Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I'm 35 years old. Of course I have a soft spot for '80s slashers. They were the forbidden fruit of my childhood. My parents gave up on restricting most R-rated movies when I was about 8 or 9, but they still needed to actively take me to an R-rated movie or rent them for me. I don't remember them having an issue with the Nightmare On Elm Streets (in fact I dressed up as Freddy for Halloween, like, 3 years in a row). The Friday the 13ths not so much.
Naturally that meant whenever they came on cable I secreted myself to my room and hoped they didn't come up to check on me. There was something of a little boys club feeling around that series, too. Many sleepovers had me and my friends watching these movies at all hours of the night.
Yes, they're crude and violent for the sake of violence... The thrill you get from watching creative kills troubles me more now as an adult than it ever did as a child. But slashes, particularly the Friday the movies, were also the first to really show me strong female characters. The survivor girl. And I credit those early, way-too-young viewings of the Fridays, Nightmares and Halloweens as helping me develop a pretty strong feminist moral center. Of course women can be just as badass as men. Didn't you see Alice chop off Mrs. Voorhees' head? How about that time Nancy set up all those booby traps for Freddy?
I've had relationships with women who understood that way of thinking and one that strongly didn't, but I firmly believe that those films ultimately influenced me in a good way.
The Platinum Dunes Friday the 13th is okay. Looked great, the kills were a little weak and the cast wasn't very strong, but they got a strong new Jason in Derek Mears. There's been lots of behind the scenes drama which has caused delays of all sorts in taking advantage of that title, but it seems like they're finally getting their shit together.
David Bruckner was attached, but he seems to be off the project now as THE CRAZIES' Breck Eisner is the latest director to come aboard.
This is a solid choice and hopefully an indication that they're moving away from that horrendous idea of making the new Friday the 13th a found footage movie. Eisner's work on The Crazies is actually really solid and if he brings that kind of production value and character work to Friday the 13th we could have something really fun.
What do you folks think?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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