Piranha 3DD

Since the campy Piranha 3D made over $80 million (!!!) in the box office, it was inevitable that it would spawn a sequel. It's a difficult task to follow up a stupid hit with an inevitably stupider sequel, but the filmmakers got off on the right foot when they named the sequel Piranha 3DD.  That is simply sublime.  I don't think there is a better way to distill what this movie should be about than that: killer fish and big boobs.  Somebody give that title guy a raise!  Truly, this will live out its days with the royalty of movie sequel titles, like Electric Boogaloo and Die Harder.  Here's the thing, though: I didn't really like Piranha 3D.  Sure, it was campy and had some cheap nudity and gore, but it was too aware of its crappiness to for me to truly enjoy laughing at it.  I hate laughing with bad movies --- I want to laugh at them.  What are the odds that Piranha 3DD will be stupid, but still stupid-fun?

I started off liking Piranha 3DD's choices, right off the bat.  Piranha 3D set the stage for the inevitable sequel, but 3DD opts to completely ignore the ending of that movie; in a brilliant move, they acknowledge that some people died in a lake, thanks to some fish, but it's probably unrelated to what's happening in this film.  So, if you were hoping for some tighter continuity in this series, you're absolutely adorable.  And out of luck.  The story kicks off with Maddy (Danielle Panabaker) returning home from college, only to discover that the water park she co-owns with her step-father, Chet (David Koechner), is about to grand open with an all-adult section and a brand new name: "Big Wet."  That's a lot to take in at one time, I know, but try to digest it all.  Yes, a college student co-owns a water park.  Yes, it is creepy that her step-father is setting up a raunchy zone in said water park.  And, following that logic, the lifeguards in the adult section will be strippers.

"And the lifeguards can drop their kids off in the main pool while they're pool stripping!  Genius!"

As the days count down to the grand opening of the park, Maddy and her friends start to notice some strange things happening at the lake that is located near the park.  Luckily, Maddy is a marine biologist and quickly realizes that super-piranhas are entering the lake, somehow.  But that's just the lake.  It couldn't possibly affect the water park, unless it happened to be illegally siphoning water from that lake.

But then...how did...oh, I get it now.

One of the unexpected strengths of Piranha 3D was its surprisingly legit cast.  Piranha 3DD doesn't quite match its prequel in that department.  Danielle Panabaker was fine, I guess, as the character with the closest thing that passes for brains in this movie.I don't know why, but I keep expecting her to have a breakout performance one of these days, despite the fact that she doesn't even stand out in this crap.  Her romantic interests are played by Matt Bush and Chris Zylka; Bush appears to be doing his best impression of a young Seth Green here, while Zylka continues to play teenage jerks.  Both were fine for what their roles called for, but neither was particularly interesting.  Meagan Tandy and Jean-Lu Bilodeau  were only in the film briefly, but they were void of personality.  Paul James Jordan would have been completely forgettable, if not for the scene where he cuts off his penis to keep a piranha from eating him.

I don't know if I would be that calm, sir

David Koechner was his usual bawdy self, and it actually made sense for him to show up in this film.  He wasn't funny, but I kind of hate seeing him in movies, so this matches my opinion of his talents quite well.  I was a little surprised that Ving Rhames reprised his role from the first movie (as did Paul Scheer), but at least his small part had a moderately funny moment. 

...that had already been done in Planet Terror

Gary Busey and Clu Gulager showed up in the introductory scene and were reasonably amusing as idiot rednecks.  Ever since Scream revived the "kill the recognizable actor in the opening scene" film trope, I have enjoyed seeing how different films have embraced the tradition; I'm fairly sure that Clu Gulager is the most obscure horror actor I have seen in a scene like that, but I am definitely not complaining.  It may be nepotism on the part of the director, but it's obscure and fun nepotism.  I will complain about Christopher Lloyd's choice to return, though; for an actor that is as occasionally hilarious as Lloyd, he sure knows how to stoop to the level of whatever movie he's in.  He could have been one of the shining moments of this film, and he definitely was not.  David Hasselhoff was shockingly not terrible playing himself.  I definitely like his work in the Spongebob movie better, but his singing threesome scene was enough to balance out most of his all-too-aware-of-its-campiness part.  When you get right down to it, the only actor I liked in the movie was Katrina Bowden.  Her character was too stupid and sincere for words, but the more I see of her, the more I am impressed by her excellent comedic timing.  Plus, she had the best line in the entire film:

John Gulager directed Piranha 3DD, and it was written by his buddies Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan; the three worked together on all three of the Feast movies.  In case you're unfamiliar with those movies, Melton and Dunstan have also co-written the last four Saw movies, so if anyone knows how to make a stupid movie funny, it's...the guys who write torture porn?  That doesn't sound right.

