I've always been interested in the realities of movies. I liked movies that I could accept the reality of and believe it might actually be able to happen. All movies have some kind of a reality that can be grasped and accepted. Well, almost all movies. The one movie that, even as a child, never fully created a reality for me was Friday the 13th. I was forced to only watch that movie for entertainment purposes, which it was but there was always something lacking.
***WARNING: SPOILERS***
The reason I could never grasp or accept the reality of Friday the 13th was because there is too big of an unexplained hole in the premise. According to the original 1980 version Jason Voorhees drowned in 1957 (appearing to be around 10 or 11 years old, so for the sake of this blog I will assume he is that age), his mother avenged his death in 1958. This is where we fall into the hole in the plot. Twenty years later Mrs. Voorhees must avenge Jason's death again. This time she comes up against a camp counselor who puts up a fight. Mrs. Voorhees doesn't survive the night. Jason seems to have witnessed the death of his mother, therefore triggering the thirst for psychotic vengeance that he inherited from his mother. If that confused you at all then it means you are actually paying attention. Jason now must avenge his mother who died while avenging his death.
The only way that this is "explained" is that she developed a split personality and one of them is Jason at the age she assumed he died. Therefore she abandoned him to Crystal Lake and the woods surrounding it. But since he later kills a bunch of people he clearly did not die. He somehow took care of himself, later it is shown that he built himself a cozy little shack out in the woods. So he does grow up and is about 30 when he starts killing people. If Jason had in fact drowned and came back to life to kill he would have stayed the same age and would be a child running around Crystal Lake wielding all sorts of sharp objects.
This gap in time and space makes the story of Friday the 13th an impossible reality to accept beyond entertainment purposes. And I do admit that I find it very entertaining.
The 2009 version of the movie completely disregards the existence of any movie having been previously made. The reality has been completely rewritten. This "reality" claims that Mrs. Voorhees was killed while Jason was still a child and he watched it and then waited 20 years to start killing. Oddly enough this time shift isn't any more believable than the original. The reason for this is because the mother still went crazy and doesn't realize her son is alive and she should take care of him instead of avenging some fictional death. Although this version doesn't play it out quite as thoroughly as the original.
The newer version also has Jason more active then he ever was before. Although I guess technically there was no "before" so he could do whatever he wanted. So it is fine that he runs more then before, chasing people more then before. And now he seems to enjoy kidnapping people who resemble his mother. There really is no logic in that one.
This retelling, reality altering version didn't take the story anywhere. Didn't improve it. Didn't exactly make it worse. It still had the same hole in it, they just stitched a new story around it.
Remaking a movie like Friday the 13th isn’t an easy task because everyone wants to get right to Jason and his killing spree. However the first movie has a different story and is the set up for Jason, so it is required. So this is technically a remake of Friday the 13th II.
Friday the 13th is one of my top three favorite horror movie series. I just have to jump over the hole in the story and dive into the horror of Crystal Lake.
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