Breathing new life into Friday the 13th

This last week, horror fans were finally greeted with the first look at the brand new hockey mask of Jason Voorhees, of Friday the 13th fame -- only, well, it's not so new at all, since it's essentially just another step forward from the same mask design we saw in Freddy Vs. Jason. That's alright, though, since if it ain't broke, why fix it?

In any case, to many fans this is the first real breath of life that the Friday franchise has sent out since 2003. While it's unlikely that most fans were clamoring for a full-out remake/reimagining of their beloved franchise, this is the age of horror remakes, where re-envisioning has become the only way for an old horror franchise to survive. Of course, horror is one of the few genres that can be successfully remade time and again (See The Fly, Halloween, The Thing, etc.) and this will be the subject of a later blog but for now, let's focus on the question that many people are asking; was anything so wrong with Jason before that he now needs to be reinvented?

To put it bluntly, no, it wasn't necessary to start from scratch and yes, it's probably only being done because such is the trend right now. However, that doesn't mean that the remake a bad idea, at least not in theory. Let's start with the basics and remember back to the very first Friday the 13th film in 1980. It was a simple enough slasher film done in the spirit of the original Halloween but with the neat twist that the killer was an old woman striking out after the death of her son Jason. The sequel, then, kept the same formula but immediately changed the storyline by having a grown Jason, now wearing a sack over his disfigured face, seeking revenge on the teenage population for his mother's murder in the first movie. Between the second and third movies, Jason has now become the central antagonist of the story and developed a super strong pain tolerance that allows him to take axes in the head and still keep slashing. That is, until he's killed by a young boy named Tommy Jarvis in part IV...

Is the emergence of a trend becoming clear here? Because throughout its lifespan, Friday the 13th has never stopped reinventing itself and this reinvention only became more and more radical as the series progressed. In film V, the killer is a paramedic in a Jason mask trying to avenge his son's death, leading to a conclusion wherein the older Tommy Jarvis seems set to take the stage as the new antagonist--and then, in part 6, this ending is reworked and Jason is resurrected from the dead by lightning. Now, Jason has become a super powered zombie that truly is, for all intents and purposes, invincible. This lasts for two more movies until we reach part 9, the abominable, sickeningly stupid Jason Goes to Hell which almost ruins the series with its left field accusations that Mr. Voorhees is in actuality an evil spirit of sorts that can possess other bodies. Finally, we find ourselves at Jason X, where Jason is, well, cryogenically frozen for a thousand years and wakes up on a space station. Now, if we were to watch the original Friday for the first time again, could anyone ever predict that the series would take the course that it did?

All of this wandering around is just again to prove the point that even though the previous movies all were in continuity with each other (more or less), they reinvented the concept time and again to the point where, by the end, it had little in common with the original idea. To that end, what's wrong with another take on it?

However, there's more potential to the idea of a Friday the 13th remake than that implies. Far more. Assuming that the makers of this remake don't fuck it up, we're being given the chance to start from scratch, take all the best parts of the previous series, ditch the worst and maybe finally, for the first time, truly be consistent. We can now start with a disfigured, mentally retarded hulk by the name of Jason Voorhees avenging the death of his mother and not have ridiculous Jason Goes to Hell type complications to ignore. In fact, there's even unexplored territory to cover in the story of Jason; I know not everyone cared for the way that Rob Zombie fleshed out Michael Myers in his Halloween but I personally thought it was fantastic. I'd love to see Jason receive similar treatment, because the tragic concepts behind the character hold a lot of potential even beyond that of Myers, potential that as of yet, has never been covered before.

So, as sacrilegious as it might seem to some, I throw my full support behind the Friday the 13th remake. Sure, it's entirely possible that it might not live up to the potential behind it but shouldn't we, the fans, give it a chance? I'd love to hear any of your opinions, both positive and negative, so please feel free to leave comments.

Over and out,
- Nicholas Conley