Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

T.G.I.F.

The trailer for the new Friday the 13th remake is finally out.

Not sure what to make of this just yet. It feels intense and in your face — mean, as I believe all good horror films should be — but it also feels almost exactly like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (which should come as no suprise, given they both were directed by Marcus Nispel and produced by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes label).

One of the things I’ve been most curious about regarding this remake was how they would deal with Jason’s mother. As those who paid attention (or saw Scream recently) remember, the very first F13th featured Jason Vorhees only in a very tiny cameo scare at the end, with him bursting up out of the calm waters of Crystal Lake. His mother was the killer in the first film, avenging her son’s death-by-neglect-whilst-camp-counselors-got-their-fuck-on.

She was killed in the first picture, and Jason showed up in Part II, wearing a bag over his head (the hockey mask, in fact, didn’t show up until Friday the 13th Part 3).

It was a long and slow evolution towards the hockey mask-clad Zombie Jason most of us remember. They built on his myth film by film, and those first few movies still work remarkably well because of it; there’s an organic character progression there.

But this remake seems to be All Jason, All The Time. The Camp itself appears to be deserted, and the spooky mom voice-over infers that her killings happened in the past. So I’m thinking we’re looking at a prologue or flashback sequence where Jason’s Mom kills the counselors for revenge (i.e., the plot of the O.G. Friday), and then we have a gaggle of teenagers going up to the Spooky Camp Blood™ where local legend has it some crazy mom killed a bunch of kids. And said teenagers, much to their surprise, discover that there’s a seven-foot-tall maniac with a mask running around the camp who kills them all.

I dunno. It could work, but I’m of the mindset that the best — and most memorable — scene in the entire first movie is when Adrienne King as Alice is in the hospital after surviving the horrific night of terror at the hands of Mrs. Vorhees, and is telling the sheriff about her encounter in the water with young Jason. “The boy. Is he dead too?” she asks. The Sheriff, thinking she’s lost it, looks at her. “Ma’am… we didn’t find any boy.”

Alice gets this great thousand-mile stare on her face, and just says “Then he’s still out there.”

And as a viewer, this great visceral HOLY FUCKING SHIT thrill runs through your body, because you know the son now has some major issues after his Mom has been killed, and he’s going to come back and wreak some terrifying havoc.

It’s the same moment at the end of the first Halloween, where Loomis walks over the balcony and sees that Michael Meyers is no longer there; that he somehow survived the fall and gunshots.

It is the moment where a film previously tied to a primarily realistic world pivots into being about the supernatural, and you know the rules of the game have changed. It’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling to have in a movie theatre.

Will the way they’ve set up this remake deny us that moment? I hope not. (And don’t even get me started if they start fucking with Fred Krueger.)