'Friday the 13th' review

Amanda Righetti and Jared Padalecki (Credit: John P. Johnson/Warner Bros.)

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Clay (Jared Padalecki) goes searching for his missing sister (Amanda Righetti) in the area around Camp Crystal Lake, but what he doesn't know is that four of her friends were slaughtered by machete wielding madman Jason Voorhees during the extended opening sequence of this '80s slasher remake.

The buzz: The release date (Friday, Feb. 13, 2009) exists and therefore the movie does too. But is the braintrust behind the pretty dreadful "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake (including director Marcus Nispel and producers Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form) the best team for the job? At least there's nothing sacred about the source material this time around—the original "Friday" was always a guilty pleasure at best.

The verdict: Yes, there will be blood (lots of it). And yes there will be boobs (no less than three actresses fill the gratuitous nudity quota). So yes, for better and mostly worse, this is the same old "Friday." You might think a remake would allow the filmmakers a fresh stab at a familiar story, but rather than ratchet up the series' grit or intensity—à la the recent redos of "Halloween" and "The Hills Have Eyes"—this "Friday" never sets itself apart from a long string of flavorless, assembly-line sequels. The original's twist ending is quickly dispatched in the opening credits, before we even meet the uniformly boring and interchangeable new characters (only supporting player Travis Van Winkle stands out—as someone you want to see killed as painfully as possible). What's left is less a "reimagining" than a depressing jumble of pot jokes and torture porn. Any self-respecting horror fan's money is better spent on the comparatively genius "My Bloody Valentine 3D," which covered this territory with significantly more demented glee less than a month ago.

Did you know? In case you're not a learned "Friday" scholar you may wonder why it takes nearly half the movie for Jason to don his iconic hockey mask. Answer: the burlap sack he sports through the first half is a nod to the killer's head-gear in "Friday the 13th Part 2." There, don't you feel smarter?

See what fans say about "Friday the 13th" after a midnight screening.

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