gets flipped over with the axe in his back and the axe pokes out of his chest.

In an attempt to make it seem like the characters in the house are actually effected by the wounded guys cries for help, the one girl has just become aware that something is wrong and she has a mental breakdown almost immediately. I can accept that it could happen to her, but why does it have to be so poorly captured and so poorly paced / acted? It goes something like: Someones hurt? Oh crap! (cut away) Help! (Cut back) I cant take this anymore! (Slumps down on floor crying, rocking back and forth covering ears.) Everyone else just kinda looks at each other.

Speaking of broken logic (as if I haven’t been talking about it this entire time), big, hulky, brutes like Jason are NOT ninjas. I’ll let one or two silent appearances slide, as ineffective as they are, but make it a little more plausible instead of just letting him appear when a light happens to flicker in a poorly lit area. What I wont let slide is a sudden appearance, posing for the camera, on the roof of a house where everyone inside is on full alert. Not making noise while climbing up onto a roof just doesnt happen. I don’t care how long he’s lived in the woods and may have learned to sneak up on animals, they might as well have given him a noise-less rocket pack. And again, what is it with roofs and attics? Did he fashion a bunch of zip lines out of trip wire from rooftop to rooftop to commute throughout the woods?

Luckily, Jason’s spiderman tactics are for not, because someone left a window open for him. The crying girl is apparently attempting to hide(?), but when she suspects that someone is in the bathroom with her, her fear turns to curiosity. Instead of getting out and hiding somewhere else, she needs to check behind the shower curtain. And so we bare witness to yet another prime example that Nispel has no idea how to scare an audience. His disproportionate framing practically emails a newsletter to the audience informing them of whats about the happen.

That is, if the moment had not already been spoiled in every one of the movies trailers. As if that weren’t enough, the girl pulls the shower back too slow while the frame lingers and then throws the curtain open unnaturally like she wanted to surprise whoever it was she thought she was about to find. It didn’t work, it didn’t make sense, and what little bit of the audience that was still on board with the movie, is dwindling by the minute. And the end result of all this effort? Jason kind of props her up on some tiny antlers that were hanging on the door that looked like they were there for hanging towels. Total weak sauce, and no one bought that either.

If youre still following along, the cop shows up without his siren on, but is spotted by Trent (D-bag) who feels that its necessary to announce it to anyone within a 100 yard radius. I guess that’s how Jason knew he was coming, if he didn’t see the flashing lights, and so he jumps down from the roof of the two story house, landing right behind the cop… Like a damn ninja.

Being the douchebag that he is, Trent fumbles around the house shooting anything that moves, including the dead girl he just had sex with. Which, no one responded to when he shot her. It just kind of happened and everyone in theater just sat there before the movie had already moved on to something else.

Everyone freaks out and finally decide to abandon the cabin. Trent tries to radio for help but screams like a girl when a body gets thrown onto the hood of the cop car. Everyone in the theater laughed.

Being the douchebag that he is, Trent, takes off on his own and manages to flag down a truck. Suspecting that Jason has somehow found a truck and caught up with him (which wouldn’t have surprised me at all), he hesitates to jump in the truck so he can get out of there. Its all a ploy devised by the filmmakers, though, to set a kill up that would leave Trent pinned to the back of the truck as the driver gets spooked and speeds off. One can only imagine how clever the writers must think they are. And who was actually driving the truck? Why the old wheelchair guy from the Texas Chainsaw remake, of course! Why wouldn’t he be? Yet, not the same actor.

Elsewhere, Clay and Whitney somehow find Jenna, but Jason knows exactly where everyone is at all times, so he comes back to his underground lair and dispatches the faux final girl everyone thought was going to survive, and we get to see the second CG-Iest kill of the movie when she is simply impaled and discarded.

Clay and Jenna escape through an overturned school bus and Clay tells her to hide. She decides to hide behind one of the school bus seats and the guy behind me says “That’s not a very good place to hide.” And everyone around us busts out laughing. Jason gets ahold of Clay and breaks a couple windows with his face and im thinking to myself that Clay is done for. But Jason’s ADD kicks in and he stops what hes doing to go after the girl. She kicks him in the face which buys them enough time to make a run for the barn where Jason found his mask. All of the sudden it starts pouring rain, of course.

