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Released by: Arrow Video
Released on: September 17th, 2024.
Director: Marcus Nispel
Cast: Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Derek Mears
Year: 2009
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Friday The 13th – Movie Review:
For many film fans, the very idea of remaking Friday The 13th was akin to slaughtering a sacred cow. Before I go on a rant about this picture, let me state that, personally, I didn’t care. I generally don’t care about remakes. True, most of them seem to suck but once in a while you get two good movies where you once had only one and when they do fail, you’ve still at least got one. I’ll also admit that I actually liked the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre so when director Marcus Nispel’s name was attached to the 2009 rehashing of Sean Cunningham’s original, it didn’t bother me like it instantly bothered some. The point I’m trying to make here is that I went to see this movie in the theater with what I like to think was an open mind, rather than a pre-disposed hatred… and you know what? I still thought it sucked.
The movie starts off strongly after an opening scene that introduces us to Pamela Vorhees and her son Jason. From there we skip ahead where a group of four hikers are scouring the woods around the area that once was Camp Crystal Lake in search of some pot plants. They find the weed, but not before a hulking man in a hockey mask finds them and slaughters three of the four, taking one surviving girl named Whitney (Amanda Righetti) hostage. Skip ahead and we meet a hunky loner named Clay (Jared Padalecki), searching for his sister, Whitney. He eventually runs into a group of party-hardy teens on their way to a vacation home owned by the rich parents of an obnoxious jock named Trent (Travis Van Winkle). Trent’s girlfriend, Jenna (Danielle Panabaker), takes a liking to Clay and wants to help him find his sister but Trent’s having none of that, he’s more worried about showing off his fancy pad to all his shallow and equally obnoxious friends. Of course, what nobody realizes is that Jason Vorhees (Derek Mears) is all grown up now and that the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree. Like his mother, he’s got a taste for violence and he’s running around the area with murder on his mind… and he’s also got a secret underground hideout.
First, the good - there are some fantastic kill sequences here, some of the best that the franchise has seen in years. The kills are bloody, they’re creative, and they make an otherwise tedious film more enjoyable than it probably should have been. The film also has no problem whatsoever throwing in plenty of gratuitous nudity for no apparent reason other than that it knows that the audience wants sex and violence. On paper, even if Jason’s now taking hostages and running around a series of underground tunnels, this film sounds like a winner. It puts Jason back in the woods where he belongs and gives him a bunch of teenagers to kill. Sounds like a return to form for a series that had become increasingly gimmicky over the years, no? On top of that, Derek Mears makes for a pretty decent Jason. He’s got the bulk and the size and the intimidating screen presence to make the character work and he does a pretty decent job portraying him as the seemingly unstoppable killing machine we all know and love.
The problems with the film don’t stem so much from the cardboard characters and logics gaps, as most horror fans have come to accept those from slasher films. No, the real problem, at least that this reviewer had with the film, is that it looks ugly. There’s a bit of green during some of the scenes that take place in the woods but aside from that the film looks like it’s been color tinted to make it look bleak, desolate and gritty. This worked with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (both of which were directed by Nispel and shot by cinematographer Daniel Pearl) but here it hurts the set up. The kills are supposed to take place in a happy place, not a place that looks like it’s been bombed out. On top of that, the cinematographer’s tendency to open up the camera and capture as much lens flare as possible gets incredibly annoying very early on. Flashlights, indoor lights, car lights, pretty much anytime a light appears in the darkness, which is frequent, we get bombarded with a lens flare, and most of the time it adds absolutely nothing to the visuals. Now, it’s not to say that Friday The 13th should look like Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory but it doesn’t need to look like dirt either.
Ultimately, the film is just completely disposable. Yeah, it’s got some really good gore and plenty of nudity, those always earn plus points in this easily amused reviewer’s book. There are a few genuinely funny scenes and the opening sequence really stands out to show us how fun the movie could and should have been. But from there, it mixes up a bad soundtrack, a whole lot of scary fake boobs and too few lovely real ones, and an (understandably) predictable plot with horrible cinematography. The bitch of it is, this film had some pretty serious potential and the opening sequence shows that. Had the picture not gone for such a dire look and maybe put a bit more effort into casting less obnoxious performers and given us someone we didn’t dislike to root for, had it not turned Jason into a silent Jigsaw and had it not aimed for the lowest common denominator throughout the duration of its running time, it could have been great instead of periodically fun spaced between long stretches of tedium.
Note: This two-disc UDH release from Arrow Video contains the theatrical cut of the film in addition to the ‘Killer Cut.’ The differences? There’s a few, actually, starting with the gore. Most of the kill scenes are noticeably longer and gorier, though detailing them heads into spoiler territory so we’ll avoid doing that here. There are also some flashbacks to Jason’s younger days which do serve to give his character a bit more background in addition to some extended bits of him in his odd underground lair. There’s a decent extension to a bit a character makes it out of his hideout as well as a tacked on ‘montage of death’ towards the end of the film. On top of that, some of the nude scenes are a bit raunchier. None of these really help the movie much at all, but more sex and gore never hurt a slasher film.
Friday The 13th – UHD Review:
Both versions of the movie get an HEVC encoded 2160p transfer, framed at 2.40.1 widescreen and featuring HDR10 and Dolby Vision enhancement on their own separate discs. Arrow leaves no real room for complaint here, the transfer is excellent. There’s plenty of depth and detail to the image, allowing you to appreciate the cinematography in the film more than past home video releases did. Colors look fantastic, the reds in particular really pop here, but nothing really feels to have been artificially boosted at all. Black levels are nice and deep and both transfers are free of any compression artifacts, noise reduction or edge enhancement issues.