If only they had this picture to inspire them to greater heights...

I'm not going to bother commenting on normal directorial stuff, like cinematography, editing, or tone, because this movie doesn't care about any of that.  Instead, I'll judge Piranha 3DD on what it obviously values.  It had to be campy, gory, prominently feature large breasts, and, as the sequel to an already unlikely and campy movie, it had to be pretty darn stupid.  If that doesn't sound difficult to you, think of the last movie you watched that was intentionally so-bad-it's-good.  They're rarer beasts than you might think.  So, how did Gulager do?  This movie certainly was campy, but nowhere near as funny as it seemed to think it was. 

Example page from the script: Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle [WAIT FOR APPLAUSE TO DIE DOWN]

Aside from Hasselhoff's narration-singing and bizarre post-credits scene, the only time I laughed was with the whole piranha-in-my-vagina explanation.  That's not a good thing, especially when you consider how many other characters are in this movie.  Instead of being ridiculous, like Piranha 3D, this movie was stupid, and then had the nerve to elbow the audience in the stomach and ask if they "got it."  As for the gore, there definitely was some.  My personal favorite moments included an annoying child's head being eaten, a cow carcass exploding, and (of course) piranhagina (AKA pussanha).

Thank God this didn't start with "This one time, in band camp..."

The rest of the gore was surprisingly tame.  There was a lot of fake blood in the water, but it definitely felt less explicit than the original film, and it sure was a lot less original.  The filmmakers went out of their way to show gratuitous nude shots at the beginning of the film, but I was surprised by how rarely I saw unnecessary nudity as the story wore on.  Wasn't the entire point of making this an "adult" water park to constantly have topless girls splashing in the background of scenes?  It seems like such an obviously exploitative move, and yet it was used so sparingly. 

Why is Botox 'n' Balloon Chest Barbie even in this movie if she's clothed?

How about the plot?  Yes, that was dumb.  I know, I know, the filmmakers had to come up with a way to get piranhas into a water park, and they did it.  I have no problem with whatever stupid justification they needed to get Jason into space piranhas into the water park.  My problem is that the writers felt that they needed to build up to that.  That meant there was less time spent in the novelty location (the water park) and more time spent rehashing the last film in and around a lake.  This is a movie about killer fish in a water park; if I needed a plausible concept, then I wouldn't be watching a movie about killer fish in a water park. 

Correction: a movie about killer fish in a water park that features Gary Busey exploding a cow

When it gets down to brass tacks, Piranha 3DD feels like the poor man's version of Piranha 3D, instead of the bigger and stupider movie that all sequels strive to be.  It wants to be dumb enough to love, that much is clear.  It is just missing the charm, wit, and tongue-in-cheek knowing humor that earned Piranha 3D 3.5 stars (out of 10) from me.  In other words, this movie sucks, even when compared to a movie I didn't like.  The humor is cruder, the tone was more irritating than campy, there were human villains for some reason, and there wasn't enough creative gore or nudity to keep me interested.  It just.  Wasn't.  Fun. 

When 60% of your jokes come from the Hoff, you have a bad script

This isn't just a bad horror movie, it's a bad horror movie when you compare it to bad horror movies.  I almost wish I had given Piranha 3D a better rating, just to illustrate how much worse this sequel is.  How about this: Piranha 3DD made about 10% of Piranha 3D's box office gross.  Ouch.  Comparing it to Piranha 3D isn't even an apples-to-apples argument, because that movie actually achieved its goal of being dumb fun.  This is a lot closer to Shark Night 3D; both movies tried to capitalize on the success of the last Piranha, but couldn't be bothered to be ridiculously over the top.  This was lazy and boring instead of dumb fun. 

"I'll have to scrub for days to get all the shame off me"

On the bright side, this isn't a movie that deserves active hatred, it had a few worthwhile moments, and about fifteen minutes of its runtime was devoted to the end credits/gag reel, so the pain was short-lived.  Let's just hope we don't see another sequel for a while.

