In Honor of Friday the 13th--JASON GOES SHOPPING!

Happy Friday the 13th, Vault dwellers. I've never been very superstitious, so I've never really attached bad luck to it. As a matter of fact, it's a day close to my heart, because I was actually born on one. I know, not much of a shock there. Anyway, in recognition of the day, please enjoy this marvelous fan film by Sean Dillin, featuring a certain Mr. Voorhees.

You know, I think I may have actually been behind the big guy at the Stop 'n Shop checkout a time or two...

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The Many Faces of Jason Voorhees

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Retro Review: Friday the 13th

This week brings a very special Retro Review, as I had the distinct honor and privilege tonight of watching the original Friday the 13th with the lovely Pamela Voorhees herself, Ms. Betsy Palmer. It all went down at the Avon Theatre in Stamford, Connecticut, and it's not an evening I'm soon to forgot. It was freezing cold tonight in CT, complete with unseasonable sleet and driving wind. Yet so completely worth that 18-mile drive down I-95...

Betsy was completely disarming, glowing at age 82 in her Japanese blouse (which, she admitted, was a poor replacement for her classic cable-knit sweater). She was exceedingly patient with her adoring fans, and took the time out to provide us all with great insights and opinions on her part in horror movie history.

She informed us, for instance, that she thought Victor Miller's script was "a piece of shit" (sorry Victor!), but agreed to do the film because the $10,000 paycheck was exactly the price of the new car she wanted to buy. Horror movies have never been her cup of tea, and she has never even seen any of the myriad F13 sequels. And yet she remains humbled and pleased by the tremendous success the movie has enjoyed (although as she also informed us, it has not brought her dime one in residuals).

But by far, Ms. Palmer's most fascinating insight involved her telling us all, in great detail, of the involved backstory she created for Pamela Voorhees in preparation to play the character. The audience sat in rapt attention as she told us of Jason's mom, as she pictured her: A pregnant teenager in the 1940s, disowned by her family, rejected by her deadbeat boyfriend, forced to live in a home for unwed mothers, who eventually comes to Camp Crystal Lake as a way to make some money over the summer and provide a safe, happy environment for her young, troubled son.

What happens to the boy at that camp, she explained, gives Pamela all the justification she needs to do such horrible things. She never wants what happened to her to happen to another young mother and child. And even though Ms. Voorhees clearly has "a few screws loose", as Betsy explained, she felt the need to give her all this "justification" in order to do the role justice.

And honestly, it all shows on the screen. I have to say, I never imagined it, but I found myself getting emotional during that one moment when Ms. Voorhees flashes back to her handicapped son drowning in the lake as he calls out to her. Pretty crazy. And yet Betsy is that good in the movie, in what is admittedly a smaller role than I remembered. She literally brings the movie to another level when she sppears on screen, and is head and shoulders above the rest of the cast.

That's not to say the rest are no good. In fact, far from it; even though Halloween is a far superior film, it's not from an acting point of view. This crew of young people outshines the porno-level acting of most of the young cast in John Carpenter's movie.

Although I will say that one thing that bothers me is what often bothers me about a lot of slashers--the sloppy characterizations. I know it might be a bit pretentious of me to look for character development in slasher flicks, but sometimes the writing can be frustrating. Why, for example, introduce the concept of Steve and Alice's prior relationship, and how Steve is trying to win her back, if it will never be referenced again, nor pay off in any way? Why do we learn about Brenda's bizarre childhood dream, and get to know her and Jack as a couple, only for them to be killed off in the next scene with no rhyme or reason?

Sometimes this stuff can feel like filler, leading up to the "good stuff". But hey, maybe I'm asking too much. This will never be a film on the level of Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street, as far as I'm concerned, but it is a damn fine little slasher flick. And certainly far better than any of the crap that followed it in the series. In fact, watching this movie again makes me wish that big guy in the hockey mask never existed. This is Friday the 13th as it should be remembered, and yet this is probably the most overshadowed original movie of any franchise in existence.

The movie manages to both build real suspense, and deliver on the gore--a balance rarely seen in '80s slashers. Tom Savini, fresh off Dawn of the Dead, is at the height of his powers, giving us opened throats, axes to the face, and of course the very famous arrow through Kevin Bacon's neck. Then there's that amazing beheading of Ms. Voorhess in slow motion--complete with the grasping hands of the headless corpse as it collapses to the ground. Nice touch.

