FRIDAY THE 13TH REMAKE TRAILER!

Here’s a LOOK at the first official trailer to the re-imagined, Michael Bay produced, FRIDAY THE 13th. This is a franchise that has now survived for close to three decades with the original film released May 9, 1980. I remember my friend’s older brother taking me to see it and having the feeling of being quite unnerved. At the time it was a pretty SCARY movie going experience, as it showed the type of violence that audiences weren’t used to seeing. I still remember the KEVIN BACON death scene to be one of the most shocking sequences I had seen in a movie at the time and, even to this day, it’s still quite effective. Actually, it may not pass today’s MPAA standard that would maintain an R-rating instead of an NC-17 even in today’s looser times. Friday the 13th was produced by Sean S. Cunningham (Last House on the Left) and cost just 550,000 to produce. It went on to gross 39,700,000 at the U.S box-office. It spawned countless sequels, many which were pretty good if you like the genre, and also produced a Freddy VS Jason spin-off movie which I though very entertaining.

The biggest liberty this new film takes is that it will focus on the character of Jason Voorhess who actually didn’t appear, other than in a brief scene as a child, until the first sequel. The villain in the original film was Mrs. Voohress, well played by BETSY PALMER. In an interesting footnote, the character’s famous hockey mask didn’t actually appear until the third film in the series which was shot in 3-D. Marcus Nispel who helmed the 2003 remake of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE directs this re-imagining, so I would expect a pretty competent film. The one thing that can never be recaptured, however, is time and place and this material was more effective in 1980 than it will be in 2009. Judge for yourself when Friday the 13th hits theaters Feb 13, 2009. Of course that’s a Friday! VIEW TRAILER