The Ward

In 2001, John Carpenter directed Ghosts of Mars, and it was pretty terrible.  It was so bad that, even with Ice Cube, Jason Statham, and Pam Grier in the cast, the movie never even approached being an entertainingly bad action movie.  In recent years, Carpenter has let others remake his films (Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, etc.), but hasn't written or directed anything for the big screen in a long time.  The Ward is his first movie in ten years.  Was it worth the wait?  The answer to that question is an emphatic "no."

Ghost of Mars The Ward

Kristen (Amber Heard) was found alone in a nightgown, with no memory, in front of a farmhouse that she burned down by local police.  What do you do with a half-dressed pyromaniac, suffering from amnesia?  Throw her in the looney bin, of course! 

Not crazy enough to smudge her makeup, though

Kristen is placed in The Ward, which is apparently a specialized psychiatric wing that focuses solely on (mostly) attractive women in their twenties.  Note to self: if I ever open a psychiatric care facility, take only model-quality patients.  There are only a few (four!) other girls in The Ward, which seems both impractical and unlikely; granted, the film does take place in 1966, but even The Snake Pit had more patients than this.  Sarah (Danielle Panabaker) is the local mean girl, Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca) is the nice girl, Zoey (Laura-Leigh) acts like a frightened child, and Emily (Mamie Gummer) acts like a crazy person.

Why so serious?

Naturally, Kristen wants to escape this overcrowded hell hole, because amnesia and pyromania are not symptoms of mental illness.  She tries and fails, repeatedly.  In the process, she encounters what appears to be a ghost in The Ward.

Surprisingly, ghosts rarely have tangled hair.  Why is that?

No one seems surprised to hear her allegations, but no one will talk to her about it.  But then, the girls start disappearing one by one, victims of the ghost.  Why is this ghost killing insane women?  Why does she have it out for Kristen, who couldn't have possibly done anything wrong to the ghost?  The answer is underwhelming.

My biggest problem with The Ward was the odd nature of the ghost.  I suppose you can explain everything away with the twist ending, but...ugh...I don't want to.  The Ward is set up as a haunting story.  Something bad has happened, and a ghost is terrorizing these girls.  Simple enough.  The ghost seems to have the ability to show up anywhere, at any time.  And yet, ghost attacks are staggered over several days.  And the ghost obviously has a physical presence, since it snatches Kristen's blanket (what a bitch!), leaves behind a charm bracelet, and chokes, stabs, slices, and electrocutes different girls. 

Strapped in by a ghost who understands electrical equipment

What the hell kind of ghost is this?  If it wasn't for the creepy face and the teleporting, I would assume that the ghost was a real person.  And how do you defeat this killer ghost?  SPOILER ALERT: With a freakin' axe to the chest.  Of course that works; I've always felt that Ghostbusters was exaggerating the problem.  Yes, there is a twist that (kind of) explains these things (sort of), but the simple fact that no one in the movie notices how strange any of this is bugs the crap out of me.  All it would take is a couple of lines commenting about how ghosts don't steal blankets or ghosts don't usually have murders covered up by hospitals , but the audience isn't even given that much.

The acting in The Ward is not fantastic, but it is adequate for this story.  Amber Heard is decent as the main girl (the one with common sense), Danielle Panabaker is mediocre as a snotty stereotype, and Laura-Leigh overacted as the timid gal with a childish mentality.  Lyndsy Fonseca's character was a little less basic, and I thought she was fine as the friendly polite girl.  Oddly enough, Heard, Panabaker, and Fonseca played crazy characters that didn't look or act crazy at all.

Bitchy?  Maybe.  Crazy?  No.

Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep's daughter, was given the only role that required someone to act crazy.  I'm not sure how much I liked her.  Yes, she acted crazy, and yes, she was annoying.  It's not the worst crazy performance I have seen, but it sticks out here because the "crazy" women tend to act very normally.  Jared Harris isn't very impressive as the doctor masterminding the plot, but I will give him credit for seeming appropriately sympathetic and secretive.  None of the acting is particularly noteworthy, but none of it is awful.  After all, this is a John Carpenter film, and his stories are usually the focus.