And yet Sean Cunnungham does seem to know how to create some serious tension. In particular, the scene in which Adrienne King is making coffee alone in the cabin, not realizing she is the only survivor left. It's an understated, taut little moment unlike anything we'd get in any of the hamfisted sequels.

Plus, a large amount of the tension can also be attributed to one hell of a score by Harry Manfredini, one which doesn't get nearly enough credit beyond the whole "ch-ch-ch-ha-ha-ha" thing. There's a strong influence of the Bernard Hermann Psycho score here, almost bordering on rip-off, but it works.

It was great fun watching this movie on a big screen with a live audience. Listening to the screams at all the right moments. There was a surprising amount of people who had never seen this movie before, and I think they were a little surprised at what they saw. It certainly has one of the most unconventional killers of any movie of its kind. The fight at the end, in particular, is very physical, and very real.

Ironically, it's reality that sets this movie apart from most of its successors. There is no unstoppable killing machine here. And when Ms. Voorhees struggles to kill Alice at the end, it's down and dirty stuff. For the most part, this movie is actually plausible--this all could happen. Betsy Palmer is so believable, in her infamous blue sweater (worn, she explained, to make her look more bulky so her feats of strength would be more believable), creepily intoning those words, "Kill her mommy..."

I got to hear Betsy utter those exact words to a live audience tonight. That alone made it worth the drive through all that sleet and wind. I also got to be in the audience with her as she watched it for only the fourth time. And she came away for the first time realizing what a truly scary movie it is. I'm glad I could be a part of that. Thank you, Betsy Palmer.

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TRAILER TRASH: Friday the 13th Edition!

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Connecticut-Area Horror Hounds Prepare for Autumn Awesomeness!!

I don't usually like to do posts with only regional appeal, but this is just too cool not to plug. If you happen to be anywhere near the vicinity of Connecticut, in particular the city of Stamford in Fairfield County, then ye olde Avon Theatre has a few treats up its sleeve for you come this October. The Avon has been pleasing cinephiles with showings of great old flicks for years now, but this time they've outdone themselves in the horror department.

I just came back from checking out their newly announced fall lineup, which includes:

NEAR DARK - Thurs. Oct. 1, 9 p.m.
The Bill Paxton/Lance Henriksen cult vampire fave that was actually thought at one time to have no surviving film prints, despite being a mere 20 years old.

THE CALL OF CTHULHU - Wed. Oct. 7, 7 p.m.
Yes, I'm talking about the rare, silent film that is still the only screen adaptation of Lovecraft's most famous story. Plus, it will be hosted by the one and only horror critic extraordinaire, Maitland McDonagh. RayRay, you really need to come up to CT for this one, my man...

FRIDAY THE 13th - Thurs. Oct. 15, 8 p.m.
Needless to say, we're talking about the original here. And on-hand that night for a special Q&A? Everybody's favorite cable-knit sweater wearing momma, Ms. Betsy Palmer herself!

ZOMBIE & DEMONS - Thurs. Oct. 29, 9 p.m.
For Halloween--a double feature of Italian horror goodness. First Fulci, then Bava. Cose di pazze!

And it ain't all about horror, because the Avon also has scheduled showings of Full Metal Jacket (12/3), True Romance (11/12), Life of Brian (12/17), and Witness for the Prosecution (10/22, hosted by Gene frickin' Wilder!). Check out their website for more info. You better believe I'm going to be heading out to check out as many of these as Mrs. B-Sol--I mean, my schedule--will allow. Anybody else in the CT area (I'm lookin' at you, J-Rock and Maweanne), come down and join me, won't you?

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The VOH Roundtable: Which Horror Fave Do You Think Is Terrible?

This week on the Vault of Horror Roundtable, BJ-C, RayRay and myself reached into our bag of contrarian tricks to come up with the horror films we specifically dislike that are genuinely loved and embraced by much of the horror community. Many of you should prepare to be pissed off--I know even I got a tad miffed reading one of this week's submissions... Ahem, anyway, without further ado, it's time to take a wizz on some horror favorites...

B-Sol
For months, I had read all the raves about Hatchet, seen the glowing praise heaped upon it at places like Ain't It Cool News and Bloody-Disgusting, as well as various message boards. "Old-school horror is back," seemed to be the general consensus.

