FRIDAY THE 13TH Producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form Discuss the Reinvention of Jason Voorhees with Mr. Beaks!

Though it's impossible to ascertain anything about the actual quality of Platinum Dunes' FRIDAY THE 13TH remake from the special-to-Comic Con teaser (pieced together from fairly rough footage), I'll say this much: it looks like a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie. Then again, so did JASON TAKES MANHATTAN. Producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form are well aware of your... reticence. They've read the talk backs. They know you're tough to please. All that said, they seem very confident with their FRIDAY THE 13TH reboot. You want a FRIDAY THE 13TH with a series of inventive kills, a batch of good lookin' babes, and a Jason who's unstoppable and ubiquitous as can be without resorting to teleportation? Well, that's what you're gonna fucking get! A word on that footage: it begins with a pair of inadvisably curious teenagers happening upon a spooky house in the forest. Since they're neither Jared Padalecki nor Amanda Righetti (the respective final guy and girl of this FRIDAY THE 13TH), they barge right in and stick around even though the place is plainly a haven for some backwoods breed of maniac. By the time the dude inexplicably reaches into a hole in the wall of the bathroom to retrieve a severed head, you've already written them off for the sequel. From there, I can happily report that all of the crucial elements for a "good" FRIDAY THE 13TH are in place: the hockey mask, Jason's "Ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma" and, um, killin'. We didn't get to see too much gore, but I imagine there will be a healthy (or unhealthy) flow of blood in this movie. If you've any other questions, here's Fuller and Form to hopefully answer 'em. (We also touch on their planned remake of THE BIRDS, and another 80s horror franchise they'd like to bring back.)

Beaks: With a film like this, you've got to first build the buzz through the fans and get them excited. So while you didn't want to go in a supernatural direction with the character? Also, did you still feel like there were certain elements that absolutely had to be in place?

Brad Fuller: What made the movie interesting for us to make is that Jason Voorhees is one of the most iconic killers to ever be put on film. And what made him interesting is that he's methodical and unstoppable. Having said that, anything that goes away from that and makes it feel unrealistic... we wanted to move as far away from that as possible. For us, this is a guy who lives in the forest and eats what he kills. He's in shape because he lives in the forest; he's not lumbering around because he has to trap. That, to us, made him a more effective killer. So in our movie, as you saw from the piece we showed today... Jason is fast. He runs fast. He's athletic. He can move.

Beaks: That money shot of Jason bearing down on the girl... Jason's moving so fast, moving so fast, and the camera is backing away so fast, I thought she was on a rig.

Andrew Form: She wasn't. She was just on her hands and butt going "Get the hell away from me!" Fuller: She's scared at that moment, too. Her fear is palpable. Look at him! (Pointing back to Derek Mears) He's big right here. If he comes running at you swinging that thing... it's crazy! The other shot in the trailer is the girl in the tent. He comes up behind her in the tent, and you see him pull up with the machete. In that shot, we had to use a real machete because we couldn't score the back of that tent. We wanted it to feel real. And she's terrified because that's a real machete coming through the back of the tent, and then he attacks her. Form: The sound is all real. And her reaction is unbelievable. She didn't really know when he was coming through. So... it's fun.

Beaks: Can you talk about hiring Marcus Nispel to direct the film? It's interesting because--

Fuller: You know what's crazy? You're the first person to ask us that question today, and I think you're our last interview. Form: You're the only person who's mentioned him.

Beaks: I'm surprised he isn't here. He was out front doing press for TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE back in 2003. Maybe people just simply forgot about him.

Fuller: Here's the thing: Marcus is a really great shooter. He can make his days. Sometimes what he does on the set is make it feel very frenetic and crazy. I think that worked on this movie. Now, that's not always the best working environment, but not knowing exactly what's going to happen next... that makes the performances seem real. There's an edginess to it that works for these kinds of films. That's why he was great for CHAINSAW, and that's why I think people will be happy with what he did on this film.

Beaks: The original FRIDAY THE 13TH movies were, visually, very perfunctory. Bringing in a stylist like Marcus, was there a concern that fans might say, "Hey, this guy's too fancy! He's too good!"

Form: Well, the movie's not shot that way. It's really not. It's not over-stylized. I don't think we'll turn anyone off like that. As Brad said, he's an amazing shooter, but it's not an over-stylized version.

Beaks: Derek mentioned that he's playing Jason, in part, as a survivalist in the John Rambo mold. Hearing what you guys are doing with the character, that makes a lot of sense. When you were developing the script, where there any other monsters - real or fictional - you might've been referencing?

Fuller: For us, it was just about making him as scary and imposing as possible. It was about making sure that we had the mask right and the machete right. Also, that there was a variety in the amount of kills: how we do them, how much blood there is, and making sure that they're not repetitive.

Beaks: With regards to THE BIRDS remake, are you working from the Daphne du Maurier short story or more directly from the Hitchcock film?

Fuller: It's starting from the short story. That's what got us all excited about the film, and Martin [Campbell] has his own take that he's kind of spun from that. But we don't have a script yet, so we can't really say. We'll know in a couple of months.

Beaks: And other horror films you're looking to remake?

Form: A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is the movie we want. We hope that'll be our next film. Hopefully, the studio will allow us to remake it.

Beaks: Well, that's a better film than any of the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies. The first one, at least.

Form: The original ELM STREET is a great film. We'd be lucky to have an opportunity to take that on.

Beaks: And go in a completely different direction? The original is so indelible.

Fuller: The studio already hired a writer, Wesley Strick, to start writing, so we're not really privy to that. They know our interest. Part of it is figuring out what they want to do. I think they want to see what we did with [FRIDAY THE 13TH], and, when they see it, I hope they're happy.

So there you go. There will be a lot of murder in this FRIDAY THE 13TH. Happy? Faithfully submitted, Mr. Beaks