Review #399: Friday the 13th (2009)

October 2026 Horror Reviews #27 - Friday the 13th (2009)

Just when you thought I was done covering the Friday the 13th series, much like Jason after you thought he was dead, I'm back for one more! There was a distinct boom of gritty modern remakes of old movie franchises in the late 00s, and Friday the 13th was no exception. In this entry, we kinda sorta get a retelling of the first four Friday movies, starting off with a very quick summary of the climactic fight where Pamela Voorhees got her head cut off on the shore of Camp Crystal Lake (though this time it's set in 1980). We then fast forward to the "modern day" of 2009, when a group of college kids go on a hike out to the environs of the abandoned camp to look for a grove of marijuana plants they were told about. After a spooky campfire tale about the boy who drowned (but somehow came back) and then watched his mother die, the college kids (seemingly) all get killed by a mysterious outdoorsman.

Fast forward again to a couple months later, some other college kids are going out to a lakehouse getaway, and they run into Clay, a guy who's come out to the area looking for his missing sister Whitney, one of the hikers that got attacked earlier in the movie. As tends to happen in these movies, these young adults run afoul of one Jason Voorhees, who stalks and kills most of them until Clay discovers Jason's underground hideout where he's been keeping Whitney prisoner (as it was mentioned that she looks like Mrs. Voorhees did when she was young). Bing bang boom, they fight Jason, they kill him (or did they!?) and then the movie ends.

I think this is a very competent film, and I would probably rank this above most of the entries in the series just because it delivers a solid experience without too much fluff or nonsense to pad it out. It's actually very well-paced (the opening ~30 minute is almost TOO fast, but understandably they had a LOT of ground to cover so that they could get to the story they actually wanted to tell) and the majority of the action is really good. The characters are pretty stock standard and stereotypical, but that's not a bad thing- unlike most of the Friday movies even the stereotypical characters get time to show multiple dimensions and none of them overstay their welcome or cross any lines that make them annoying. I really liked how they essentially took the character of Rob from The Final Chapter and made him the protagonist- I did always think it was weird how small of a part he was in that movie. (And while they sort of fixed the timeline issue where he was out searching for the killer of an incident that occurred less than a week prior, in this movie Clay's sister went missing "a month and a half ago", which feels fine for his motivation, but doesn't quite fit how adamant the police are that they've already exhausted every avenue in their search. I feel like this sort of investigation would take months, possibly years. But what do I know?)

I also really like how they changed Jason's design a bit. Visually he's very large and lean, which is nice, and I guess the change to the hockey mask (making it look old and dirty, as he finds it collecting dust in a barn) is fine, but I really REALLY like how they made him into more of a survivalist/trapper in this one. The revelation that he's been using makeshift tunnels to get around was cool, and all of the traps and alarms he uses to know where intruders are is a nice excuse for how he always seems to show up right when people expect him least. But they still pay lip service to the idea that he died as a child, which is silly, and it really would have been nice if one person (even in a weed-fueled haze) said "But wait, how did he grow up if he died when he was a kid?"

Anyway, I don't really have much else to say except that this is a fun, well-made film that does a good job of paying homage to this long-running series without overtly screwing anything up. Will I feel the same way about its counterpart, with A Nightmare on Elm Street? Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Overall Rating: 9/10 Weirdo Hillbilly Mannequins

Quick Turnaround: Richard Burgi, the actor who played Sheriff Bracke, allegedly learned he got the role a mere 12 hours before his scenes needed to be shot! (Also, bonus bit of trivia: the character's name, "Bracke", is a reference to author Peter M. Bracke, who wrote the book Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th.)