SDCC 08: Friday the 13th

Oh Comic-Con, you've left me but a shell of the woman I once was. 5 days of walking, shouting, looking, and jostling is enough to break even the most enthusiastic geek. The show is so huge and so packed it's practically impossible to actually enjoy it at times. Sure, the film companies have sweet booth setups, but you can't check it out for all the people swarming around it. The panels are great, but if you can hit two popular panels in two different locations, you must be some sort of ninja. People queue up hours in advance like they're waiting for tickets to a Samantha Fox concert or something! I had too many obligations and couldn't spend time standing around in line, and therefore I ended up shut out of a few panels (a press pass, unfortunately, counts for total squat), including the only two I really wanted to see: Resident Evil: Degeneration and Battlestar Galactica. Douchey times! I still did some wicked (wicked as in squee!) cool stuff, though, and I'll have articles and the whatnot trickling in over the next week or two.

I caught the panel for the Platinum Dunes reimaginariumination of Friday the 13th- I know the footage shown was leaked online; maybe you snagged a peek before it was quickly pulled. If you didn't, I bet you wanna know what it was all about, huh? Don't you? And you want to know what producers Andrew Form and Brad Puller and stars Derek Mears, Jared Padalecki, and some chick who only spoke about three words had to say, don't you? Sigh, fine!

First off, here's the teaser poster, unveiled for the very first time, not at all unlike a virgin:

Me like! Simple, spooky, and iconic. Well played, Platinum Dunes...well played.

The footage shown featured a couple of supermodelesque teens wandering into Jason's deluxe shanty during a trip to Camp Crystal Lake; they come across a big pile of lit candles as well as...a wrinkled old head, presumably that of Mrs Voorhees. Eeeeyagggh! The guitars start to whale, supermodels start to scream, Jason finds the hockey mask, Jason busts through a window just like he did at the end of Part 2, Jason starts to make with the chop chop. And yes, there is some "ki ki ki ma ma ma"- if they'd done away with that, the fury of the legions of horror nerds (myself included) would burn with such intensity that the world would suddenly go supernova, then suck in the rest of the solar system as the supernova reversed direction and turned into a black hole.

What? It would. I know my science.

According to the producers, this film isn't going to be a strict remake of Friday the 13th, but rather an amalgamation of parts 2-4. Nowadays one seems to think a broad like Pamela Voorhees couldn't take down a hunky hunk like Jared Padalecki, and besides, no one cares about a broad like Pamela Voorhees anymore- horror fans want Jason. So what is Platinum Dunes doing with Jason?

Well, they ain't doing an origin movie. Apparently we'll briefly learn only a bit about his past, and he's going to be "rooted in reality" as they move away from super zombie Jason of the later Friday films. Derek Mears claims this Jason is smart, sympathetic, and "just a guy". I claim that a few shots in the teaser footage make me think Mears is going to kick ass.

Wait, "kick ass"? Yeah, I have to admit, I kinda liked the footage- a surprising reaction I attribute to the intensity displayed by Mears. The rest looked like your typical loud, brash horror movie fare (this is Platinum Dunes, after all)- ridiculously attractive "regular" teens covered in dirt, a soundtrack turned up to eleven, blah blah blah. But Jason's the star of this show, and he looked pretty fucking cool.

While the film apparently has a finite ending, the producers said they'd love to do a sequel. They also briefly mentioned the imminent retooling of The Birds and how there are so many horror properties out there they're simply itching to remake- one, in particular, is A Nightmare on Elm Street. This immediately made me wonder why the production company doesn't seem to be interested in making anything...well, new and original; it seems they're only going to plunder the past. I felt my righteous horror indignation flare up a bit, but then it quickly dissipated- I had to bolt to make it across the Comic-Con compound to catch something else, and I simply didn't have time to think.

Have no fear, I'm sure you'll be inundated with Friday the 13th news items all over The Internet in the months to come- the film won't be released until Friday, February 13, 2009. As for me, eh. I'll see it- in fact, it might even be pretty effing cool to see Jason on the big screen again.

Ack, what am I saying?? I can't be optimistic about this- damn, Comic-Con fried my fucking brain!