I was very disappointed with John Carpenter's writing and direction.   I have nothing against plot twists, but The Ward's twist effectively negates any investment the audience might have made in the characters.  This twist was eerily (and unfortunately) close to the twist in Identity, and that twist suuuuuuucks.  If the script was tighter, the twist may have been revelatory, but it wound up simply feeling manipulative.  As for Carpenter's direction, his pacing was off from the start.  The only scares come in the form of "the audience sees something behind a character" startles, and they weren't even effective most of the time.  Thanks to the ridiculous story (which he wrote), the actors were given an excuse to portray their characters as shallow cliches, which makes this film even less fun to watch.  The Ward is just an all-around miss from a master craftsman that should have known better.

Ten years after his (arguably) worst film, John Carpenter returned with a vengeance.  Unfortunately, not in a good way.  I wasn't expecting a whole lot, given the cast, but I had hoped for a decent thriller or some classic Carpenter horror.  Instead, I was bored and had my intelligence insulted.

Other things that bothered me in The Ward:

• Apparently, the same nurse and patient-wrangler-guy work 24-7, and do not have any relief shifts.
• If the ghost can teleport, why does it take her so long to kill people?  Yes, the twist kind of explains it, but it bothers me that no one else asked.
• Why is Kristen the only one clever enough to escape from her room at night?  It took her, like, ten minutes to craft an escape.  None of the others have come up with anything after presumably months in the hospital?
• Why is the ghost's face disfigured?  That doesn't match the way she died whatsoever.

The Crazies (2010)

Let's face it: most Hollywood remakes fail to live up to the originals.  It's not always their fault; the films that get remade are oftentimes classics that are beloved by the general public.  Making an interesting remake and staying true enough to the original to please fans is a difficult tightrope to walk.  Well, if Hollywood insists on remaking a classic, it might as well be a cult classic.  The Crazies is a remake of the George A. Romero 1973 film of the same name.  Horror movie remakes usually irritate me, but there are two important differences between this remake and most others.  First, the original film is not very well known, so the new film's creators were probably not under a huge amount of pressure to keep the story exactly the same in the remake.  Second, and more importantly, George A. Romero was involved as a producer and was listed as a writer for coming up with the story.  That makes this a remake of a relatively unknown film that the orignal filmmaker was on board with.  Sounds promising.

Ogden Marsh, Iowa, is about as metropolitan as it sounds.  It's a podunk town in the middle of a podunk state. 

Side note: I hate Iowa.  Nothing good is in Iowa, it's just empty space between wherever I am and where I might want to go.  If I could remove a state from the US map and fill the empty space with some sort of travel tube technology, a la The Jetsons, I would in a heartbeat.  A close second place in that competition goes to Indiana.  End side note.  

It looks peaceful enough and there are no signs of any trouble; even the local law, Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and Deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson), are enjoying a high school baseball game when something strange happens.  Rory, a local resident, quietly walks onto the outfield, holding a shotgun.  Sheriff Dutton hurries out to talk to Rory, assuming that the man has had a relapse with his alcoholism.  Rory does not respond to Dutton's conversation, sporting a far-away look in his eyes and making no movement until he draws his gun on the Sheriff.  Dutton is faster on the draw, and shoots Rory dead.  Sheriff Dutton's wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell), is the town doctor; a local woman brought her husband by that day to be examined for having a far-off look and a failure to respond to others.  The day after Rory was killed, that man locked his wife and child in their home and burned them alive.  When emergency vehicles responded to the fire, they found him a safe distance away, with a far-off look, humming a song.

That's some weird stuff, man.  What's weirder is that the first man lived in the house furthest to the north, and the second man lived next door to him...and the guy who lives in the next house has been acting kind of funny.  When a pilot's body is found in the local swamp, Sheriff Dutton recalls the town liar claiming that he saw a plane crash in the area.  Dutton and Clark head to the swamp and discover a large cargo plane submerged in the water, which is also the water supply for Ogden Marsh.  And the water is supplied throughout the town, north to south.  Hmm.  You know, there have been no news stories about a plane crash or missing planes or pilots in the area...probably not a good sign for the citizens of Ogden Marsh.

