If I ever get a rampaging zombie maniac in a vulnerable position, I'll remember that letting a chain strangle him and giving one token stab isn't enough to make sure he's dead. Then I sure won't move his body from the crime scene and throw it off a dock, especially if there is a perfectly good shredder handy - like the one in Fargo - and he has already shown me how to use it. For most of the movie the characters are above-average intelligent for horror victims-to-be. Except for the perhaps intentional laugh it gets for the line, "You better go out to the tool shed" the screenplay (by mostly the same team as Jason X and Freddy Versus Jason) adds to and improves upon the scatter-shot mythology of Friday the 13th many of us ended up seeing at the dawn of VHS and Beta tapes. It's not a straight remake of the 1980 film Sean S. Cunningham (Spring Break) directed. The very beginning is taken from the first, and the ending reminds us of it, but an apparently enchanted locket is added and elements of Part II and Part III are woven into the new movie. This time I stood in a rush line for a free preview screening and the crowd had a positive reaction to it. One person said, "Pretty good. I'd give it a 9" which to me sounds incongruous. I admit I spent much of the movie - especially when there is a cumulative effect of the jeopardy - curled up with my nerves on edge. So the film succeeds in doing what it intended. There is character development, so we care what happens and there is even one guy (other than Mr. Vorhees) that we want to see killed. But I can't give it full marks because of the frustration it leaves me with over the rote ending and the stupidity that allows for it to happen. I didn't expect them to reboot this character only to kill him off for good, but I think given the trauma these characters had gone through they might not permit the denouement to go the way it does. The rest of the audience appeared to have a little better sense of humor about it though.
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