Both versions of the movie get a 24-bit DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track in English with optional subtitles provided, also in English. The murder set pieces in particular show some nice surround usage placing directional effects in their proper context and balancing the levels out properly. Bass response isn’t overwhelming but the low end is definitely there and it makes itself known when called for. Dialogue stays clean and clear throughout and you won’t ever have any problems understanding any of the performers. The mix is considerably more front heavy than you’d probably expect but it works and it works well with the surrounds supplying some nice ambient and background effects and spreading the score around to help build tension when there’s a need for it.
Extras are spread across the two discs in this set as follows:
Disc One (Theatrical Cut):
Extras for this first disc include a new audio commentary by director Marcus Nispel who talks in quite a bit of detail about how he came to direct this remake of a legitimate classic, putting together his cast and crew, working with his team, specific ideas that he wanted to explore while making the movie, location work, effects work and lots more. A second new audio commentary features writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon and it goes over recollections from the shoot, how the cast and crew got along, memories of shooting specific scenes, what it was like working together and plenty of other details related to the making of the movie.
Arrow has also includes a few new featurettes, starting with a new interview with director Marcus Nispel that runs twenty-nine minutes. He explains how and why he feels Jason and the kids he kills need each other, the mythology behind the character, why he sees Jason as a victim rather than a villain, what went into creating Jason’s outfit to make him more than just a guy in a hockey mask, deciding to make Jason run in the film, how he feels about fan response to the movie, what he tried to do differently with this movie, trying to bring ‘the uncanny’ to the movie, how his background in music videos help him as a filmmaker, getting along with his cast and crew and more.
A new interview with writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon is up next. This thirty-seven minute piece lets the two men discuss how they found out about and came on board the project, working with Platinum Dunes, coming up with some of the ideas for the kill scenes, thoughts on remaking such an iconic movie, thoughts on the characters, the instruments that Jason uses as well as his mask, Derek Mears performance as Jason as well as how the other performers did in their roles, what the crew brought to the movie, working with Nispel and how they feel about the movie overall in hindsight.
The disc also includes a new interview with cinematographer Daniel Pearl that runs twenty-three minutes. Here, Pearl talks about how he got interested in film in the first place and some of the early days of his career, how he got involved in the Friday The 13th remake, the use of light and dark in the visuals, trying to capture facial landscapes in the film, the importance of showing perspective in the film, what went into getting specific shots, working with Nispel and his thoughts on the movie overall.
Film critic Matt Donato contributes a new eighteen minute video essay titled A Killer New Beginning that goes over why remakes shouldn’t necessarily be damned by fandom right away, what he thinks this movie gets right and where it succeeds, why he believes that the movie should serve as a springboard for future franchise remakes. Along the way he talks about how Platinum Dunes made a name for themselves remaking classic horror films and the wave that followed in their success, why he feels this is such a good movie, how the film introduced Jason Vorhees to a new generation and how “genre guardians” attacked the film before it was even released. He makes some points, even if some of us aren’t going to see eye to eye with him on all of them.
There are also a bunch of extras from the older Blu-ray release carried over to this new edition, starting with a selection of excerpts from the Terror Trivia Track that was included on that disc, basically taking the picture-in-picture track that it included and setting it up here. Here, over forty-three minutes, you’ll get a look at some interesting footage that shows off effects work, stunts, location shooting (in Texas, no less), set design and other production details. A few of the cast and crew members pop up here and offer their input and it’s a reasonably interesting way to get some more information about the making of the movie from those who worked on it.
From there we move on to the rest of the archival featurettes starting with the twenty-three minute Seven Best Kills segment that shows us how each of the seven key murder sequences were staged and shot. This is pretty interesting stuff as it gives us a good look at what effects work was required to pull this off as well as what the actors and actresses in the cast had to go through. It’s also refreshing to see the crew try to avoid using CGI effects when possible. There are optional introductions to each of the seven bits that make up this segment. The Rebirth of Jason Vorhees is an eleven minute documentary that shows us how Jason’s character was developed from concept to execution. There’s some interesting material in here and we get to hear from the guys responsible for bringing him to life this time around in regards to what they changed from previous entries and how they did it. The third and final featurette is Hacking Back/Slashing Forward, a twelve minute piece that is little more than a fluff piece where the cast and crew members talk about how they all love eighties era slasher films.
Up next is eight minutes worth of deleted scenes, only one of which includes any additional gore. There is an alternate ending in here though, that, while not a particularly good ending per se, is at least worth watching to see how it could have wound up.
Rounding out the extras on the first disc are an original teaser, a trailer, almost seven minutes of TV spots, an electronic press kit, an image gallery, menus and chapter selection options.
Disc Two (The Killer Cut):
The only extra on the second disc is a new audio commentary by film critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson. Where the two tracks on the first disc were the filmmakers looking back on the making of the movie, this one does take a bit of different approach, covering the history of the character and the horror remake boom of the early 2000s, how the franchise was self aware from the early entries and how this goes all the way back to Bride Of Frankenstein, how the self awareness is integrated into the movies without being smug, what it is about these movies that make people want to see them over and over, the depiction of law enforcement in the movie, the political context of the era in which the movie was made, the way certain character arcs play out, thoughts on the cinematography and production values and plenty more.
Note – As Arrow Video has only sent a test disc for review, we can’t comment on packaging, booklets or inserts for this release. Should final, retail product be made available, we’ll update this review accordingly.
Friday The 13th - The Final Word:
If you enjoyed the movie, then this UHD release is an excellent way to enjoy it in your home theater. It looks great, it sounds great, and it’s carries over all of the older extras and throws in some very good new ones that cover the movie’s history and, to some viewers, its appeal. Easily recommended to those who already know they like the movie!