Whoa, I'm psychic.  The next thing you know, dozens of troops and workers, armed and wearing hazmat suits, descend on the town.  They tell the townsfolk nothing, they just separate the town into a group that is running fevers and a group that is not.  The fevered folk (including Doctor Judy Dutton) are taken into a tented area, and the others (including Sheriff Dutton) are bused to a truck stop out of town, where they will presumably be regrouped and relocated.  I don't know what kind of a person you are, but Sheriff Dutton loves his wife enough to go back and help her escape treatment for what appears to be a virus that makes people homicidal.  That's love, people.  It's also stupid, but that's what love is sometimes.  Of course, what's the next step after saving Judy?  There are still troops trying to contain this whatever-it-is, and they are willing to use lethal force.  Where do they go?  Who do they trust?  And how do they know that they're not sick, too?  In order, the answers are somewhere else, their friends, and um.

This may start out as a bit of a mystery movie, but it quickly becomes one of survival.  Most survival movies involve a horrific accident or outbreak, like a plane crash or a zombie uprising; The Crazies is certainly more subtle than that, but that is part of this film's charm.  As a viewer, you know, because you saw the previews or looked at the movie poster, that something bad is going to happen, but there really isn't much of a reason for the townsfolk to.  This isn't one of those stupid horror movies where the lead actress has her late boyfriend's blood all over her clothes and is crying in the dark, "Is anybody there?" There isn't even a dam bursting of horror in this movie; the government intervenes before the infected start to attack the rest of the town en masse.

For that reason, this could also be seen as a political fairytale; the government that failed to act decisively with Katrina and the BP oil spill are able to contain an town-wide epidemic before anything truly horrific happens to draw attention to the town?  Man, I have seen some dark humor before, but this is just vicious!

The acting and directing in this movie are appropriate, but nothing spectacular.  Director Breck Eisner does a good job with the movie's pacing and manages to put together a pretty suspenseful film.  I thought the action sequences were good, too; I just got stitches in my hand from a knife cut, so when one of the characters gets a big knife thrust through his hand...well, that got to me.  Timothy Olyphant has played strong Sheriffs in the past, and he turns in another solid performance here.  His actions seem reasonable (except breaking his wife out of the quarantined area) and he is sympathetic.  He's not infallible, which leads him into some trouble, but I never felt that he was acting stupid, which is a huge plus in a movie like this.  Radha Mitchell was fine as his wife, but I'm tired of her playing a "woman on the brink" of something; seriously, I've seen her in Man On Fire, Finding Neverland, Silent Hill and now this.  Can't she play a happy person?  I liked Joe Anderson as the Deputy; it wasn't a complex role, but I thought he did a good job with what he had to work with.  Danielle Panabaker has a small role that requires her to scream and look moderately attractive.  That might not sound difficult, but that's because it's not.

I really enjoyed this movie.  Maybe I just wasn't expecting much, but I was definitely pleased with what I saw.  Any movie where you are fighting both an infected group and a government group can easily turn into a dumb action movie.  That wouldn't have been bad, either, but this just felt smarter than that.  There's a point where the Sheriff realizes that the local redneck hunting buddies are infected and chooses not to attack them.  That robs the audience of gratuitous violence (for a while --- it's a movie, so you know they'll be back), but that was definitely the smart thing to do in a live-or-die situation.  The movie is not flawless --- there is no need to begin the movie two days in the future, to show Ogden Marsh in flames, and then flash back for the rest of the film --- but there were a lot of nice touches.  I thought that the car wash and nursery scenes were two of the better horror scenes I've watched in a while.  The Crazies is not a movie that is trying to be inventive, it is just a well-crafted thriller with some horror elements.

Friday the 13th (2009)

Today is Friday the 13th, so what better way to spend the day than catching up with my favorite movie monster, Jason Voorhies?  This is the eleventh movie in the Friday the 13th franchise (twelfth, if you count Freddy vs. Jason, which I do), but it is allegedly a "re-imagining" of the series.  What does that mean?  Well, it's not an official reboot, but the hacks that brought you the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and The Amityville Horror (2005) remakes --- Michael Bay and co. --- decided to recycle any ideas they liked from the original series of film and pretend that it doesn't matter, because they started a new film continuity.

Personally, I don't care about continuity between horror films most of the time.  The last two Jason movies (Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X) made absolutely no sense in the greater scheme of things, so continuity is not a big problem for this franchise.