Imagine how shocked I was then, to rent the damn thing and be confronted with one of the most amateurish, wrong-headed, derivative and falsely trumped-up pieces of horror cinema it's ever been my sad displeasure to endure? But I've got to hand it to the marketing gurus behind this one--they took a grade-A turd, polished it up real nice, sprinkled on some herbs and spices, and served it up as choice tenderloin.

Old-school horror? No offense, Adam Green, but old-school horror is Boris Karloff tossing little girls into lakes; Fredric March getting wasted on cheap wine and man-handling prostitutes; Max Schreck stalking the deck of the Demeter like a panther. Hatchet, on the other hand, is nothing more than a sad, masturbatory aping of a dated '80s subgenre that was never that great to begin with.

Ever the optimist, I somehow got it into my head that Hatchet might be an inventive, sinister new take on great exploitation horror like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Last House on the Left, like the best of Rob Zombie is. But what I got was a film literally devoid of imagination, with nothing fresh to say at all; rather, it's content to mimic all the worst cliches and stereotypes of '80s slasher movies, trying so hard to be like them that it only succeeds in resembling the very worst of them.

If that was your goal, Mr. Green, you succeeded. Congratulations. All the standard tropes endlessly churned out by the slasher purveyors are mindlessly followed, including most noticeably of all, those filmmakers' depressingly sociopathic disdain for their own protagonists.

Green raises the slasher movie, in its day viewed as the ultimate nadir of the horror genre, to the status of great movie-making, idealizing it to a ridiculous degree. Hey, everyone's allowed their guilty pleasures, and slashers definitely have a trashy-cinema appeal. A handful of exceptions, like the original Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, might even be damn fine flicks. I'm not saying there's no pleasure to be gotten from them. But I question any horror fan who limits himself to them, and considers them, without irony, to actually be quality pictures.

Hatchet is the filmic equivalent of "The Chris Farley Show". "Y-y-ya remember that time...in Friday the 13th Part VII...when that bitchy camp counselor opened the door...and Jason was standing right there? A-a-and he smashed her in the face with the axe...?? That was awesome...." It's disappointing that Green would content himself to be a filmmaker with such limited ambition--much like guys such as Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, who can't get over their adolescent fascination with one hackneyed subgenre, and continue mindlessly paying tribute to it for the rest of their careers.

Oh, of course, it's not purely an '80s-style slasher flick, because you also have your requisite post-modern irony thrown in for good measure. Telegram for Mr. Green: That was already done more than a decade ago in a movie called Scream. Even that's old hat now.

The acting is terrible. The script is painfully bad, with dumb joke after dumb joke. At times, it feels like you're watching a Sci-Fi Channel original movie. "Ah," you may say, "But that's what it's all about, man. That's what those movies were like! Green nailed it!" Well, yes, I guess he did. Once again, congratulations. You succeeded in making a bad movie that's a tribute to bad movies. Only in the 21st century could this be considered a positive. See, the difference here is that back then, the people who made movies like Chopping Mall, Slaughterhouse and The Slumber Party Massacre made them because they weren't capable of making anything better.

BJ-C
Jesus wept. And so do most of my horror colleagues when I tell them how I hate Hellraiser. Now, I love Clive Barker, and most of his writings. However, I do not enjoy Hellraiser AT ALL. Now, before everyone starts whipping their special edition puzzle boxes at me (which by the way, aren't very cool since they aren't even actual puzzles) note that I never ever ever ever ever enjoyed Hellraiser. I've watched it numerous times in attempts to give it another shot, but there's just nothing about the film I like. Okay, I'll give credit that Cenobites are pretty cool characters and Pinhead is truly an icon. Clive, you got me there. However, you can have the best characters since Shakespeare, but if the script sucks, it doesn't matter.

First. I hate the characters that aren't cenobites. Frank only cares about himself. He's completely self-absorbed and has absolutely no problem fucking his brother's wife. Keeping it classy, I see. Julia is JUST LIKE HIM. She's a megaskank and has no cares in the world when she bones her husband's brother. Right there is a perfect example of lazy writing. If, say, Julia was some super sweet girl who got mixed up, you might feel for her, but instead, it's just another random hookup on today's Maury Show.

BUT THEN--Frank comes back to life. WHY? Why the fuck would you bring back such a shitty character? When he died, I praised the day and did a little dance, but then that fucker comes back. Ruins my day everytime.

