Friday 13th (and other reboots)

Ok, for some reason I'm excited by both Friday 13th reboot and the Nightmare on Elm St reboot. Even though neither have much to do with the original. Why?

Well I'm not really a fan of Friday 13th after the 3rd one, and I'm only a fan of Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare. I mean 3 was fun to watch, but the others were god awful.

Friday 13th is produced by Michael Bay, no I know what you're all thinking, because it's what i'm thinking. BUT he did produce the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and to be honest I enjoyed the remake. Although I'm not a fan of slashers because 99% of them are lame and funny at times when they're meant to be scary. I still sometimes switch my brain to mindless and enjoy what's presented in front of me.
For me the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre wasn't a masterpiece, but it went further in depth into the villain, and brought us a decent remake or reimaging or reboot.

This is what gives me hope for Friday 13th.

From the trailer this does sound just like a mindless teen slasher flick. However that's what the originals were; mindless slashers, for those wanting people be killed in imaginative ways. This rolls the first three movies into one, and even gives more depth to Jason "making him a cross between John Rambo Tarzan and the Abominable Snowman from Looney Tunes.

Jason from the 2009: Friday the 13th

I think the modern (aka 30s to mid 90's) horror films things were very black and white. The Bad guy was the bad guy, the good guy was the good guy and the damsel in distress was innocent and helpless. Now with postmodern horror. The bad guy is the good guy, the good guy is the bad guy, and the damsel in distress can be either gender and usually ends up saving the day.
I believe this is what they are doing with the reboot, and I welcome it.

In the 70s and 80s one successful cult film, spawned around 8 children. This happened with both Friday 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. (FT13th spawned more than 10 movies). This is what's wrong with these icons, after the 3rd ones they become tired boring clichéd, and laughable. You just see the same old movie with different actors, settings and deaths. Usually you get two great movies, an okay movie and the rest can go to hell.

This is why we need a postmodern reboot. It means fans of the old series can choose what universe to follow: The old series with one or two great movies, or the new series: Not as much impact, but 10x better than most of the sequels put together.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing the reboot of this film despite my hatred of reboots, remakes and reimagings of classic films, oh and my dislike for Michael Bay.

Another film I'm intrigued by is the reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street:

Most people reading this would check my temperature to make sure I’m not feverish. However I applaud the people rebooting the series. I have some arguments in their favour:

A Nightmare on Elm Street was a classic modern horror. The bad guy was evil, and the protagonist was sweet and innocent. It was originally meant to be a one off film, the ending was supposed to be Nancy waking up, and the whole film was a nightmare. Thus A NIGHTMARE on Elm Street. However the studios wanted to milk this horror dry and forced Wes Craven to do the one thing in the film in which I thought was the most stupid thing ever in film endings; and that was to put in a “twist” ending in where Nancy has another nightmare and Freddy kills her and everyone (or at least you assume until the 3rd movie).

After this the series went downhill until Freddy went from a scary silent killer to an unfunny stand-up act. It was just cringable watching someone who’s supposed to be as scary and as evil as fucking child molester killer, to someone who cracks jokes, and rides a skateboard. Yeah it sucks…

Things only improved again when Wes Craven came back and did the 7th Freddy Film with his original idea for the sequel to the original: Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Then came Freddy vs Jason, which the less we say about Freddy in that movie the better.

So to be honest if the reboot can make Freddy into a silent killer who hardly speaks, and when he does (“No, this is God”) it impacts on you, and is said with dark venom.

Which brings me to another thing which fans are writing hate mail to New Line about: NO ROBERT ENGLUND!!!!

Robert "Freddy" Englund waves us goodbye Freddy style

Well to be honest Robert Englund is the kind of actor which needs pushing to get a good performance out of. What I mean by this is that his performances are always better than average, but to be honest since apart from the 1st and 7th when have you really seen a good Freddy performance from Englund? The answer is never. He just does the basic stuff to get by. The point is Wes managed to get Englund to give a dark, amazing performance as Freddy. Directors just can’t tell Robert Englund to just go up on set and act, they need to coach him, push him to do it right. Wes and Robert seem to have that certain director-actor relationship. It works well and Robert Englund gives an amazing, scary performance.

So if we aren’t using Wes Craven as a director, there isn’t much point in using Englund. To be honest I welcome Billy-Bob into Freddy’s shoes (gloves and sweater). I think he may just be able to pull things off.

The new face of evil: Billy-Bob Thornton

This reboot may be the only chance to bring back a potentially good series in the franchise, it comes at a price (the loss of the original masterpiece) yes, but hopefully it will be better than 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 put together!

Lets just hope that anyway...