With that in mind, the movie opens with a flashback to Friday the 13th, 1980.  On that date, Pamela Voorhies killed a bunch of camp counselors because she blamed them for her son's death, years ago.  The last counselor manages to kill Voorhies and escape, but she doesn't notice the ugly little boy watching in the woods.  This misshapen lump is Jason Voorhies, who didn't die (which makes his mother's rampage even more ill advised) and takes his mother's body into hiding.  As the scene fades, we hear Pamela's voice urging Jason to kill for her...

Fast forward to the "present day."  Five teens are hiking through the woods, looking for a place to camp.  They pick a place nearby the old Camp Crystal Lake.  Two of the gang have led the group to that location because they got a tip that there is a sweet cannabis crop growing in the area.  Why this source never took the pot, I don't know.  So, at least two of the group are wannabe drug dealers.  The entire group drinks alcohol that night and one couple has sex.  As you might know from previous Jason movies, Mr. Voorhies (Derek Mears) is a little old-fashioned when it comes to teen drug use/drinking/sex.  Jason shows up and kills the living crap out of everyone there, making creative use of a bear trap and the campfire.  Well, he kills almost everyone.  It turns out that one girl, Whitney (Amanda Righetti), is the spitting image of the young Pamela Voorhies.  That means that the lucky gal gets to spend more time with Jason!

Six weeks later (so, for those of you keeping score, this movie takes place in the "present time" plus six weeks), Clay (Jared Padalecki) and his chin are combing the Crystal Lake area, looking for his sister, Whitney.  He encounters a truck full of (future Jason fodder) teenagers.  There are four guys (including Aaron Yoo and Travis Van Winkle), who are all complete jackasses, and three girls, at least two of whom are obvious sluts (Julianna Guill and Willa Ford).  The other girl, Jenna (Danielle Panabaker), decides to be nice to Clay because that's what you do when somebody is looking for his lost, presumed dead, sister.  Seriously, movie kids need to be taught some manners nowadays.  Well, the punk-ass kids are spending the weekend at one of their dad's cabins, which is in the neighborhood.  Clay is going door-to-door to talk about his sister, so he ends up knocking on their door and Jenna decides to join him in his search.  Right about now, Jason decides to start killing naughty teens.  That fills up most of the rest of the movie, until Clay and Jenna manage to find Whitney and decide to fight back.

Like I mentioned before, I am a big Friday the 13th fan.  The movies aren't usually good, but there is a certain sense of justice throughout the series: unlikeable kids do naughty things and get killed for it.  This movie stands out a bit because it tries to act as a reboot, but there is very little re-imagining done.  For starters, the origin story is basically identical to that given in Friday the 13th Part 2.  Jason spends about half of this movie with a bag over his face (like Part 2 and most of Part 3D) before finding his signature hockey mask, but if you ignore that, this could easily be Friday the 13th Part 12.  And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

When I learned that Marcus Nispel was going to direct this movie and it was going to be produced by the devil, I mean Michael Bay, I was uneasy.  Bay ruins movies, whether he produces or directs them, and Nispel directed the Bay-produced Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, which makes my Most Hated Movies Ever list.  Nevertheless, due to stupidity or obstinacy, I watched this film anyway.

And you know what?  It wasn't bad!  The first twenty-five minutes, when the first group of kids gets mowed down, was actually pretty rad.  Within that time frame, I saw an origin story (always helpful), met five new characters, learned to hate four of those characters, and those characters all died.  Short, sweet, and to the point: me likey.  Sure, the movie slows down when they jump to "six weeks later," but there's a killing at least every twenty minutes (thirteen total, a very respectable horror movie total) to keep things interesting.  Following in Friday tradition, there is also some gratuitous nudity in this movie, including five-ish breasts (one set was obviously fake, so the definite number is uncertain).

Despite the body and boobie count, this movie still has some flaws.  Shocking, I know!  This movie tries to serve as a reboot for the series, but the local police and townies know all about Jason: if your friend was last seen near Crystal Lake, they're not missing...they're dead.  And Jason has become part of urban legends, too.  So how much of a reboot can this be, if Jason has obviously been active for quite a while?

