I went into this movie not having seen a single Friday the 13th movie all the way through. I originally didn't want to see this one, not because it looked bad, quite the opposite: because I thought it looked genuinely scary. And I scare easily.
As 2/13/09 drew closer and I began watching the trailer more and more I decided that I really did want to see it. Overall, I liked it. I couldn't help but compare it to My Bloody Valentine 3- D which I saw a little less than a month ago, and this was without a doubt a more technically sound movie. The storyline was better, the cast was better, the dialogue was better by a slight margin. That leads me into what I liked. Director Marcus Nispel gave the movie a great atmosphere; things were almost always tense or creepy. Jason was imposing and definitely quite frightening. The situation was believable for the main group of characters.
Now for what I think hurt the movie. First of all, I am not a big fan of the decision to have two sets of characters. I understand it was necessary to introduce Whitney's predicament but I thought it really hurt the main group. The movie is only one hour and thirty-five minutes so the first set of characters drastically depletes the time we have to get to know the second set. We know them for less than a day before they all start getting picked off. I think Willa Ford's character had maybe five lines, the Nolan character less than that. I just really didn't care about the characters that much. The second thing I disliked was the backstory/captivity of Whitney. The Mrs. Voorhees part in the beginning felt jarring and tacked on and then I just felt that the Whitney in captivity part was preposterous and weird. Also, it is simply not feasible for Jason to appear everywhere completely unnoticed. He is a huge guy, there's no way you wouldn't see or hear him coming, yet he appears completely out of nowhere so many times. Jumpy? Yes. Plausible? Not at all. These elements combined unfortunately made the movie not scary. I jumped a lot during it but I was not scared afterward, not at all.
I really did like the movie, for me the detractors were not so bad that I came out hating it. It was well-done in my opinion with effective jump scares and I liked the different take on the series. Now let's see if a sequel comes out in this same vein.
As 2/13/09 drew closer and I began watching the trailer more and more I decided that I really did want to see it. Overall, I liked it. I couldn't help but compare it to My Bloody Valentine 3- D which I saw a little less than a month ago, and this was without a doubt a more technically sound movie. The storyline was better, the cast was better, the dialogue was better by a slight margin. That leads me into what I liked. Director Marcus Nispel gave the movie a great atmosphere; things were almost always tense or creepy. Jason was imposing and definitely quite frightening. The situation was believable for the main group of characters.
Now for what I think hurt the movie. First of all, I am not a big fan of the decision to have two sets of characters. I understand it was necessary to introduce Whitney's predicament but I thought it really hurt the main group. The movie is only one hour and thirty-five minutes so the first set of characters drastically depletes the time we have to get to know the second set. We know them for less than a day before they all start getting picked off. I think Willa Ford's character had maybe five lines, the Nolan character less than that. I just really didn't care about the characters that much. The second thing I disliked was the backstory/captivity of Whitney. The Mrs. Voorhees part in the beginning felt jarring and tacked on and then I just felt that the Whitney in captivity part was preposterous and weird. Also, it is simply not feasible for Jason to appear everywhere completely unnoticed. He is a huge guy, there's no way you wouldn't see or hear him coming, yet he appears completely out of nowhere so many times. Jumpy? Yes. Plausible? Not at all. These elements combined unfortunately made the movie not scary. I jumped a lot during it but I was not scared afterward, not at all.
I really did like the movie, for me the detractors were not so bad that I came out hating it. It was well-done in my opinion with effective jump scares and I liked the different take on the series. Now let's see if a sequel comes out in this same vein.
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