Author's Note - Remakes

Remakes are a touchy subject for many people. There are several that feel like they are nothing more than an excuse to cash in on a recognizable title without even trying to make a decent movie. Michael Bay is guilty of this with his attempts to reboot both the “Friday the 13^th” and “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchises.

Some remakes feel like the cast actually respect the original and just want to have fun making their version; these are fine because they feel more like plays whereas nothing new is usually added but some characters are fleshed out more or are played out with a different style. Some of these films actually use the original novel as source material more so than the original film production.

Then there are the very few where the cast, director and actors, are taking the original idea and are adapting their own interpretations. This approach works at times but can easily backfire as well. Just because your passion for the film and your ideas in how to fix it or make it better might not actually be the best for the project or the legacy of the original film.

While preparing for this theme, I’ve noticed that the opinions of people who saw the original versions versus those who are now just old enough see the remakes makes a large difference. Younger viewers are more accustomed to seeing CGI in almost everything, expect more violence and realistic gore than films from the 1970’s and 1980’s, and want to see cast members that they are familiar with. Keeping these notes in mind, I will try to write my reviews as neutral as possible.

Friday the 13th (1980)

"Friday the 13th" is one of the major influences for the sub-genre of slasher/stalker movies of the 1980's. It set the standard for killing people in unique ways, included plenty of sex and drugs, and had a twist ending. It wasn't the first to do any of these but it solidified the chemistry of these elements and applied it to each sequel that followed . As a horror film, it is inferior to "Halloween" with it's cast of actors and general sense of suspense. Where "Friday the 13th" really delivers is with the twist that it's Jason's mother that is the killer at the end. This was a surprising twist at the time and became the basis for an interesting mythos in the "13th" series.

Favorite death scene - Of course the best is the showdown between Alice and Jason's crazy mother. Why? Because this is really the only characters you care about in this movie.