levil666
02-13-2009, 01:17 PM
************************SPOILERS THROUGHOUT**************************
Let me preface this by saying, I have been waiting for this movie since it was announced on UHM over a year ago. That being said, I felt like a twitching addict for the last week before getting my fix at the midnight showing. Through my hatred for Nispel and how he raped the TCM remake, I actually really liked this flick. Yes the characters were annoying as hell. Yes, there was no explanation why these mysterious pot plants were growing out in the woods. However, there was plenty to make up for it. As we all are (I am assuming) avid fans of this wonderful franchise, I actually see the revisioning route this film was trying to take. However, it was not an ecapsulation of the first four, but the first three (seriously, how could it be all four without good old Tommy Jarvis.) *spoilers ahead*
The way they wrapped up the first movie in the intro was perfect, as this was Jasons story, and not his mothers anymore. Fast forward, and you have a raging 29 year old mommas boy who has a screw loose from watching his mom get her head chopped off. Now Camp Crystal Lake has been condemned to Urban Legend (as usual) and a bunch of sex hungry stoners are trying to track down a pot crop. That first 20 minutes laid the ground work for a lot of great kills to be expected. Whitney and her friends are sitting around the campfire, and the inevitable split up of the group happens, with the “good couple” (Whitney and her boyfriend) venturing off, and stumbling on Jason’s lair. Meanwhile, the stoner loner finds his crop with, only to be greeted by yours truly. Oh, and the sex starved couple… It seriously had Jasons best sleeping-bag-kill to date.
Fast forward six weeks, and you have the typical group of know it all college kids stopping in at the local gas n’ go to fill up and mock the locals. There you meet Clay, Whitney’s estranged older brother who is riding his motor cycle around the lake handing out a “have you seen Whitney” flyer. He’s inevitably mocked by the pompous rich boy of the group. Why should the group care? They’re off for a weekend of drugs, drinking games, and premarital sex, plus it gives Mr. Abercrombie (the main one, as there are two in this) a chance to show off daddy’s lake house. He really didn’t die soon enough, but provided some entertainment so it didn’t bother me too much.
Once they arrive to the lake house, the daddy’s boy is busy playing babysitter, and the story is split between the lake house and Clay’s search for Whitney. Then the stories come together, and daddy’s boy gets heated. Meanwhile Abercrombie #2 and his girlfriend decide to take the boat for a spin. Now, although lines like “You’re such a sociopath, but what does that make me?” would typically piss me off, if it weren’t for the awesomeness of Jason to take care of those twits. Doolan had a very good point about the token black guy. In five minutes we get to hear about how the rest of the groups requests are based on the fact he’s black, and the other characters were also terribly cliché, but take it back to part two where you got to constantly hear about the cripple be in training. For WHAT?!? That’s what was so much fun, the films were campy and cliché. They tried to capture it in this, and didn’t do a great job, but at least all of the annoyingly shallow characters were done away with in fairly creative ways. In one scene, it actually looked like Jason was thinking “Well, now that I have her in my hands, what do I do? I know there is something here I haven’t used yet…”
The audience is left in the dark about a lot (which I hope is taken care of with the release of the Director’s cut, but if you have watched the first three as many times as I have, you can piece it together for the most part through hopeful assumptions.) Everything from one of the characters using psychological manipulation to the setting of a show down in an old red barn was a perfect combo of the second and third films imo. It was also good to see Jason running again (for those of you who may argue, he was a runner in the first few, before Jarvis resurrected him.) I wouldn’t classify this as a sequel, since it captured all of the elements of the first three flicks. In the end, all I can say is that I am glad they “revisioned it.” However, one terribly disappointing part is what has become of Camp Crystal Lake, but I’ll leave that for you to discover. I am just glad that it breathed new life into a franchise that succumbed to a space sequel (although I do like Jason X.) This also gives me hope that maybe they will do a revisioning of the Jarvis installment, because that was seriously undercut in the 4th, 5th, and 6th from what it could have been.
