It stands for "Classic Horror In, Re-imagined Garbage Out". You can substitute "Camp" or "Crap" for the C, depending upon how you feel about the original "Friday the 13th" - the rest of the acronym remains the same.
The re-imagined "Friday the 13th" isn't scary. It isn't creepy. It isn't suspenseful. It isn't funny at any point, and it's only the slightest bit sexy. It doesn't add anything to the Jason mystique or, for that matter, to the "unstoppable boogeyman" archetype in cinematic horror.
The characters in this flick are so one-dimensional they make all the throwaway performances from previous installments of the series look positively Oscar-worthy. And that includes episodes 5-9, which are hard to beat on the Unwatchable Meter.
As many have noted, the lighting in a lot of scenes is bad. This is probably done for realism, but frankly it doesn't detract too much because you never feel like there's much to see anyway. Likewise for the relatively sparing use of shakycam.
Considering all the things they might have updated 29 years later, there really seems to have been little thought put into this movie. Yeah, there's more sex and nudity than in the original installments, but it doesn't seem that over the top and it definitely isn't titillating. Most of it is accompanied by insanely annoying dialogue.
There are plenty of scenes that will make you cringe and groan for their stupidity, but I don't want to include any spoilers, so I'll skip them.
Instead, I'll just mention the two most memorable non-spoilers:
1) There is gratuitous use of sudden loud noises to create shock or suspense when none would otherwise exist. Lots of movies do this when they can't be scary - I can't think of another one that does it so often or so loudly.
2) There is also a major preoccupation with weed. Was "Pineapple Express" that big a hit?
If there is any horror in this movie at all, it is that Amanda Righetti and Willa Ford felt it necessary to star in it to advance their careers.
This movie does to the "Friday the 13th" franchise what "Quantum of Solace" did to James Bond. I hope Bond can be revived somehow. I no longer have the slightest interest in the goings-on at Camp Crystal Lake.
The re-imagined "Friday the 13th" isn't scary. It isn't creepy. It isn't suspenseful. It isn't funny at any point, and it's only the slightest bit sexy. It doesn't add anything to the Jason mystique or, for that matter, to the "unstoppable boogeyman" archetype in cinematic horror.
The characters in this flick are so one-dimensional they make all the throwaway performances from previous installments of the series look positively Oscar-worthy. And that includes episodes 5-9, which are hard to beat on the Unwatchable Meter.
As many have noted, the lighting in a lot of scenes is bad. This is probably done for realism, but frankly it doesn't detract too much because you never feel like there's much to see anyway. Likewise for the relatively sparing use of shakycam.
Considering all the things they might have updated 29 years later, there really seems to have been little thought put into this movie. Yeah, there's more sex and nudity than in the original installments, but it doesn't seem that over the top and it definitely isn't titillating. Most of it is accompanied by insanely annoying dialogue.
There are plenty of scenes that will make you cringe and groan for their stupidity, but I don't want to include any spoilers, so I'll skip them.
Instead, I'll just mention the two most memorable non-spoilers:
1) There is gratuitous use of sudden loud noises to create shock or suspense when none would otherwise exist. Lots of movies do this when they can't be scary - I can't think of another one that does it so often or so loudly.
2) There is also a major preoccupation with weed. Was "Pineapple Express" that big a hit?
If there is any horror in this movie at all, it is that Amanda Righetti and Willa Ford felt it necessary to star in it to advance their careers.
This movie does to the "Friday the 13th" franchise what "Quantum of Solace" did to James Bond. I hope Bond can be revived somehow. I no longer have the slightest interest in the goings-on at Camp Crystal Lake.