Friday the 13th

Well, I've just returned from seeing the new Friday the 13th remake. It wasn't bad. It wasn't really good, by any means, but it was a typical, by-the-book slasher flick: plenty of hot people, topless girls, stupid choices and bloody death scenes.

I was surprised at how faithful a remake it seemed to be, with the one exception of **SPOILER** adding Jason Voorhees the hostage holder when he chains up a girl who looks like his dear, departed, decaptitated mother. I should also point out that this is, technically, a remake of the original Friday the 13th part 2; the original Friday the 13th is summed up in the prologue of this new movie, only telling us that Jason's mother offed a bunch of bad-at-their-jobs counselors, rather than showing it, thus giving Jason plenty of time to off a new bunch of campers (not summer camp campers, but, like, early 20s, college student partying campers).

I'm a bit unnerved by this surge of classic horror flick remakes (Halloween, Prom Night, The Hills Have Eyes, Dawn of the Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, et alia). For many of these films (particularly Dawn of the Dead, Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre), no remake was necessary; the originals hold up amazingly well, and are, in most cases, far superior to the new ones. The only possible exception might be Halloween, as Rob Zombie did a pretty bang up job with that one. My only real gripe was the opening 20 minutes or so, in which we see Michael Myers' childhood, thus giving us the motivation behind his serial killing ways. Part of the horror of the '77 Halloween was that there was no apparent motive, and thus no reasoning, no escape; all he wanted was to kill. That's the edge he has on Jason, Jason kills for revenge and for weird, Batesian mother issues.

But it was still a good way to kill a Friday the 13th night.

I really want a corn dog right now. And though I can get a battered sausage at any chip shop in Edinburgh, it's just not the same.

I'll be having one of those in July. In fact, I'll be having loads.

-stephen