Okay, let's pretend that makes sense and move on.  I understand Jason killing the first group of kids.  They were lame and naughty near his turf, so he killed 'em dead.  I have no problem with that, which probably makes me a sociopath.  However, he later kills a local stoner and a cop in addition to going after all the tools hanging out at daddy's cabin.  If Jason hated everyone, why do the locals ignore him?  If he hates all visitors, how did daddy build his cabin and survive?  All I ask for is a modicum of consistency, Mr. Voorhies.

Pop quiz, hot shot: Jason is able to pop up behind unsuspecting victims because A) he is the size of a linebacker B) he built tunnels under all of Camp Crystal Lake C) he's wearing sneakers.  For Sneaking.  The answers are B and or C.  My question is how Jason gets electricity to his tunnels and the camp, even though it has clearly been closed for 20+ years.  And what about those tunnels?  They look handmade, but some have grates on them, but are clearly not sewer drains.  I'm no city planner, but that doesn't make much sense to me.  Of course, Jason collects some of his victims (he only cleans up after himself sometimes) and tosses them into one of his tunnels, but that tunnel has no gross maggots or rats in it.  I guess Jason killed them all, too.

Jason doesn't reavel by tunnel alone in this film.  The man has some crazy teleportation skills on diplay in this movie.  That's okay; that ability was first established (by me) in Friday the 13th Part XIII: Jason Takes Manahttan.  Still, Whitney escapes from her tunnel prison and gets all the way to daddy's cabin, when Jason catches her.  Immediately before and after catching her (and returning her), Jason is murdering the annoying teens at the cabin.  I suppose that teleportation is a little farfetched, but the only other solution I can surmise is that Jason Voorhies has perfected Jetsons-level tube technology and sends Whitney back to the tunnels like a bank deposit.

Phew.  Now that I have all that out of my system, let's look at this movie as a film.  Ha!  I just read that sentence out loud.  Good times.  Well, despite all odds, I am pretty okay with a lot of this movie.  I think the casting was fine.  Jared Padalecki and Danielle Panabaker did a pretty good job carrying this movie, Aaron Yoo was somewhat amusing and Travis Van Winkle deserved to have an awful death, which he received.  The direction is hard to gauge.  I don't want to say that the actors were poorly directed, because they all served their purpose.  However, the film kind of goes through mini-cycles.  The first half hour was pretty awesome.  The next half hour set up the rest of the film, and the last third was pretty stereotypical slasher stuff.  If this movie ended after half an hour, I would say this is the greatest Jason movie ever.  Unfortunately, it kept going.  It's never awful, though it doesn't veer from the traditional Friday formula of most everyone dying, until plucky youngsters finally kill Jason.

I wasn't expecting much from this movie.  Remakes almost always disappoint, but this one definitely had its moments.  Is it great?  Not even close.  Still, it provides gratuitous nudity, a body count with some creative kills, and mostly makes sense.  And I learned things from it!

Somethings I learned from this remake:

• If you are having sex in a tent, but don't want your pervert friend to ogle your silhouettes, just turn off the light in your tent instead of wandering about in the woods, looking for trouble.  That gets you the gift of death via Voorhies.
• There is a huge untended crop of marijuana near Camp Crystal Lake.  Who lives there?  Jason Voorhies.  I guess that makes Jason a pothead.  So what's the lesson?  Don't do drugs, kids.
• The best compliment you can give a girl during sex is to tell her that her breasts "are fucking juicy, dude."  Women love being called "dude."
• When you're in the woods and park your car, take your keys with you.
• Judging from the not-quite-final shots, the filmmakers mourn Jason's passing, showing all the mayhem he caused and didn't have time to clean up after himself.  Why do the good always die so young?
• If you kill Jason, don't remove his mask and toss him into Crystal Lake.  He will jump out of the water (with his mask mysteriously back on) and kill you.

Mr. Brooks

 Have you ever seen a movie that you wish you could have edited yourself?  Or at least had some input into the writing process?  That's how I feel about Mr. Brooks, an interesting take on the serial killer motif that manages to shoot itself in the foot with poor acting and unnecessary use of Demi Moore.

