He's Baaaaaack!

So the new remake of Friday the 13th comes out today, and I will probably be giving it a miss. Why? Well as much as I love old school 80's horror icons, this will not be one of those movies. No, it will be robbed of all the fun of those older films and done in up in a slick and marketable package with realistic gore and probably zero sense of humor. In other words, everything that made the old ones awesome in their own way will be gone.

Back then slashers were a huuuugely marketable entity. Create a guy with a suitably supernatural origin (something that will no doubt be retconned in the new one) and blammo! you have a killing machine who enjoys his job. You know this because he uses his imagination in his job. Never does he rely on the same tired routine, he will change it up with a chainsaw, or a pitchfork, or in the case of Jason he'll just pick up a sleeping bag with two ne'er do wells in it and bash them against a tree.

The effects in these movies were budget. Effects guys who got into their jobs by figuring out how to make fake blood with common drug store ingredients. They didnt buy it from a supplier, they made it. They hand made those horrible molds of the main characters that they would switch out with a quick cut just before Jason strikes. One minute a beautiful girl, blink, and she has a poorly manufactured paper mache head crafted by the director's kid (or so it would appear). Part of what made those movies fun to watch was how ridiculous the effects were. You would squeal at the death, or yell out "OOOH! MAN!" and then burst out laughing because the amount of blood would make Dracula blush.

The acting was always terrible and really, most of these kinds of movies were morality tales. Back in the day, the Brothers Grimm wrote Hansel & Gretel to teach kids not to wander to far from home. Friday the 13th especially was great for showing us the consequences of underage sex, drinking, and skinny-dipping. The person who lived through those movies was always the one who didnt get themselves into trouble. Sure, Jason would chase them, but he could never kill them. Jason was 100% old fashioned badass Old Testament LAW!

And dont even get me started on the acting. It was like George Lucas made these movies! But that was all part of the fun! And that right there is what I feel like is missing from all these newer remakes. Whether intended or not there was a huge fun factor to those old movies. They were there to scare you a bit, but also to get you to have a good time with your buddies, laughing at the effects, joking about the umpteenth moron going to check out the sound they just heard in the basement. They were never about the gore, or actually trying to honest to goodness creep you out. Scare you? Yes. Make you feel grossed out? Sure. But never to really disturb you and I feel that is the huge feeling that comes out of these new horror films, they want to disturb me. I dont need to be disturbed.

So Jason, welcome back buddy, but I wont be joining you this time around.