Clay and Jason have their climactic battle in the barn leading to what was probably the most suspenseful moment for me, when the chain around jasons throat got tangled in the woodchipper and I thought for sure they were about to kill jason off and be done with it. Yet, his head gets close to the blades but then he just gets stuck there, choking to death I guess. There was also a part where wood from the rafter broke apart so jason grabbed a huge piece of it to hit Clay with, but only amounted to a glance that was accompanied by one of the weakest sound effects ive ever heard. So, after all that, instead of pushing him the rest of the way into the woodchipper, they carry him all the way back to the dock so they can roll him off into the lake in what im sure is an intention to create a metaphysical connection between jasons drowning and his eventual death.

Finally, as if the entire movie had not been a huge slap in the face, they make a lackluster attempt to pull off the jump scare from the original that worked so well. Lame. Roll Credits.

My intention for this review was never to hate all over it. Obviously, I would have wanted it to be as good as possible. There are a lot of people out there who are shrugging it off with excuses about how its supposed to be dumb because it’s a Friday movie, and how its supposed to be fun. Well, fuck that. Theres no reason a movie cant be good, fun, and scary. Except for the people making it not having a clue as to what theyre doing.

I didn’t have that big of a problem with the “re-imagining” involving the most used plot in horror about “a group of friends go to a cabin for the weekend”, hell, I wouldn’t have had a problem with any of it if it they had taken the time to have it make sense. Then, it probably would have actually been good. It’s a shame that the movie will be considered a success based on the box office numbers, because they will have to confuse brand recognition with execution. Or maybe they will just breathe a sigh of relief that the brand recognition paid off

- Wes Fierce

Official HFM Rating:

(Read more about the rating system)

17 Responses to “Friday the 13th ‘09 – An Exhaustive Review”

Corey Says:
February 17th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
“His disproportionate framing practically emails a newsletter to the audience informing them of whats about the happen. ”

I really liked that line.

As for F13 (2009) — while I agree that the film ignores logic, I loved it. In your last paragraph you state that it probably would have been good if the filmmaker’s had taken the time to ensure the plot made sense. I have to disagree with you there… it’s not that I expect a Friday film to be dumb or expect less — it’s that i expect different things. On my list of what I’m looking for in a Friday film, the top two spots are “Jason” and “Fun.” “Logic” is waaaaayyyyyy down on the list, if at all. It is “fun” that Jason seems to defy the laws of physics by appearing in places he just shouldn’t be… it plays against expectation, and it’s a tactic that works almost every time. Would it really be a more enjoyable movie if we saw Jason climbing up the house? No. It’s just “fun” to pan up and see him standing there on the roof, machete in hand… if you really care how he got there, you’re not getting into the spirit of the film. Complaining that a Friday the 13th film’s plot doesn’t always follow logic is like complaining that Schindler’s List doesn’t have enough musical numbers — you’re looking for the wrong thing.

While not perfect, I enjoyed this film from beginning to end. As a life-long Jason fan who remembers sneaking into see part 6 in the theater, it’s been a really long time since we’ve seen a version of Jason this vicious or scary and free of insulting gimmicks. Jason back at Crystal Lake being treated as serious and terrifying, killing teenage stereotypes and basically stomping around being an absolute bad-ass? There are really very few ways you could take that premise and make something that I hated.

As for those teen stereotypes you mention… I have to disagree there as well. I LOVE those stereotypes. (And by that I mean character stereotypes, not racial ones; your criticism of that was spot on.) . I don’t want realistic, fully-defined and complicated characters. I want the cheerleader I can hope will get naked, the asshole who I hope will get killed, the nice girl who I can identify with and hope lives, and all the rest of the stereotype staples of this genre. I always adore the first 1/3 of slasher films where you get to know these characters and listen to their unrealistic banter. The dickheads are sooooo easy to hate because they’re more dickish than anyone in real life. The cheerleaders are always sluttier than anyone you every knew, and the nice girl or guy is always the voice of reason. It may not be realistic, but it’s simple, entertaining and serves as sort of a character short-hand. You don’t need to spend thirty minutes explaining who the guy with the bong and the Bob Marley shirt is… we know everything we’ll need to know about him the second you show him. To complain that characters in a slasher film are stereotypical is to the miss the point. It’s like complaining that a roller coaster is unoriginal because it has that slow ascent up the first hill before the biggest plunge — every roller coaster has that because it works.

