I think the only people who hold grudges more than Jason are the religious and it’s a known fact that Jason is one angry bitter man whose mom is taken down at the first five minutes of the 2009 reboot called simply: “Friday the 13th.” A combination of the first, second and third films in the series, “Friday the 13th” seek to completely redo Jason and start over with a clean slate. This is a great idea especially after desperation from studios forced the masked killer in to deep space and the future of mankind. This is a stripped down reboot that director Marcus Nispel handles with care, because it’s a task liable to be screwed up once he and the writers decide on fitting an origin, a motivation, and the discovery of the hockey mask in only ninety minutes. But he rises to the occasion and actively keeps the story moving with a body count of almost ten people and an admittedly uneven pace. Despite the caveat and probably because of it, Nispel’s treatment of Voorhes makes for the first enjoyable experience at the movies in a long while.
Whoa, who knew Liam Neeson was such a hard ass, but then his parental tendency to kick ass and take names when his daughter is kidnapped is never an element that distracts viewers with the believability, mainly because it’s Liam Neeson, a man in his fifties who struts around the film as the hero who is a change of pace from young male models and wrestlers who normally dominating the big screen. Neeson is an antidote to all the barely past puberty action pukes and convinces us that he’ll kill anyone and everyone if you take from him. It’s a true testament that Neeson simply knocks this role out of the park.
There really isn’t much of anything directors can do with the vampire sub-genre anymore and that’s been a given for horror geeks for a long time. I’m repellent to any and all vampire fang films that come to the forefront and I’ve made it a rule to carefully dissect most fang films after constant turkeys passed my way. Thankfully “Let the Right One In” isn’t your average vampire movie. And while it’s trite to make such a declaration the truth remains: “Let the Right One In” is a different vampire film and one I loved with every aching horror geek bone inside me.
Sure it watches like a compilation of cut scenes from past games, and sure in some cases it’s an attempt at a reboot for the series, but all I could think about while watching “Regeneration” is: Was this so fucking hard to do for fans and general horror fans? We had to suffer through three really bad derivative quasi-horror films and now we’re given a virtually completely animated movie that just gets it right. Why is it so hard to release this and let us endure Paul WS Anderson’s butchery in the first place? “Degeneration” pretty much sums up its goal from the opening shot where WilPharmacy’s have taken over the city leaving where Raccoon City left off.