Fowler's Frights 2015: Friday the 13th (2009)

Friday the 13th (2009)
Starring: Derek Mears, Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker
Directed by: Marcus Nispel


Technically, I'm a little late on this one because it's Saturday the 14th where I'm at, but I watched this film on Friday the 13th so I'm going to count it as on time. Happy Friday the 13th everyone, let's talk about the most recent film depiction of Jason Voorhees, the 2009 remake of Friday the 13th. With a film like this, there were a lot of hit and miss factors. Sean S. Cunningham serving as producer. Hit. Michael Bay also serving as producer. Miss. The screenplay was done by the guys who wrote Freddy vs. Jason. Miss. The young cast. Hit. And of course, seeing a modern take on the character of Jason has the biggest amount of intrigue for a moviegoer. Surprisingly, with the amount of hatred horror remakes have been getting over the years, I have pretty decent things to say about this one. While not a perfect film, nor the greatest Friday the 13th film, it at least tries to do something a little different rather than just remake the original film. It's a return to roots for Jason, but updated for the modern audience and I quite enjoy it, so let's talk about the positives of 2009's Friday the 13th remake.

I'll get to Jason in a minute, but let's look at the young cast of "teenagers" in this film. I actually enjoy a lot of these actors from other things, but not many of them do anything overly impressive. There are at least two that stick out in my mind. The first is Clay, played by Jared Padalecki, who we really can sympathize with because he's looking for his sister, whom was kidnapped by Jason at the beginning of the film. We like Clay and we want him to find his sister, simple as that. The other character that is truly memorable is Trent, played by Travis Van Winkle. This guy is a complete DICK! I usually try to keep my words on here PG, but there's no better way to put it. He's a snobby rich boy who just says the rudest things at the worst time. He randomly cheats on his girlfriend and completely doesn't care when he gets caught. He is just a massive tool box and is possibly the biggest character in the entire franchise where the audience can go "I really can't wait for Jason to get you!"

And now on to Jason. Derek Mears dons the mask (and the potato sack for a little bit) for this installment and actually does a good job with it. It's weird not to imagine Kane Hodder in the role at this point, but we aren't dealing with a zombie Jason this time. Kane is zombie Jason, but I think Derek Mears could go down as the best human form of Jason. He's a big guy who can't be stopped. He's absolutely intimidating. He makes the potato sack look scary for a good chunk of the film. That's not an easy task to do. With another Jason movie due out in a few years, I'll be glad if Mears returns to the role, as he left a good impression with his performance here. For all we know, he could go down as this generation's definitive Jason Voorhees.

Nowadays, most horror remakes will borrow heavily (possibly 90%) from the original film and it will be a carbon copy of a movie we've all seen before. With Friday the 13th, we honestly get bits and pieces thrown in from the first three films in the series. We see a prologue scene in the beginning that borrows from the ending of the original film, Jason runs around in the potato sack from Part 2 for a while, and then finds the hockey mask in a barn like in Part 3. That's pretty much all it took from the movies. Maybe Clay's motivation seems similar to something out of The Final Chapter, but now I'm nitpicking. Point is, the film, for a remake, feels very contained in itself. In no way is that actually a bad thing, and heck, it set things up for a sequel that I would honestly be invested to see. The film, in my opinion, could be considered a success because it rekindled the desire to see Jason Voorhees terrorize Camp Crystal Lake on the big screen. He'd been to New York, Hell, Space, and fought with Freddy Krueger. Now, he's back to basics, but through a modern retelling. It's never going to be Academy Award quality filmmaking, but I'm all for it.


Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

The Friday the 13th remake gives you tons of violence and sex. If that's your thing, then you'll probably enjoy watching it. It returns Jason Voorhees to his roots and it's one of the rare horror remakes in recent memory to not be a complete disaster, so give it a watch.

Comment below to share your thoughts on the movie or to discuss a topic that I left out of my review

Friday the 13th (2009) and movie images are copyrighted by New Line Cinema