FRIDAY THE 13TH

(A.k.a. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 12 [working title])

A monochrome pre-credits prologue opens on June 13th 1980. It's a stormy night and all but one of the young adults working at Camp Crystal Lake have been slain. The final remaining girl is chased into the woods by the maniacally grinning Pamela Voorhees (Nana Visitor), who explains that she has killed everyone else to avenge the drowning of her boy Jason - who they had been responsible for looking after.

As most will know, the final surviving lass manages to protect herself by decapitating Mrs Voorhees with a machete. But what we see here, for the first time, is how a young Jason witnesses his own mother's beheading ...

Fast-forward to the present, where we meet a quintet of wanna-be-funny teenagers who've hiked out to the Crystal Lake area in search of marijuana plants. When they become lost late in the day, they decide to take a break from their bickering and innuendo, and pitch up their tents for the evening.

As the night progresses, geeky stoner Wade (Jonathan Sadowski) sits the others round a campfire to tell the tale of Pamela's killing spree and Jason's subsequent disappearance, rumoured to have happened very near to where they are.

Wade later decides to wander off alone for a piss while the remaining two couples go off to find respective places to fuck. Wade finds the beloved marijuana plants seconds before becoming the first victim of the adult Jason (Derek Mears), now running around the woods with a sack on his head.

Meanwhile Mike (Nick Mennell) and Whitney (Amanda Righetti) stray from the group looking for somewhere to get it on. They stumble upon Jason's house, a ramshackle affair with a shrine to Mom as its centrepiece. Finding Mrs Voorhees' severed rotten head at the heart of the shrine, they scarper back to camp - only to find their friends dead. Jason does the business on Mike, but fortunately for Whitney she bears an uncanny resemblance to the imposing killer's mother ...

Following on from this lengthy opening episode, the film then begins proper "six weeks later" (presumably, this bulk of story unfurling six weeks later than the present means that this film is set ever so slightly in the future ...?).

Smart-arsed rich jock Trent (Travis Van Winkle) drives a group of obnoxious mates to his dad's backwater summerhouse. It's situated a short walk away from Crystal Lake, on the opposing side of the water from the camp where ... well, you know.

En route, the group stop at a convenience store and run into Clay (Jared Padalecki). He's in the area handing out flyers requesting information on his missing sister Whitney. All Clay has to go on is that she was heading out to Crystal Lake with friends several weeks back, and has not been seen since ... and the local cops have given up searching.

Trent exhibits an instant and irrational dislike to Clay, while his girlfriend Jenna (Danielle Panabaker) takes a predictable yet implausible shine to the lad. After a brief war of words, both parties depart in different directions.

Trent's mob makes haste to his dad's pad to party, while Clay begins canvassing the area. He's met by unhelpful locals who either try to sell him dope or tell him Whitney will be dead, because "he" will have killed her ... But, who is "he", Clay wonders.

It's not long until Clay winds up knocking at the door of Trent's dad's place. Of course, he's not welcome there - although Jenna is sympathetic to his plight, and volunteers to help him canvass on both sides of the lake.

While they go off in search of clues surrounding Whitney's disappearance, Trent and his high buddies become unwitting fodder for the burly brute lurking in the nearby greenery ...

The opening credits, when they finally arrive, boast two old-school names among them: executive producer Sean S Cunningham (director of the original FRIDAY) and cinematographer Daniel Pearl (the original THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE). But don't be fooled - this is yet another strictly by-the-numbers commercial US remake of a modern cult classic horror.

Technically, this new film is a far slicker proposition than Cunningham's hammy, uneven and low budget progenitor. Director Marcus Nispel shows off his music video roots with stylised colour schemes, flashy editing incorporating flashbacks and quick jump-frights, and a technical sheen that suits it's Multiplex aspirations.

But that's not what a FRIDAY THE 13TH film is all about, surely? The cracks evident in Cunningham's original have, aesthetically at least, largely been ironed out. And along with them so has any semblance of charm.

Instead, what we're left with is a hollow, unengaging and resoundingly 'safe' film that offers little for horror fans to holler about.

Performances range from the half-decent (Padalecki and Panabaker) to the crappy (everyone else - particularly Kyle Davis as dope-peddling mechanic Donnie). The script is an annoying mixture of genre clichés and unlikeable American youths spitting sub-AMERICAN PIE one-liners at each other. But, admittedly, neither of these factors is generally held to be important in slasher films.

