Abbreviated Orientation: Friday the 13th (2009)
My dear readers, while we Hauntedhouses have a reputation for being exemplary hosts and are often as pleasant as can be, there have admittedly been times when some of our lineage have been pressed into territorial behavior. I recall my uncle Roland Hauntedhouse once found himself with a poltergeist infestation and this “noisy spirit,” as the experts say, kept up its ghostly business at all hours, clattering pots, cracking mirrors and generally being a bother. Not one to be outdone on any front, particularly in his own abode, Roland smashed his fair share of antiques, tore the family portraits from their frames, took an axe to the chandeliers, loosed a foul-tempered steed in the wine cellar and set much of the furniture ablaze. Though it is unclear if this assertive exhibition made an impression on the spirit, it did relieve Roland of all his worldly possessions, leaving the poltergeist little material with which to conduct its mischief and Roland with very few places to sit. Forgive my circuitousness but this is all to say that the Hauntedhouses are no strangers to puffing out their chests when hearth and home are at stake.
A young woman reaches a sticking point in her interaction with Mr. Vorhees
Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears) is also accustomed to being protective of his domain. As a lad, the poor fellow drowned at Camp Crystal Lake after being left unwatched by a promiscuous team of camp counselors. But since then things have really picked up for Mr. Vorhoees. His mother wreaked bloody vengeance on all of the counselors who prioritized fornication over supervision, considerably evening the moral score. Better still, he seems to have fully recovered from the whole drowning episode and now spends his days idling by Crystal Lake, no doubt watching the light of sunset flicker off the water’s shimmering surface and occasionally wiping out batches of youngsters who wander on to the old camp grounds.
His more violent habits become something of a problem for Jenna (Danielle Panabaker) and her friends. The lot of them had planned on spending a weekend in the isolated serenity of nature so that they can fully appreciate alcohol, cannabis and premarital relations. Jason shows little affection for these pastimes and uses his faithful machete to express his displeasure with the latest lot of vacationers. Jenna’s friends, insensate from various physical indulgences, prove to be of little value in the survival department but luckily, she manages to team up with Clay Miller (Jared Padalecki) a motorcycle riding “hunk” in search of his lost sister. Together, the two do their very best to make it through a night with one of the horror genre’s most unstoppable juggernauts of murder.
It is perfectly normal to cycle through a few different looks when starting out as a masked murderer
The initial Friday the 13th series had a terribly impressive run, beginning at a humble summer camp in the 1980s and ending eleven films later in martial combat with Frederick Krueger. This “reboot” covers material from the original trio of films, including his mother’s revenge scheme, his return as a supernatural killing machine and his eventual upgrade from a cloth bag to his now iconic hockey mask. Purists will undoubtedly insist that it takes at least three feature-length installments to properly cover these developments and I am very much sympathetic to their position. However, while I would certainly prefer if everyone appreciated these gems of the genre in their original form, there are certainly those who might benefit from such concision. There is the time-starved businessman who fears being shamefully unprepared if Mr. Vorhees and his antics pop up as cocktail party conversation. There are the “moms on the go,” a demographic that television advertisements have led me to believe is positively thriving. And there are countless others who have found, during our current glut of available media, that they simply cannot commit to nearly a dozen motion pictures. While it may not satisfy Jason’s most devoted followers, this rather abbreviated orientation is the perfect Friday the 13th for moviegoers who stand to benefit from brevity.
Friday the 13th runs 97 minutes and is rated R for strong bloody violence, some graphic sexual content, language and drug material.