But what really gets me is that stupid fucking puzzlebox. It is by far the most confusing object ever brought into the horror genre. So blood can bring Frank back to life, right? Right? Well, here's where it gets confusing. Pinhead not only killed Frank, but he also CLOSED THE BOX and took it with him, which then CLOSES THE GATE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL. Frank died when the gate was open...in hell, not Earth. When the box is closed, the gate is closed as well. Frank has already been ripped apart, Jesus wept, and the gate closed. Frank stays in hell and all is well here on Earth. THATS WHERE IT SHOULD HAVE ENDED.

But no, we can't just end it there. Let's throw in an M. Night Shamyahymen and go TWIST ENDING... Blood can bring Frank back through a closed gate! But Pinhead can't... Pinhead can't get back to earth unless the box is open. Even though the Cenobites have all the power of hell on their side. I'm pretty damn sure that creatures with all the power of hell could get through a damn gate. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Okay, so Frank escapes the Cenobites when Kirsty opens the box and Pinhead is pissed. Because for some reason or another, in order to get Frank back, the Cenobites need Kirsty's help. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? You're demonic thingamabobs from HELL. Use your weird demon magic or something! The Cenobites thus become officially the shittiest characters. You may look hard, but if you need the aid of a teenage girl to find someone...you're not as hard as you look.

This film is super overrated. Just because a guy is going to "tear your soul apart" and has a bunch of nails sticking out of him is no need to worry. I've seen plenty of homeless people on the sidewalks of Chicago with nails in their head blabbering about souls. The book does such a good job tying everything together, but the film....doesn't. I hate Hellraiser...HATE.

RayRay
Since receiving this assignment from the exalted B-Sol, I have thought long and hard. There has to be some beloved horror movie I just cannot stand. Sure, maybe I am not the biggest Texas Chainsaw Massacre fan, and don't really appreciate Romero's seminal zombie flicks, but not as much as some. But can't stand? Sure. Beloved that I can't stand? That's tough.

So I am going to hedge and push the envelope of this assignment slightly. I am not going to talk about one film, but rather a franchise. And that franchise is Friday the 13th.

I will certainly be voted off the island, having become a heretic and an apostate all at once. But allow me to explain before casting me among the lepers. I think the original Friday the 13th was and is great. It was amongst the first in its genre, following on the coat tails of John Carpenter's Halloween, and was damn scary. Hell, it was scary even when it was edited for television.

And to tell you the truth, Part II wasn't a bad follow up. But it was the real beginning of what I consider a lousy franchise that exploited teens for their cash and really made a series of lousy movies that, in the end, became self parodying.

I wrote recently that I got sick of Jason Voorhees after he was killed by Corey Feldman. But in truth, that was being charitable. While the original was a good, scary movie about virile teenagers being silently stalked by a mysterious killer out for revenge, the continued serial returns ad nauseum of the wronged-little-boy-turned-relentless-zombie-murderer got old rapidly.

And they didn't end. Ever. Even when they said they would. Rather, while the original was released in 1980, Part II was in 1981, III in 1982, IV the Final Chapter in 1984, A New Beginning in '85, Jason Lives in '86, A New Blood in '87, Takes Manhattan in '89, the inaptly named Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday in '93, the exceedingly stupid Jason X in '01, Freddy v. Jason in 2003, and now Friday the 13th [part XII??] in '09.

This demonstrates the complete cynicism of the producers of these films, cashing in on Jason's hockey mask and machete wielding ways. And seriously, how many different ways can we, as an audience, watch Jason dispose of nubile young women? I have seen him stab, crush, twist, break, bend, and smash his myriad victims over the two-plus decades Jason has been in movies, and, in truth, it isn't really that entertaining.

I am sick, sick, sick of the silly, stupid and insulting manner that the writers of these crappy movies return Jason back to life, or at least to dry land. And, honestly, what the hell is Jason? I'll admit, not having watched the last 2 or 3 of these miscarriages of filmmaking, that maybe his origin was revealed or something.

Is he a ghost, a zombie, a vampire? All I know is that nothing kills him for long, and his bloodlust knows no bounds. And that's the end of the good news. Usually, when you have these qualities in a villain or monster, it is the beginning of a good horror story. But in this franchise that is where the creative process ended. After this, we are just served up imagination-free kill after kill, to the point that we look upon this violence as comedic. Now, if that isn't doing a disservice to the genre of horror, I don't know what is.