All that said, many of your points are right-on. Many of the jump scares fell flat, the girl being held hostage seemed out of place, and the character homages to TCM were a little annoying. They just didn’t come close to ruining the film for me because there was so much else that I liked…

It also sounds like the crowd you saw it with wasn’t as into it as some. The crowds I’ve seen it with have all cheered when the title card came up (a standing ovation at the first one) — not laughed. Everyone laughed at the girlie scream, but in a “that was soooo funny” kind of way. The crowd dynamic is extremely important in a film like this, and if the crowd didn’t get into it I could see that really affecting one’s overall opinion.
Corey Says:
February 17th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Oh, I just realized how your rating system works. The black apples confused me, but I see now that you basically gave it a 3/5. That’s not bad at all. The rating system is really clever…
BB Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 5:58 am
Is that the bloke out of Supernatural I spotted in one of those pictures? Hmm … shame for him that I can’t take him serious, even if I do like watching Supernatural.

Now, last time I looked your forum wasn’t up and working, so I’m going to hijack this thread(sorry) and ask about expectations of the new release of Last house on the left? Whilst I’ve never seen the original (could change that today actually) I’m kind of expecting it to get similar ‘glossy’ treatment like all the other old films?
Wes Fierce Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 6:39 am

Thanks for the feedback I get what the filmmakers were trying to do. My complaints are mostly just aimed at how they could have handled it better. How they could have had 4 good apples instead of 3. If they had toned down the over-the-top caricatures (of the second group), kept the dialogue witty and funny (more like the first group), and handled the scares with (alot) more aptitude, it could have made the movie so much more effective i. e. more fun and even scarier.

I didnt mind that they didnt take advantage of having the original rights to a summer camp setting full of counselors and even campers, (like how madman, the burning, and sleep away camp, all “lifted” the idea) by going with a “group of friends go to a cabin for the weekend” plot.

I also didnt mind other things, like, using some CG for effects (even though it could have been utilized better), overuse of lighting, the films structure, absence of the original score, etc.

If they had done what they were trying to do, convincingly, I really wouldnt have cared about all the bad decisions the characters made or how jason appears out of nowhere, because I wouldnt have been so distracted the entire time. I would have actually had fun and might have even been scared. Plus, that probably would have won over the rest of the “haters” too.
Wes Fierce Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 7:09 am

In response to BB, yeah the forum is still down, and im seriously thinking about dropping it altogether. The way the user memberships are integrated into the site, theres always a possibility that wordpress will conflict with the membership plugin, and everything would come crashing down

As for LHOTL, Ive only seen the original once way back in the day. Ill probably wait until I see the remake so everything isnt completely spoiled.

While I would rather see new material rather than remakes, I think the original LHOTL is a prime example of a *good* candidate for a remake… the type of movie that has the potential to be improved upon instead of treaded back over.

I know everyone is tired of torture scenes, so Im not sure how well those will go over. I’m not sure how convincing Garret Dillahunt’s role will be… it took me awhile to accept him as a terminator on T:TSCC.

Otherwise, the production quality looks great and the original story was simple enough that they have alot of room to maneuver.

It should be entertaining and worth seeing. But, I dont think the general public are anticipating the release, so it will probably only see around $10 million opening weekend here in the states, if that.
BB Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 8:22 am
I love it when people talk dirty! LOL – no, actually, I’ve got no idea what you said, but I get the gist of it!

Let’s face it – horror films are still a bit of the geeky, spotty, greasy weird kid terrain, or at least that’s what a lot of people think! I have yet to find anybody (my partner incl) willing to go with me to Frightfest! Although, I WILL make it one year!
BB Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Right, I have now watched the original 84 mins version of Last house on the Left(internet is fantastic), and I didn’t find it neither scary nor particularly graphic – in fact, I had to double check whether I had watched one of the heavily censured films! Although I can see what kind of impact it must have had back in its day I did find it more comical than ‘grim’. Does that say something about my desensitization I wonder or maybe just the level of graphic violence we are used to these days….
I did chuckle out loud when the radio bulletin in the beginning was describing the prison break and they reported two guards were killed and ’surprisingly also a german shepard’ …

Anyway, I will still be curious about your review when you see the new version!
Wes Fierce Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 12:49 pm

I think it did have a bit of dark humor if I remember it correctly.

I’ll definitely add the review of the remake to my planned posts list
BB Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Cool – should be interesting all the same!

