Now, as for the ‘sleeping bag burning’ kill, which I’m certain is Ben’s other gripe. I wasn’t bothered by this, as it was the only kill in the film which had the old brutality of the first 4 Friday films. Moreover, it made some sense as Jason needed a way to draw the other kids back to the camp area so he could chop them all, and nothing does that like the screams and lights of a burning friend.

Some may still argue that Jason doesn’t have the mental capacity to set up any sort of trap like this, but believe me, there are over 160 kills in the Friday series to date, and its not outside of the realm of possibility. The fact alone that Jason can use a bow and arrow with Olympian accuracy points to a dextrous, and refined aspect of his mind, and Jason’s clever planting of dead bodies around the camp to scare other victims his direction shows a subtle knowledge of psychology. There are times where Jason has shown a surprising sophistication. Never has he just left bodies strewn about.

Of course, Friday has never really followed logic, in the original series, the camp stayed open, despite fifteen years of continual slaughter, again 160 murders, on the campgrounds. Its entirely realistic that the camp would have stayed closed after Mrs. Vorhees’ murder spree, and certainly after Jason’s first run through the camp. An open camp would have been a nice touch, but I can live.

But Ben, I’m giving you this argument for your use of the line “succulent apple pie pussy”. I can’t beat that.

Seriously, Ben, is this a valid complaint for this article? I mean, this complaint could be used for any movie.

“I went and saw Slumdog Millionaire this week, and I can’t understand why it got the Oscar. There was no bush!”

Think what you like, Ben, but Jason is just a man, a MAN’s MAN, until the day that lightening struck his corpse. And I know this because no zombie could ever use a composite bow. You know who can? Rambo.

They never have said who Jason’s father was…

It’s a fair homage idea that could have been set up much better.

But I’d have thrown down an extra ten bucks for an up-skirt of Mrs. Vorhees when she hit the dirt.

Prologue 1 could have simply been some councillors smoking and having sex as Jason drowned. Prologue 2 was actually my favourite part of the movie, both for its throwbacks to the original series format, and to its speed and relative brutality. But, I’d have put the title prior to prologue 2. Having Friday the 13th come up in giant red letters 1/3 of the way through the movie kind of breaks the pace.

Is that terrible? I say the movie works because we go in not expecting much? Shouldn’t Hollywood be pushing the envelope?

Typically, I’d say yes. But, this is Friday the 13th. Is there even a point, almost 30 years later, in re-inventing the wheel? None of the films in that series have ever even tried to invoke ‘quality’ or ‘real’ scares. They are simply excuses to have boobs pop up on the screen, and have beautiful kids get hacked apart in terrible ways. If anything, the film’s greatest weakness isn’t the lack of quality, compared to previous instalments, this one’s got it in spades, but rather it’s the lack of balls on the part of the studio to really push that R rating to its limits.

The old Friday movies are more brutal, more gratuitous, with more drugs and more sex and more stab wounds all over the place. By this point, the make-up effects are a little dated, but the effect can still be dizzying in today’s watered down market-place. That’s always been part of Jason’s appeal and why his character, out of a thousand dumb slasher flicks, has survived the ages: Jason always tried to give you more. Here, despite the promise of a ‘hard R’, I can’t help but feel like I’ve gotten more grisly goods and laughs from a lot of straight to video releases. This will surely be corrected on the Uncut DVD release of the film, but giving horror fans a watered down Jason film isn’t the way to shock and pull butts into the seats for return viewings, as the huge 2nd week box office drop would suggest.

But again, I would say that this film could fit seamlessly (minus the first prologue) into the original series, and would have been hailed as a triumph. It didn’t revolutionize the genre, nor did I expect it to. It was just a return to form.

Of course, this brings up a good point, one which came to mind when Ben mentioned the forthcoming Nightmare on Elm Street relaunch. To me, this is the chance for Nightmare to become the really scary horror series it was always meant to be. The first Nightmare took itself totally seriously, and still stands as a pretty scary film, despite the visual dating, because its full of horrific ideas. But Freddy Krueger, over time, mutated from a completely frightening child molester/murderer with supernatural methods to this crazy wise-cracking anti-hero that spawned a market of dolls and boardgames. He stopped being scary and became funny. We didn’t cringe in fear of him, we went to see what clever ways he’d think of to kill those damn kids. I always lament that we never got to see what kind of nightmarish, psychedelic world a really creative horror team could have dreamed up.

So, what version of Freddy will we see in this new incarnation; the scary demonic Freddy, or the wise-crackin’ crazy-death Freddy? It really depends on the preference of the creative team. How do they remember Freddy, and at what point in his career did they like him best? Maybe someone prefers him from Nightmare parts 4,5, and 6. Freddy vs. Jason would certainly suggest that that’s how the populace remembers him.

Maybe it’s the same with Jason. Ben seems to want Jason to be a fun character, the zombie from Fridays 6 on, slashing apart cartoonish characters and basically being an excuse to splash red paint on the walls while campers in the next room expose their breasts. Don’t think that I’m degrading that point of view, I’m not. I love them boobs and the quirky, funny deaths as well. But I remember Jason most fondly from Fridays 2-4, where he was taken just a tiny bit more seriously, and while the deaths were still over the top, the victims were all still pretty grounded in reality. I might be mis-reading Ben’s opinion of the old films, but the word ‘fun’ came up many a time in that review.

I suppose it all comes down to what we expect from Jason personally, and for me, the slightly more serious, pre-zombie Jason is what I was in the mood for. The Jason who killed real teenagers in more real ways, the fun coming from this unreal, giant figure stepping into the middle of an otherwise pleasant summer day, and stabbing people through the head.

Maybe it’s not what everyone was expecting, but to me, this was Jason back in his original form, and God, was it refreshing just to get back to basics. Now that the whole ‘Mrs. Vorhees’ bit is done with, I’m hoping we get an even more gratuitous sequel.