The series of Friday the 13th movies defined the horror genre for over a decade, with many spin offs and copycats. Even the original unstoppable masked killer, Michael Meyers, was returned to the silver screen in a wholly cynical attempt to cash in on the relative success of Jason's franchise, with the release of Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Meyers in 1988. Since then we have been treated to several more completely vapid returns of Michael Meyers, simply so some studio execs could cash in on teens with $10 in their pockets.

Jason was key in setting back the horror genre a full decade. Only recently has the genre, as a whole, begun to recover, in no small part thanks to the importing of the Japanese horror movies.

So before you get all up in RayRay's grill, ask yourself: are any of these good movies? The inescapable answer is no.

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Kane Hodder Speaks!

I advise you to head on over to Shock Till You Drop, where you'll find an exclusive interview with the legendary Kane Hodder, the big lug most closely associated with Jason Voorhees on the big screen. Hodder played the masked behemoth more times than any other actor, but right now he's promoting his newest flick, BTK, in which he plays serial killer Dennis Rader.

Hodder talks a bit about BTK, of course, but he also has a lot to say about other aspects of his career, including shenanigans on the set of Hatchet, acting vs. stunt work, and most interestingly of all, his opinions on the recent Friday the 13th remake, which he was infamously not asked to take part in. Here's a snippet:

"I haven't seen it yet, but I intend too because I'm a horror fan. I definitely have to see how Derek [Mears] did, because Derek's a friend. Even though I think I should be wearing the mask, I still want to see how he did and he wants me to give him my thoughts because it's not an easy part to play as people have found out. They think 'Oh, you just need a big guy and he has to do some violent things,' but it's not as easy as it sounds because most guys overact. You can tell by the way they're standing that they're trying to look scary, and that totally ruins it for me. So I want to see if Derek looks more natural than the other guys."

Hodder even gets into the whole "running Jason" controversy. Check out the interview in its entirety here.

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Ever Wonder What Jason Does the Rest of the Year?

It's entirely possible that Robot Chicken could be the most brilliant fifteen minutes on television today. Plus, it also helps that Seth Green and the gang seem to be some pretty knowledgeable horror fans. Here's an inspired clip they put together depicting Jason Voorhee's preparations for his favorite night of the year. Had to share this. The puzzle, robe and hot cocoa at the end clinched it:

Special thanks to the one and only BJ-C of Day of the Woman for pointing this gem out to me!

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Jason Breaks Character, Stalks Children

The Hollister Free Lance News reported yesterday that two schools in Hollister, California were shut down for a half hour due to a report of a man wandering the area wearing a hockey mask and carrying a knife.

San Benito High School and R.O. Hardin Elementary School were locked down at 11:45 a.m. and remained so until local police thoroughly checked the situation out.

No word on whether or not police actually apprehended the Jason wannabe. The incidents marks a surprising departure from his usual m.o.--since we all know that Jason's always gone out of his way to avoid threatening kids, right? This guy should have done his homework a little better.

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One More Reason to Like Judah Friedlander

Not only is he one of the people that make 30 Rock such a hilarious show, but Judah Friedlander is also one of us! Check out the shirt he wore yesterday to the Opie & Anthony Show on Sirius XM...


Yes folks, you heard it here first: Friedlander digs the F13. Picture was posted yesterday on Twitter by O&A co-host Jim Norton.

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Female Partier Turns Tables, Attacks Jason

Some strange news today related to the release of the new Friday the 13th. The New York Post's Page Six, that bastion of idealistic journalism, reports that Warrington Gillette, the first actor to portray Jason Voorhees the killer, wound up in the hospital after being wounded with an axe.

Gillette was on hand at a Hollywood party celebrating the new movie, dressed up like the murderous character he played 18 years ago in Friday the 13th Part II. Unfortunately, he also saw fit to wield a real axe in order to make the costume that much more convincing, and a woman at the party seems to have taken his performance a bit too seriously.

According to Page Six, the woman jumped the hockey-masked actor (you'd think he'd at least have had on the burlap sack for accuracy's sake) and tried to wrestle the axe away from him, in the process accidentally slashing his hand.

"It was straight out of a horror movie," a source told Page Six. "Lingerie-clad models were running and screaming, as a blood-soaked Jason ran off the runway to get to a hospital."

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VAULT EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Victor Miller, Writer of Friday the 13th

I had the distinct pleasure on Monday of speaking with the man largely responsible for one of the most famous and influential horror movies (hell, movies period) of all time. As a result, I bring to you my very first Vaultcast.

