Friday the 13th remake

[crazy raplh]

An Open Letter to New Line Cinema, Platinum Dunes and Friday the 13th Fans

Jason junkies, cinema snobs and everyone in between, welcome to our corner of Friday the 13th fandom! For those of you living at the bottom of a lake, a month ago Variety reported that New Line enlisted Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes to develop a remake of Friday the 13th, remixing elements of the first four films. This is your friendly, neighborhood webmaster Blake Washer, and for the last thirty days I’ve been listening to the reaction of fans, talking to friends and turning over my thoughts on this development. The one question I’ve inexorably returned to is “Why?”

In 1992, Jason jumped ship - and I don’t mean the boat in Jason Takes Manhattan. Sean Cunningham came back into the picture and brought Our Man Voorhees with him to New Line Cinema, home of fellow slasher icon Freddy Krueger. Though they had to wait another ten years, the pairing paid off. Freddy vs. Jason was the most successful film of both franchises and number one at the box office in the US for two weeks. Now just three years after, the Friday the 13th series is being restarted. Remade. Reimagined. Why?

Freddy vs. Jason wasn’t New Line’s only 2003 horror hit. The Platinum Dunes-produced Texas Chainsaw Massacre inexpensively resurrected Leatherface and his kin to great success. The genesis of the Friday the 13th remake is obvious. The difference is, Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a dead franchise and never much of a series to begin with. Each of the sequels featured dramatically different takes on Leatherface and his family (including the last, a reboot attempt itself). So while many fans weren’t sold on the need for a remake, it wasn’t preventing something else from getting off the ground. Same situation with Platinum Dunes’s (non-New Line) second rehash, The Amityville Horror.

If the remake leaves Jason’s character largely unchanged, what’s the point of doing a remake at all? It would be just as easy and far more attractive to fans to do a proper sequel and fill in necessary backstory through flashbacks. Audiences would love a dark, definitive Friday the 13th sequel. If the reason for starting over is a dramatic change to the Voorhees saga (producer Brad Fuller says, “we will make it a distinctively different story”), what about the worldwide recognition of who and what Jason is? What about the audience that made Freddy vs. Jason a hit three years ago? The series has a definite mythos and deconstructing Jason unravels that legend as well as the licensing opportunities tied to it (books, comics, toys, etc.) It’s hard to see the purpose of rewriting twenty-five years of history.

So who am I to be second-guessing The House That Freddy Built? I don’t hide my admiration for New Line Cinema, and I’m not trying to give anyone a hard time. I’m not calling for a petition, or a boycott. I just want people, producers and fans, to understand where I’m coming from. I’ve been at this for nine years. So to spend all this time and effort carving out a place for Friday fans but keeping quiet when I see the one thing that could finally kill Jason coming to pass... well, I’d feel a bit of a fool not speaking up.

The question is “Why?” Why fix what isn’t broken? I don’t expect a satisfactory answer, but I have to ask.

Blake Washer
March 14, 2006

[alkytrio666]

Originally posted by crazy raplh
The question is “Why?” Why fix what isn’t broken? I don’t expect a satisfactory answer, but I have to ask.

Exactly.

Okay, I know there are a lot of people that don't give the F13 series a serious role in the horror genre...in fact, some of you hate it.

But the first three are spectacular, and should NOT be remade.

They should be left the way they are...campy cheezefests that are fun to watch with friends.

[Posher778]

I think The friday series broke before it even started.....

I didn't like any of them...

[The_Return]

Ive seen three F13 films: the first 2, plus Freddy Vs. Jason.

I enjoyed the first one more than I enjoy most slashers...it had some good atmosphere, nice kills, was paced well, and one of the best shocker endings of all time.

The second was the opposite. Horrible pacing, completly cliched, and had the one thiing that most slashers have wrong with them: A long, boring, pointless scene of a girl running from the killer. TCM is the only film I can think of where that kind of scene actually worked.

Nobody will agree with me here, but I'd have to say FvsJ was my favourite of the lot. It was what a slasher should be: Mindless, quick paced, full of over-the-top gore and crazy kills...lots of fun overall.

Personally, I dont think a film like F13 should be remade. It has tons of sequels, with the most recent only 2 years old. Why restart a story that's still going? Even Hollywood should be too smart for that, another sequel would make just as much money as a remake, plus it wouldnt anger the fans. Best of both worlds, no?

[friday13thfan]

being a F13 fan (note my name) I really don't want a remake... They are as good as they are...If any one needs to be remade its jason goes to hell which sucked beyond all reason. But really Its like when they remade TCM... There was no point cause the original was classic but they still did it... Hollywood needs to stop making god damn remake!:mad: So yeah.. sequal=yes, remake=no

[alkytrio666]

Originally posted by The_Return
Nobody will agree with me here, but I'd have to say FvsJ was my favourite of the lot. It was what a slasher should be: Mindless, quick paced, full of over-the-top gore and crazy kills...lots of fun overall.

See Part 3. Or 6. IMO, they're all worth watching, all really fun films...but those two are the best, with Part 1 coming in at third best.

[SKOOFx]

6 is the WORST!
ill never understand how people like that one. The paintball scene, and all that crap. SOO STUPID


3-4-5-8 = my fav

7 = different but still kool

[VampiricClown]

A remake would suck. I've currently watched 1-2 and FvsJ. I just bought the rest of them and will begin watching them. But that would be worse than remaking NOES, seriously.

[NECRO666]

I hate fucking remakes. WHY fucling remakes why not be orignial.

[ItsAlive75]

It seems as though doing a sequel is just a smart idea in every conceivable way. If production companies wanted a remake so they could make jason look new and different (purely visual reasons), you could still do that with a sequel. Jason has looked noticably different in EVERY F13 movie since the second film. If they want to use Camp Crystal Lake again, they could still do that. Hell, if they wanted to use the same DEATHS as the first film, they could probably still do that (maybe as homages to earlier films). Seriously, the F13 franchise hasn't been about serious filmmaking. It's about pointless campy death scenes strung along for an hour and a half. A good plot or well developed characters are not necessary.

I think that's why we all agree that a remake is confusing... not a lot of thought needs to be put into a successful sequel, so why put the effort into making a remake that will satisfy such a large fanbase?