Story: 2/5
Nudity: 3/5
Blood: 5/5
Gore: 2.5/5
Drug Usage: 5/5
Comedy: 3/5
Overall score: 7/10
Let me preface this by saying, I have been waiting for this movie since it was announced on UHM over a year ago. That being said, I felt like a twitching addict for the last week before getting my fix at the midnight showing. Through my hatred for Nispel and how he raped the TCM remake, I actually really liked this flick. Yes the characters were annoying as hell. Yes, there was no explanation why these mysterious pot plants were growing out in the woods. However, there was plenty to make up for it. As we all are (I am assuming) avid fans of this wonderful franchise, I actually see the revisioning route this film was trying to take. However, it was not an ecapsulation of the first four, but the first three (seriously, how could it be all four without good old Tommy Jarvis.) *spoilers ahead*
The way they wrapped up the first movie in the intro was perfect, as this was Jasons story, and not his mothers anymore. Fast forward, and you have a raging 29 year old mommas boy who has a screw loose from watching his mom get her head chopped off. Now Camp Crystal Lake has been condemned to Urban Legend (as usual) and a bunch of sex hungry stoners are trying to track down a pot crop. That first 20 minutes laid the ground work for a lot of great kills to be expected. Whitney and her friends are sitting around the campfire, and the inevitable split up of the group happens, with the “good couple” (Whitney and her boyfriend) venturing off, and stumbling on Jason’s lair. Meanwhile, the stoner loner finds his crop with, only to be greeted by yours truly. Oh, and the sex starved couple… It seriously had Jasons best sleeping-bag-kill to date.
Fast forward six weeks, and you have the typical group of know it all college kids stopping in at the local gas n’ go to fill up and mock the locals. There you meet Clay, Whitney’s estranged older brother who is riding his motor cycle around the lake handing out a “have you seen Whitney” flyer. He’s inevitably mocked by the pompous rich boy of the group. Why should the group care? They’re off for a weekend of drugs, drinking games, and premarital sex, plus it gives Mr. Abercrombie (the main one, as there are two in this) a chance to show off daddy’s lake house. He really didn’t die soon enough, but provided some entertainment so it didn’t bother me too much.
Once they arrive to the lake house, the daddy’s boy is busy playing babysitter, and the story is split between the lake house and Clay’s search for Whitney. Then the stories come together, and daddy’s boy gets heated. Meanwhile Abercrombie #2 and his girlfriend decide to take the boat for a spin. Now, although lines like “You’re such a sociopath, but what does that make me?” would typically piss me off, if it weren’t for the awesomeness of Jason to take care of those twits. Doolan had a very good point about the token black guy. In five minutes we get to hear about how the rest of the groups requests are based on the fact he’s black, and the other characters were also terribly cliché, but take it back to part two where you got to constantly hear about the cripple be in training. For WHAT?!? That’s what was so much fun, the films were campy and cliché. They tried to capture it in this, and didn’t do a great job, but at least all of the annoyingly shallow characters were done away with in fairly creative ways. In one scene, it actually looked like Jason was thinking “Well, now that I have her in my hands, what do I do? I know there is something here I haven’t used yet…”
The audience is left in the dark about a lot (which I hope is taken care of with the release of the Director’s cut, but if you have watched the first three as many times as I have, you can piece it together for the most part through hopeful assumptions.) Everything from one of the characters using psychological manipulation to the setting of a show down in an old red barn was a perfect combo of the second and third films imo. It was also good to see Jason running again (for those of you who may argue, he was a runner in the first few, before Jarvis resurrected him.) I wouldn’t classify this as a sequel, since it captured all of the elements of the first three flicks. In the end, all I can say is that I am glad they “revisioned it.” However, one terribly disappointing part is what has become of Camp Crystal Lake, but I’ll leave that for you to discover. I am just glad that it breathed new life into a franchise that succumbed to a space sequel (although I do like Jason X.) This also gives me hope that maybe they will do a revisioning of the Jarvis installment, because that was seriously undercut in the 4th, 5th, and 6th from what it could have been.
Story: 2/5
Nudity: 3/5
Blood: 5/5
Gore: 2.5/5
Drug Usage: 5/5
Comedy: 3/5
Overall score: 7/10