Having recently watched Cannibal Holocaust I found that much more uncomfortable and can understand why it was a big no-no back in the days! The actual animal killings were quite stomach churning but as a ground breaking horrorfilm really quite clever. What’s your take on that – any remakes on the books for one of the most talked about films?
Wes Fierce Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 2:08 pm

Yeah, lol, Cannibal Holocaust definitely trumps Last House. Its a shame they resorted to killing animals on film, since it would have been just as good without any of it. Especially since they pioneered the “found footage” angle.

No remakes in the works, though there was a project called “Cannibals” directed by the same director which was going to serve as a companion piece, set in an urban locale. But they announced that the project was dead on Feb. 2nd.
Corey Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
I always found the mix of dark humor and humiliation/torture in LHOTL to be very disturbing — similar to Rodney Dangerfield’s scene in Natural Born Killers. In any case, I’m a big fan of the original and the trailers for the remake seem very promising. Revenge plots are always great…

The recent DVDs of Cannibal Holocaust give you the option of watching with the animal violence edited out, which makes the film more slightly more palpable.
Wes Fierce Says:
February 19th, 2009 at 2:42 am

Miska caught a screening of the LHOTL remake and tweeted his reaction- “Last House on the Left was a pretty great film!” Thats plus one for positive feedback.

I am so behind on my dvd collection
BB Says:
February 19th, 2009 at 6:02 am
I love dark humor, but somehow this just didn’t evoke the right feelings for me. Funny that you mention Natural Born Killers, because thinking about it, they are probably in a similar vein – I like it, but it wouldn’t be the first film I’d put on for a Friday night scare.

To me a success film is able to make me feel things – that all sounds a bit girly, but I think that’s what it’s all about. A comedy should make laugh, a thriller should keep me on the edge of my seat and a horror should really at least make me feel uncomfortable (scared doesn’t really come into it at all; after all it’s only a bloody film!); a bit like reading a book I guess. Cannibal Holocaust was uncomfortable, but successful in the way that it really managed to involve me and made me detest the main character – and cheer when finally he got it – and I think that’s the kind of involvement I’m looking for(maybe not the cheering part, if you know what I mean); something that engages me and gets my imagination going overtime.

Se7en was another brilliant film that really grapped me; I’m also a sucker for a good plot, and let’s be honest, most of these old (s)exploitation movies are a bit lacking in that department!
Straw dogs and The Wicker man were both very engaging in their different ways. The first being very believable and the second equally believable but in a weird kind of ‘Deliverance’ domain.

Hmm maybe I’m just a very calloused soul!
Gabriel Says:
February 19th, 2009 at 8:09 am
Just fyi, you got Jenna and Whitney mixed up (as if it mattered), otherwise spot on review!
Zombiesrollerskate Says:
February 20th, 2009 at 2:12 am
Just don’t steal Jason’s weed!!!! This film was a joke and sad to see it made this way…so much could’ve been done to prevent a catostrophe! Great review and thanks for all the informative pictures and in depth breakdown of the film…brought back the smirk on my face (the one I got the night watching Friday the 13th) and holding my head down in 80’s nostalgia thrown away in like 150 mins of my time…
Sam Says:
February 26th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
While I can appreciate your passion, this is a prime example of overthinking a movie to death. I sincerely doubt ANY film in the series would be able to withstand this much nitpicking.
Wes Fierce Says:
February 26th, 2009 at 2:34 pm

Heeeey, thanks for stopping by, fellow Film Clubberer (even though ive missed the past 2(?) installments). I however disagree that this would be considered overthinking. The majority of the review, I just point out what was actually happening on screen.

Comparing Jason’s mechanical devices and his underground lair to overseas terrorists and the war in Iraq, is what I would consider “overthinking” it.

Even though I left out everything I *liked* about the film, I still gave it a good rating for things like its inherent entertainment value and production quality.

I know what youre saying though, I just want the genre to gain respect by rising above the mediocrity. What if the remake *had* actually been scary? And Im not talking about jump scaring teen high school girls. Im talking about “tell your friends about the movie because you almost actually died of a heart attack” scary. Would its numbers had fallen 80% in one week, or would it keep hold of its theatrical residency, like a certain other scary movie that attracted the same phenomenon? I know its a stretch for a “Friday” film, but I wouldnt bring it up if the potential wasnt there.