3. Friday the 13th (2009)
The original Friday the 13th is undeniably a classic, but the remake is everything I want out of a Jason movie. The original might be more well made as a film, but if I'm given the option to watch the 1980 version or the 2009 version, if I'm being totally honest, I'm going with the 2009 version.
It’s a shame that the Friday the 13th remake didn’t catch on, because it was probably as good of a modern Jason movie as we were ever going to get. After the series had spiraled out of control with Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X, this movie brings us back to basics, and there’s something so refreshing about being back to just Jason in the woods again. What I love about this movie is that unlike the disappointing Nightmare on Elm Street remake, this movie doesn’t just redo every scene from the first movie. Instead, it combines a bunch of the plot from the first three movies but also does its own thing, not emulating any moments from the original series exactly. In contrast, the Nightmare on Elm Street essentially just redid all the famous moments from the original, and what's the point of that?
While for the most part, it's just standard slasher fare, the movie does actually make some bold moves, like with the amazing opening sequence, by far the best part of the movie. The movie sets up a group of teenagers that appear to be the main characters of the movie, and things seem to be going along about as we would expect it. Then, before we know it, Jason kills every single one of them, and the “Friday the 13th title card pops up over 20 minutes in. Then the movie basically starts over and we're introduced to the actual main characters of the movie. I couldn’t help but laugh when I first saw this, and I love the way the movie plays with our expectations like that. It’s interesting and creative for a horror remake, and that alone gives me a lot of respect for this movie. It’s a shame we never got a sequel to it and that the upcoming film is said to be another remake, because this movie lays the groundwork for a new franchise pretty well.
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