Friday the 13th

From Marcus Nispel, director of the half-decent ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ re-make, comes a thoroughly indecent re-imagining of Sean S Cunningham’s formula-fixing ‘slasher movie’: psycho killer slays obnoxious, dope-smoking, promiscuous college kids. Strictly speaking, this offers a pick ‘n’ mix selection from the first three movies, with the first two reprised as a campfire tale and an extended, gory pre-title sequence. As such, it treads a fine line between satisfying fans of the original (and its sequels), and attracting those who weren’t even born in 1980.  

The story of Jason Voorhees and his mad mother having been swiftly disposed of, the sack-hooded Jason starts terrorising visitors to the abandoned Camp Crystal Lake summer camp. His first bunch of victims duly dispatched, the film re-boots itself and flashes forward a few months. Trent, Jenna and their pals are partying at his father’s swanky lakeside home; Clay is searching for his missing sister Whitney. All of them end up on the sharp end of the now hockey-masked Jason’s machete.

Early on, a woman is burned alive inside her sleeping bag, but the subsequent ‘kills’ are standard fare. As is the would-be knowing dialogue: 'Go to the tool shed, it’s just down the path.' The only innovations are Jason’s labyrinthine, subterranean lair and the revival of the original’s adolescent obsession with titillating nudity and sex – topless water-skiing, vigorous coupling and a priceless line about 'perfect nipple placement'. Stunt man Derek Mears is fine as the indestructible Jason, but this is dull, unimaginative stuff.