Earl Brooks (Kevin Costner) is a successful family man with a daughter in college (Danielle Panabaker) and a doting wife (Marg Helgenberger).  He is the mild-mannered bespectacled Chamber of Commerce "Man of the Year," and he is a serial killer.  Brooks has an imaginary friend, Marshall (William Hurt), that serves as the voice for his blood lust.  Brooks is a fastidious killer, taking pains to select random victims, leave no physical evidence, and always stay in control.  Brooks is also known as the "Fingerprint Killer," thanks to his habit of leaving a single bloody fingerprint from each of his victims at the crime scene.  This is an unusual setup for a movie that follows a killer.  First and foremost, Brooks is the hero of the story.  Viewers are also very aware that Marshall is imaginary, so you don't have to worry about any A Beautiful Mind-style surprises.  Brooks' approach to serial killing is unique, too, as he treats it as an addiction and attends Narcotics Anonymous meetings on a regular basis.  Also, how odd is it for a movie to show a serial killer as a fully functional member of society?  The twist comes when Brooks gives in to his addiction and kills a couple that he has been fantasizing about for some time.  This couple happens to enjoy having sex with the curtains open; for the first time, Brooks has a witness to one of his murders.  The witness is a "Mr. Smith" (Dane Cook), an amateur photographer that likes to take pictures of the now late couple having sex.  Instead of turning Brooks in, though, Smith blackmails Brooks into mentoring him in the ways of murder.  Brooks doesn't like it, but he agrees.

That's the basic premise of the movie, and I think it's a refreshing take on the typical killer movie.  It's not a slasher and it's not a James Patterson-ish thriller.  It's a smart premise and I appreciate it.  You would think that would be enough plot for a movie, but two subplots are introduced as well.  The first is the case of Brooks' daughter, who has dropped out of college and returned home, pregnant.  She is followed soon by police from her college town; apparently, she is a suspect in a murder on her campus.  Brooks is able to spot flaws in her alibi and has the horrible realization that his daughter is a killer, too.  While not a necessary story, this is an interesting way to flesh out Brooks' character, giving him reasons to exist beyond his blood lust.  The second subplot involves the detective that is in charge of the "Thumbprint Killer" case.  The detective (Demi Moore) is an independently wealthy woman in the midst of a messy divorce.  Her story ties in a little more directly into the primary plot as the movie progresses, but that is basically what her character is all about.

This is a very uneven movie, which is likely due to the nature of director/co-writer Bruce A. Evans.  Evans has done some great work in his career, including writing Starman and the screenplay for Stand By Me.  On the other hand, he has also written the screenplay for Jungle 2 Jungle and wrote the story for Cutthroat Island.  The man is a little hit and miss.  He's also not much of an actor's director.  Demi Moore and Marg Hengenberger both give fairly wooden performances here, while Dane Cook is just obnoxious.  That might just be the character's personality, but it feels like he is trying to channel Brad Pitt's character from 12 Monkeys and he is failing miserably.  Costner and Hurt, on the other hand, are a lot of fun to watch.  They have genuine chemistry and Costner does a good job flipping the switch from the quiet Brooks to the creepy "Thumbprint Killer."  My favorite scenes in the move have just the two of them talking to each other.  The best line in the movie comes from Hurt, speaking of Mr. Smith: "Even if that guy was charming and funny, I still wouldn't like him."  I know.  I feel the same way about Dane Cook.  While he's not great with the lesser actors, Evans does a good job with the cinematography and some of the physical acting.  For instance, I like that Mr. Brooks wears glasses, but whenever he slips into his killer persona, he takes the glasses off.  It's not subtle, but it's a nice touch.  The main problem with the film is the Demi Moore subplot.  It is completely unnecessary and adds nothing of value to the story at large.  The daughter subplot isn't great, either, but it at least shows a different side of Brooks' character.  It would be very easy to make this movie into the story of a man that wears a mask in public, but is a monster in private.  Her subplot shows his soft side; it is not handled very well (and it pops up at unexpected times in the film), but is a novelty in serial killer characterization.

This movie should be better than it is.  I generally like Kevin Costner; the man is a charming actor, as long as he's not being overly ambitious.  William Hurt is, almost without exception, a high quality addition to any film.  Their chemistry is great here.  And yet, the movie doesn't focus enough on their relationship.  The story should be all about them, but attention is diverted to Demi Moore, Dane Cook, and Danielle Panabaker.  That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the execution is terrible.  It is rare for a subplot to make such a negative impact in a movie, but it really illustrates what works well here and what does not.  If I had to assemble a "Director's Cut" of this movie, it would be about thirty minutes shorter and completely omit Moore's character.