It’s the Booze Talkin’: A Found Footage Reboot of Friday the 13th? Are you F*cking Kidding Me?!?

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

I love the FRIDAY THE 13th franchise. This includes all twelve movies and even the little extras you get on the Blu-ray/DVD like “Lost Tales from Camp Blood.” I am a massive fan of all things Jason Voorhees. I stuck with each and every film, even those that don’t hold up so well. For me personally Jason’s trip to Manhattan was my least favorite visit yet I’ve watched it numerous times. So recently when Paramount was given the rights to return to Camp Crystal Lake for the 13th movie, I was beyond excited. The camp counselors having pre-marital sex, doing drugs and drinking a ton of alcohol only to be horribly mutilated by Jason’s machete is something I want so desperately to see once again.

Previously in this very column, my pal Ammon had discussed with cautious optimism his hopes for a new sequel and many of his thoughts I share. However recent news has dampened my excitement for a thirteenth film. Originally reported on HITFIX, not only will the new movie once again be a reboot – didn’t they do that with the 2009 remake – but in order to make a cheap little horror flick word is that producers may be going the found footage route. Are you f*cking kidding me?!? This isn’t PARANORMAL THE 13th or THE JASON VOORHEES PROJECT! This is Jason stalking Camp Blood looking for plenty of nubile flesh for the slaughter!

Let’s start with the idea of a reboot. First of all, Jason has been reborn numerous times. Whether he is brought to life by a lightning bolt or a girl with psychic powers, he always returns from the dead as well as hell itself. And with the previously mentioned FRIDAY THE 13th remake from 2009 they pretty much covered the first four films all in one. This flick introduced his mother’s murder, the years of wearing a sack, the discovery of the hockey mask and some dude looking for his missing sister (maybe it wasn’t meant to harken back to Part 4 but it worked for me). Now many of you didn’t warm up to this Platinum Dunes produced remake, but for this hard core fan there was a ton to love. And come on, the first twenty minutes is pretty damn amazing. So with all the rebirths and a remake do we really need to see the beginning of Jason again?

What about that period in Jason’s life that we don’t know much about? How did he become the dream child jumping out of the water and pulling Adrienne King into a lake to a grown psycho wearing a sack on his head? There is five years of narrative we’ve yet to explore on film somewhere between FRIDAY THE 13th (1980) and FRIDAY THE 13th PART 2 (1981). You could even start before that with a possible prequel! How the hell was he wandering around the woods while mom was chopping up counselors, setting fires or causing chaos for anybody trying to open the camp and she didn’t know he was alive? There is quite possibly an interesting story there that could be opened up, even if it is only part of the thirteenth feature.

Surprisingly though, the reboot rumor bothers me far less than the idea that FRIDAY THE 13th PART 13 is set to be a found footage flick. This would decry everything that I love about these movies. You can’t very well have Jason stalking like he does in a shaky cam flick. No, you’ll have some camera man asking if we heard something with possibly a quick flash of a hockey mask and then boom. Certainly they could have gore but what moron will sit there “filming” his best pals being offed in creative ways? And if he or she did, wouldn’t they be the most disgusting and perverse kind of idiot not worth spending time with. The beauty of Jason’s kills – especially in the first few flicks – is the set up themselves. I would love to see that sense of fun and terror return.

The 2009 film certainly offered a few interesting ideas by introducing little pieces of the mythology and expanding on them. As a fan I’d love to see a return to the brutal kills, the great chase and stalk sequences and while we are at it let’s bring back a few of those survivors that we never heard from again. It would be a most welcome treat for all of the old-school fans to see Amy Steel’s Ginny, Dana Kimmell’s Chris, Lar Park-Lincoln’s Tina and f*ck it… Corey Feldman’s return as Tommy Jarvis! If you are going to make F13:13 make it for the fans that have long since stood by and watched Jason through the good, the bad and the ugly.

Maybe it’s the booze talkin’, but are you f*cking kidding me with found footage/reboot talk for FRIDAY THE 13th? It seems that any idea would be better than that… even a straight up sequel to JASON GOES TO HELL would be more appealing! It could simply be nostalgia but I prefer my Jason to be the hockey masked madman hiding out in Camp Crystal Lake killing off counselors that aren’t making a student documentary or some shite like that. The very idea of taking the series in this direction would go against the very fabric of what made these movies entertaining. The thirteenth film should be something special with a little treat for the fans still purchasing every new DVD/Blu-ray that they release!