Nor are continuity or logic. Which is convenient, because both are absent throughout this mess of a film.

To effectively censure this film, you need to consider what its intentions were. The new FRIDAY's main problem, other than it's overly polished lack of charm, is that it never cranks up the suspense; there's no tension, because there's virtually no characterisation given to the victims and back-story is null and void. It's a film made without creativity or passion, even down to the run-of-the-mill murder scenes, where Jason employs axes, knives and arrows to lethal but seen-it-all-before effect.

This DVD presents the film in its "extended cut", offering some apparent 10 minutes additional to what was seen in cinemas. I never did see the theatrical release of the film so I'm unable to make comparisons, but I can say that this version is decidedly pedestrian in the gore stakes. It's roughly on a par with the original, albeit with shaky cameras and sharp editing helping to obscure the passable FX work of Joe Colwell and co. In comparison to latter day US horrors such as HOSTEL, and the remakes of HALLOWEEN and THE HILLS HAVE EYES, this is tame.

I understand that some of the additional footage also relates to scenes of (equally unexciting) sex and nudity, along with extra flashback moments of Jason's youth.

This FRIDAY THE 13TH lacks Tom Savini's enjoyably cheesy FX, as well as the near-likeable cast of the original film. Furthermore, out of all of the Platinum Dunes horror remakes so far (the first being THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, directed with much greater success by Nispel), this is the most cynical - the lame cast seem almost embarrassed to read aloud the lousy script at times; the only time anyone ever puts any oomph into delivering their lines is when they get to say "what the fuck?!" (it gets said a fair bit, I must add).

It's a tired, predictable gumbo of stolen plot devices and lazily edited chase sequences - and the less said about "retarded" Jason's underground lair of tunnels transporting him to anywhere and everywhere on Crystal Lake, the better.

The film looks marvellous though in a sharp, well-contrasted anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer. The film's natural look is an often dark one, with muted colours and many night scenes (some shot day-for-night, as the bonus features reveal). These are presented well in a solid, sharp transfer. Blacks hold up extremely well, which is important in a film of this persuasion.

English audio is well served in a solid, agreeably balanced 5.1 mix. Optional subtitles are available in several languages, including English and English for the Hard of Hearing.

A static main menu page leads into a static scene-selection menu allowing access to the main feature via 26 chapters.

Extras kick off with "The Rebirth Of Jason Voorhees", a 12-minute featurette where cast and crewmembers get to chat excitedly about how they grew up in awe of the big man and how Mears is so amazing in his reimagining of him. Co-writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift seem particularly pleased with themselves for making their Jason a little cleverer than the ones we've previously known. Some half-decent behind-the-scenes footage pads this production featurette out, while Padalecki is conspicuous by his absence.

"Hacking Back/Slashing Forward" is an 11-minute blending of clips from this new film, along with cast and crewmembers discussing the impact the original films had on them. Padalecki turns up here, briefly.

Next up is the 22-minute featurette "Seven Best Kills". Hmm, what's this about, I wonder? As the title suggests, this is split into several chapters and ventures behind the scenes into the construction and execution of some of the film's more elaborate FX sequences (which I won't divulge here, as they will constitute spoilers). This is undoubtedly the best extra on the disc, allowing a generous insight into the make-up process and how laborious it must've been for the cast members on set. It's also worth noting at this point that much of the gore FX were devised using good old-fashioned prosthetics and fake gore - with a minimalistic approach to the dreaded CGI.

Then we've got 8 minutes of "Alternate Scenes", which a disclaimer tells us are "intended for mature audiences only". These are presented in anamorphic 2.35:1, and include - most significantly - a different (better) version of the death scene where Jason first stumbles across his trademark hockey mask.

All of the above extras are equipped with optional subtitles in several languages, including English.

The disc is defaulted to open with trailers for THE UNINVITED and TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (an early trailer minus musical score).

Despite a decent body count and a couple of nice pairs of pert boobies, this FRIDAY is a lame addition to an already ropy franchise. It's a shame, as the original film does show ample room for improvement. But Nispel's film, under the creative wing of Michael Bay, does not achieve this.

The disc's not bad, but the film's a turd.

Also available on Blu-ray, which features a picture-in-picture commentary track. For completists, it's worth noting that the US Blu-ray release is region-free and includes both versions of the film (the theatrical cut and the extended "killer" cut) - it's unclear yet whether the UK release will follow suit.

Review by Stuart Willis