FRIDAY THE 13TH

US, 2009, 97 minutes, Colour.
Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amandar Righetti, Travis Van Winkle.
Directed by Marcus Nispel.

Almost 30 years on from the original, followed by ten sequels or so, and with such concoctions as Jason Vs Freddy (Krueger, that is), who would have thought it necessary or desirable to start again? But original director, Sean S. Cunningham, has produced this film and here we go again. Since it is designed solely for terror/horror fans, the plot is well-known even to the younger generation (whose parents relished the first Friday the 13th and are now 50 plus!!).

However, we get it three times: first, the killing of Jason's protective mother and Jason's mental state and vengeance; then a 15 minute initial run where some very disposable characters, judging by their sex talk and behaviour, their crass mentality and language and their obsession in finding marijuana crops, are violently disposed of; then comes the title and a new group of slightly less disposable characters and a young man searching for his sister who may have survived the first round. That means trudging through the woods, going into the lake, discovering a deserted and sinister house – before Jason finds them. And, as always, there is the possibility of a sequel – which are usually just repeats.

If the writers spent more than five minutes on most of the script, they were wasting their time, taking too long. Anybody given an impromptu writing exam which required no imagination or word power could probably do better than this.

In Canada, it is actually called Friday the 13th Part 12.