8 Easy Steps To Make The Next Friday The 13th Great

As with any new installment in a long-running franchise, it's important to acknowledge what has come before. The Friday the 13th films have a long and storied past that is a mythos unto itself and it's important to respect that.

A great example of how not to do this was the aforementioned Michael Bay-produced remake. That film essentially decided to pick-and-choose scenes and kills from the first four films, attempting to pass it off as 'homage'. Simultaneously, it went about retracing the exact same mistakes some of those films made.

A new film should pay its respects to the stories that have come before while carving a new path. Because let's face it, the mythology of this series is absolutely bonkers and was being completely made up as it went along.

So while a reference or two to Jason's overbearing mother would be well-earned and appreciated, there's no need to stop the story dead-in-its-tracks with trying to explain/understand how Jason could have drowned years earlier in the first film only to still be alive to witness his mother's death in the second.

Simply focus on the story being told and how the characters are experiencing it, rather than feeling obliged to dump exposition all over the characters and the audience. It's not 'homage', it's lunacy.