Friday the 13th (2009)

Movie: Friday the 13th (2009)

Runtime: 97 Minutes

Rating: R

Genre: Horror

Let me preface this review by admitting I have not watched any other Friday the 13th movies and so I will not be able to provide any type of comparison to them. That being said, I'd like to start with the movies aesthetics. 

Summary: A young man goes looking for his sister who has gone missing at Crystal Lake, presumably a victim of the notorious Jason. He encounters a group of friends enjoying a vacation at the lake and they all end up fighting for their survival. 

I do not typically expect a lot from a horror movie, artistically speaking. It isn't that they can't have good artistic elements. Rather I tend to feel most of them don't bother with it as much as they should. As far as most horror movies I've seen go, I felt like this one did a fairly decent job on the artistic stuff. The acting wasn't all around amazing, but it wasn't really bad either. There isn't much I can say about the music, mainly because I don't remember it much. Normally I would take this as a bad sign because I tend to always notice music in movies. However I will confess to multitasking while I was watching this movie so I may have just been to distracted to notice. What I really want to mention about this movie artistically speaking is the filming and lighting techniques used. I thought that there was some excellent camera usage throughout the film that really helped to build the suspense. Suspense is a key element in this genre so finding a movie that appropriately uses camera techniques to do this is refreshing. Also this movie had some wonderful lighting usage. There was some particularly good use of back-lighting in certain scenes which I really enjoyed. 

Now the fun part where I get to tell you how I liked the movie. As someone who has watched a lot of horror films, I must say this one is pretty good. I wouldn't call it my favorite of the genre by any means, but it far surpasses most of the ones I've seen on the entertainment level. Personally I wouldn't call this movie scary, but I'm not easily frightening by movies and I suspect that others might find it much more terrifying than I did. As far as the plot and scripting go there is a bit I have to comment on. First off, while the plot is not exactly brand new, or all that in depth, I enjoyed it alright. I like the concept of a brother looking for his missing sister who has presumably fallen prey to the wicked Jason. I felt that element was a really nice touch. As far as the other characters go, a bunch of friends staying in one of their parents vacation homes, I found that a little too cliche for a horror movie. I've watched way too many horror movies that started that way. The scripting of the movie I was not overly thrilled with. There were some lines that were pretty funny, and certainly some character development that was brought out by how they spoke, but overall I felt like the script was not the greatest. There was a lot of what seemed to be unnecessary language in the film, and plenty of lines that seemed repetitious or dull. Overall though I would call this a reasonable horror movie that is a good way to kill an hour and a half if you are into the genre. I would certainly watch this movie again and would recommend it to any friend looking for a fun way to kill some time. 

For whom it may concern, this movie is rated R and it fully deserves that rating. There is violence, gore, language, nudity, sex, drug usage, drinking, terror and suspense. There was a lot of nudity in the film and what seemed like an overly prevalent usage of the f word as well as other cuss words. Characters are indicated to be using drugs and drug paraphernalia is seen. Characters are also shown drinking and participating in a drinking game at one point. Since it is a horror movie the rather graphic gore and violence, as well as scenes of terror are to be expected but should be kept in mind if you have issues with those types of things. Hopefully that will provide you with some useful information about the content in case any of the elements could affect your viewing. 

A quick note to finish this off, since this is my first review it would be great to know what people think. What do you like about where I'm going with this, what do you not like. Are there other elements it would be helpful to include in the reviews? Would you like to see a more in depth summary of the movie? More specific discussion of aesthetics? Should I include elements like costume, make up, hair, set design, etc? Should I leave anything I've included here out? Let me know what you think, and don't forget to submit some requests. You can email me at thelynx17@hotmail.com or find me on twitter; thelynx17. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and that it was informative. 

-L

Greetings

Hello, all and welcome. 

A brief introduction:

My name is Lynn and I am currently a college undergrad studying linguistics. That being the case you may wonder why I’m writing a blog about entertainment rather than languages. While I do have an extreme love of language I am also an avid fan of all types of entertainment. Be it books, movies, music, television shows, or whatever else. As such I wanted a good way to share this enjoyment of entertainment. 

While I initially just plan to review whatever I am currently watching that isn’t my long term goal here. What I would love would be for you, the reader, to send in request of things that you would like to see reviewed. Whether this is because you want someone else’s opinion on that movie before you waste money renting it, you want to know how suitable the content might be for varying age ranges, or because you just want to know what I think of your favorite movie or show, doesn’t matter. Of course, if you do have a specific reason for wanting the review in mind, feel free to include it in your request so that I might address it as best I can. 

As far as request go I don’t want to put too many restrictions on this. My general idea is if you request it I will review it. However, realistically there might be some obstacles to this. Firstly, lets keep the reviews to movies and or television shows for now. I might get ambitious and review some books in the summer, but like I said, I’m a college student which means I don’t have much time for anything other than movies and shows. Secondly, if you request something its going to take me a little while to get a review up for you. Unless it is something I own, which is possible, I will need time to buy or rent it, watch it and write the review. So if you request a review of something obscure, it’s going to take a little longer for me to accomplish this. Also make sure your request isn’t something I’ve reviewed previously. Thirdly, I reserve the right to refuse to review something. I’m open minded about what I’ll watch and I will review movies of any rating or genre, but I’m not going to guarantee I will watch everything requested. 

On somewhat of a side note about reviews, I will attempt to write reviews for anything people request. However, if I reach a point where I am receiving too many request I may have to change my model for how I run this. 

Finally I wanted to provide you with a brief summary for what I hope to include in my reviews. First I want to talk about the aesthetics of the movie or show, including such things as acting, music, camera technique, etc, and provide my opinion of them. Besides this I will provide my own opinion of the movie based on how entertaining I find it, and how good I feel the writing and plot are. Thirdly, I will try and include information about what the movie or show is rated and why it has received this rating for those who may be concerned with this. If there are other elements that you would like me to include in my review let me know and I will make my best effort to do so. 

Thanks for reading, and I hope this can be the start of something fun and helpful for all involved. So let the request begin. 

-Lynn