The Michael Bay-produced, cold, clinical remake of Friday the 13th misses the whole point of the original, where the gritty, 70s aesthetic is mistakenly interpreted as 'dimmer lighting' and the killer isn't even Mrs Voorhees - instead deciding to skip straight to Jason. This facet inherently misunderstands what is actually a story of one woman's grief-propelled revenge spree (although they nailed the whole sex-is-bad thing, to be fair). As well as that, they've thrown in the additional angle of Supernatural's Jared Padalecki looking for his missing sister - both of whom end up being the only two survivors, meaning the original gang of sex-crazed party teens we followed from the beginning were literally just there for the body/boob count. The filmmakers think this creates more tension, more emotion and basically more of an interesting plot - but they're wrong. The thing about classic horror films is that they're not broken, so they shouldn't be "fixed". They either know or think they have to add in additional story elements to make their version worth telling - after all, if it was just the exact same film as the original, there'd be no point telling the story at all. Damned if they do, damned if they don't. Also see: most other Platinum Dunes remakes, like The Amityville Horror, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hitcher... the list goes on.
Cinephile since 1993, aged 4, when he saw his very first film in the cinema - Jurassic Park - which is also evidence of damn fine parenting. World champion at Six Degrees of Separation. Lender of DVDs to cheap mates. Connoisseur of Marvel Comics and its Cinematic Universe.
