With the new Friday the 13th film out in theaters, Trish, Vero, Aaron and I headed out to Rideau Cinemas after work to check it out.
If you have never been to Rideau Cinemas, I gotta tell you, it’s a pretty great place to see a film. I got there with a lot of time to spare so I went to HMV for awhile and found a great book called ‘Tales to Astonish’ for $3. It is about the story of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and the rise of the Marvel Age within Marvel Comics in the 1960s. The Marvel Age is when you see all the superheroes (Fantastic Four, Spider-Man) be created. For $3, you can’t go wrong.
Question: On an item that is FINAL SALE ONLY, why do they bother giving me a receipt?
So after a nap and reading a book, Trish and Vero show up for the show and we buy our ticket (Trish even had a 2 for 1 coupon!) and when I asked the woman working there if it would be a problem getting seats in the theater, she had a good chuckle as there were ten people in the theater with us when the show started up! This is a far cry from the madness which is Silver City where you need to arrive two hours before a new movie on a Tuesday night! Heck, they didn’t even check my ticket stub. I’m sure we could have walked in without one.
So…Friday the 13th…I’ve been reading some reviews and they are pretty bad. But the thing is, they echo the same sentiments which I don’t agree with. All the reviews I’ve read speak about how it’s a lame reboot of the series…or is it a sequel? Or it is a homage to the old films? Either way, it just doesn’t know where to fit in the grand scheme of the series. Then the reviews go on about how it’s the same mindless hacker film of yesteryear…no-good doing teenagers get hacked by a guy in a hockey mask while running through the woods. The story is thin, the characters bland.
Uhh….last time I checked, I didn’t realize Friday the 13th was supposed to be an Oscar worthy film! Let me set the stage for you my fellow readers…if you enjoy the Friday the 13th films for what they are supposed to be…mindless horror films where there are killers lumbering through the woods after screaming teenagers who may or may not get naked every 12 minutes…heck, you’re in for a treat!
The film is an amalgamation of the first four Friday the 13th films which in my mind, are the true essence of what the series is supposed to be. *Spoilers for the first four films right here…skip to the next paragraph or so to continue on***. In the first film of the series, Mrs. Voorhees goes around killing camp counselors who let her son Jason drown while on their watch because they were having sex. The second film sees Jason emerge from his watery grave and take out his revenge on a new batch of counselors. In the third film, he returns again but in this one, finds a hockey mask which becomes his iconic image. In the fourth one (and probably the best of the series) everything comes together again and he returns on a killing spree and is *supposedly* killed.
So the new film starts out with a five minute recap of the end of the first film. Mrs. Voorhees makes an appearance and it sets up the film…”You let Jason drown!”, yada yada yada. Then the film skips ahead to ‘Crystal Lake – Present Day’ (I always enjoy when they move something to present day but if you watch the film twenty years from now, it may seem dated, especially if they are talking about this newfound technology…the GSP system) and we see a bunch of campers in search for a marijuana field. Everything is going well and they set in for the night where common horror film camping activities occur (I specify ‘horror film camping activities’ because I swear whatever happens in the films never happen in the real world. Doh!) but then Jason shows up and hacks them all up and then this leads to the main part of the film where a brother is searching for her missing sister who was part of this camping group.
But of course Jason lumbers around and starts hunting down this new group of teenagers who (Oh noes!) are on Crystal Lake, Jason’s hunting area of choice.
The film has great nods to the past in some of the killings…Jason with a machete, Jason with a bow and arrow…we get to see a good dose of 1980s slasher flick nudity and the film is a great addition to the series. If you get past all the thinking behind “Where is this film supposed to be in the series?” and simply enjoy it for what it’s supposed to be…a half decent slasher flick, then I think you’ll enjoy it. We all did. They had some great death sequences and my favourite was the woman who was out wake boarding (for those who will tune into the film later on).
Was the film revolutionary? Heck no. Was it a fun film to watch if you already enjoy the Friday the 13th series? Heck yes. It wasn’t as campy as Freddy vs. Jason and I would like to say that it was a decent Friday the 13th film. I would still recommend watching the first four films of the series to get a good base of the story, but if you only need one, I guess there’s no harm in watching this one.
On another note, we had this great idea of an amazing marketing tactic for a film like this. At one point in the film, everyone is wondering where Jason is and then we hear the theater door open up behind and we say “I think that’s him entering the theater!”. Imagine that as an actual event…somewhere in the middle of the film in a really tense part, an actual Jason comes running into the theater with a machete in hand and pandemonium ensues for ten seconds before he runs out. That would be KILLER. Vero and I were thinking of the logistics and we realized it couldn’t happen in every theater but it would be amazing to see it happen in select cities as part of the promotion. Let’s just ignore the lame thoughts of mass panic, heart attacks, etc. that would happen and let’s think of the grand theatrical masterpiece that it would be. Vero thought about a variation on this theme where the film would actually be sliced midway through the film and you would see Jason’s shadow in behind the screen (ala Gremlins 2…does anyone remember that happening in the theaters?). Anyhow, we thought it was a pretty good promotion.
iplaying: Be There for Me – Thornley (Tiny Pictures)