The Horror, The Horror...

I was smart enough about six months ago to swear off any and all films either directly or indirectly linked to Asian horror movies. After subjecting myself to the idiocy of Americanized versions of “The Grudge”, “The Ring 2”, and “Dark Water” & suffering through “The Host”, I finally came to my senses - I’ll never get those countless hours I wasted back, but at least I won’t use up my precious PS2 Madden time on that Far East drivel anymore...

A small, temporary victory for my brain cells, it would seem. Now I have to convince myself to keep my distance from American remakes of American horror movies from the 70s and 80s. If I can find an ounce of will power to stay away from flicks featuring cursed summer camps and deformed psychopaths, maybe my frontal lobe will survive for a few more years...

You see, I just subjected myself to the ‘reboot’ of “Friday the 13th” on DVD last night. As you kids know (because I would never insult your intelligence like Hollywood does), this re-launch of the Jason Voorhees franchise comes after similar ‘re-imaginings’ of “Halloween”, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Hills Have Eyes”, “The Last House on the Left”, “My Bloody Valentine”, “Prom Night”…did I leave any out? Probably, but that’s just Agent 5150 trying to keep your cerebral cortex from turning into a fried egg (“This is your brain”; “This is your brain on Ron Zombie”)...

I could turn this latest FV video review into yet another diatribe on how the suits in L.A. can’t come up with an original idea to save not only their own lives but those of their grandmammies and their interior decorators, but let’s focus instead on how hard it is to make a truly scary movie. Not only was it stupid to remake all of the aforementioned horror ‘classics’ from a creative standpoint, but the dimwit factor grows exponentially when you consider that the source material (for the most part) wasn’t all that great to begin with! Does anyone really think the first “Friday the 13th” was a good movie? Unfortunately, the only thing it did effectively back in 1980 was shine a dingy light into a dark corner of our collective psyche and expose the disturbing fact that we like to see stupid people get hacked and slashed to bits. In turn, this opened the door for the recent wave of disgusting ‘torture porn’ like “Hostel” & “Turistas” where any dense plotting or humor quotient is viciously squeezed out and left to flow away like blood seeping into a grungy floor drain...

So, now you ask: “What movies have scared the normally unflappable Agent 5150?” Ironically, the first two flicks that pop into my mind are a sequel (“Aliens”) and a remake (John Carpenter’s unbelievably tense version of “The Thing”). Beyond that, it takes some vigorous mental calisthenics to dig deep and maybe add in “Jaws”, the “Final Destination” flicks, and the ending of “The Blair Witch Project”. If you want a good mix of splatter and dark humor, I’d say “Re-Animator”, “An American Werewolf in London”, and “The Evil Dead 2”, but I wouldn’t really call them scary or edgy...

All that being said, the new “Friday the 13th” isn’t abysmal. It’s just sad. No depth is added to the Jason Voorhees character; in fact, he has now become indistinguishable from Leatherface (JV also now keeps mementos & trophies like bones, skulls, dolls, and dead camp counselors’ whistles). The shallow part of me would like to point out that there are some fine female...um...embellishments in the 2009 version of “13th”, but a few spectacular chests and a soundtrack that includes the Hives & Night Ranger won’t stop me from tossing this flick into Crystal Lake...1 ½ Eddies out of four.

Please, please keep me away from “H2” later this year...I swear I’ll polish your machete if you help a brother out!!!