In 1979, at the behest of friend/associate/fellow Connecticut resident Sean Cunningham, Yale graduate Victor Miller would write the screenplay for a movie called Friday the 13th. Having never written a horror script before, Miller had no way of knowing that the film would literally alter the course of horror history, introducing the iconic Jason Voorhees along the way (although not as he originally intended).

I invite you to take a listen below to the half-hour discussion I had with Mr. Miller. In it, he touches on subjects that would be of interest to many fans of the genre, such as:

• Why he won't watch any of the sequels
• His falling out with Sean Cunningham
• The "mother issues" that led to the creation of Mrs. Voorhees
• Ripping off Halloween
• His debt to Hitchcock
• His thoughts on the remake (the script of which he's already read)
• How to interpret Friday's infamous "stinger" ending
• And much more...

If you prefer, you can also visit the official Vaultcast page, where you can download the file in its entirety to listen to at your leisure. Special thanks to Tracy MacMath for making this interview possible.

**UPDATE** Thanks to the incredible efforts of diligent Vault-Dweller Gord, you can now download a transcript of the entire interview in Microsoft Word, if you so choose. My humblest gratitude to you Gord, for painstakingly transcribing the entire bloody thing!!

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Will We See More Than Jason's Sack?

The answer to the above question would appear to be "Yes". According to IESB.net, Jason Voorhees will wear both the potato sack and famous hockey mask over the course of the Friday the 13th reboot, set to release on February 13, 2009.

Producer Brad Fuller told IESB that the new film will condense the first three movies of the original series. I'm not sure if this means that Jason's mother Pamela will make an appearance at the beginning, but it does mean that Jason will start out his killing spree wearing the sack (from Part 2), and then transition to the mask (from Part 3) at a key moment in the film.

Rumor has it that the crucial mask-donning scene has been shot both from behind and from the front, and that the decision will be made during the editing process whether to show Jason's face.

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Fangoria Visits the Set of Friday the 13th

Zack Carlson of horror magazine/website Fangoria checked in today with a report from the set of one of the genre's most controversial current productions, the "reboot" of Friday the 13th.

Specifically, it was the indoor Camp Crystal Lake set in Austin, Texas. Carlson reports that those in charge of the project are very respectiful to the original franchise (what else are they going to say?), and offers this interesting bit from producer Brad Fuller:

"We’re not going back to the original, but we’re using pieces from it. And we’re not disregarding the rest of the series, so fans will see moments from parts three, four and five. And then we’re trying to do some stuff that hasn’t been done before. At a certain level, this franchise started in a certain place and went off in another direction, and we wanted to go back where we thought it was the strongest—the first four movies—more or less use that as our template and go from there."

Fango's report also features comments from the film's stars, including Derek Mears (The Hills Have Eyes II), who is donning the hockey mask this time around. Read more here.

* * * * * * * * * *

Special thanks today go out to The Raven's Barrow, which included The Vault of Horror in its roundup of "5 Horror Blogs You Should Be Reading". Aw, shucks!

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SPOILER ALERT: Opening Scene of Friday the 13th Remake Revealed!

In case you've been under a rock, Friday the 13th has, in fact, been added to the parade of horror remakes. And yesterday, CHUD.com landed quite a juicy scoop--namely, a description of the opening scene:

The new Friday the 13th is going to open with Jason as a legend in the Crystal Lake area. Five kids out in the woods looking for a bunch of weed they planted and stumble upon the deserted Camp Crystal Lake. Sitting around the fire that night, the dweeby one (there's always a dweeby one) tells the legend of Jason Voorhees. After that the Survivor Girl and her boyfriend wander off into the woods, where they find a shitty old cabin. Inside are some clues, like a bed with the name Jason carved in it. An old picture of a girl who looks just like Survivor Girl. And Mama Voorhees' head. Cue Jason. He murderizes the other four kids, and as he grabs Survivor Girl... slam into the opening credits.

Sounds like this is definitely not a direct continuation, nor a straight-up reboot. You will remember that in the original Friday, Jason isn't even the killer. Rather, it seems to be a streamlined, out-of-continuity take on the franchise. For the comic book fans out there, think of it as "Ultimate Jason".
I have never very much cared for the Friday flicks, nor the '80s slasher genre in general. It will take a little more than this tidbit to get me excited to watch more pot-smoking teens get impaled on garden tools.
Shooting on the New Line/Paramount project begins in February, for a scheduled 2009 release.

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