Screenhead

Michael Bay, what have you DONE?

You’ve singlehandedly mangled THE longest running horror franchise on the face of the earth.   You’ve taken a series that was at least halfway decent and completely violated it.

You miserable son of a bitch, you’ve ruined Friday the 13th.

Why am I leveling such vitriol a man who’s basically on public record that he cares not a whit for what damage he does as long as he brings in the bank?  Easy.  I’ll lay it out for you, but first the plot.  Borrowing a handful of basic elements from the original, Jason Voorhees, a possible hydrocephalic with mental retardation and a set of severe deformities, drowned one summer at Camp Crystal Lake because the counselors were off smoking weed and having sex and doing all sorts of random teenager things.  Momma Voorhees handled it the best way she could think of, and no, not by tying the Camp and its resources up for years in court.  She went nuts with a machete.  Of course, she didn’t survive the attempt, and somehow, son Jason (who apparently had not drowned after all, don’t even ask) survived the drowning to take over for Momma Voorhees and go on a killing spree.  Which he did.  Repeatedly, and often, over the course of the next several years.

I don’t know where to begin.  I truly don’t.  In the beginning, I was actually feeling pretty good about things.  Okay, sure—the whole opening premise was a complete bungling of canon, but it was really more of a condensing than a wreckage.  It was at least livable.  But it didn’t take long for things to get much, much worse.  Like when Jason SET BEAR TRAPS.  Or when he killed that one chick in the sleeping bag by setting it on fire instead of slamming the bag repeatedly against a tree.  Or when he used the cries of a dying man for BAIT.

And don’t even get me started on the secret network of tunnels that he’s somehow either created or commandeered from the heretofore unknown Crystal Lake Tin Mining Consortium Worldwide.  Seriously, there’s a network of tunnels.  He’s shown moving through them in the woods.  And I really doubt that whole line about the tin mining consortium, too.

The biggest problem with Friday the 13th is that so little of it is actually explained.  I have no idea how Jason survived the drowning that led his mother to a killing spree so that he could take over.  I have no idea where the network of tunnels Jason used to get around the Crystal Lake area came from.  I have no idea why Jason suddenly runs like a track star despite the fact that EVERY MOVIE BEFORE this one shows him at best speed walking.  I have no idea why he’s suddenly become some kind of devious mastermind despite the fact that, in terms of mental candlepower, he should be having a tough time beating a German Shepherd at Scrabble.

This is not the Jason Voorhees we know.  This is not the unstoppable killing machine that depends on sheer brute strength and a preternatural ability to move silently for his killing.  This is some kind of baffling criminal mastermind who just happens to favor bladed weapons for his killing.  This isn’t Jason Voorhees–it’s a mute Hannibal Lecter with a skin condition who’s been outside WAY too long!

And in this, Michael Bay and company have performed an act of maximum disrespect on the Friday the 13th series.  Thus, I exhort you all, if you have ANY respect at ALL for the series, you MUST NOT see this movie.

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