Friday the 13th

I find the numbered ratings on most of your reviews very reactionary and unhelpful. Ever since you've brought it back, it's been a steady flow of either really high numbers or really low numbers (like the review above). This phenomenon is often more severe with your movie reviews than your album reviews. Is there no middle of the road any more?

It just reveals that your system has a lack of standards. You must set up a set of guidelines for your many reviewers so that the numbers have any meaning at all.

I'm sure the new Friday the 13th movie isn't a revelation, but a rating of 10 suggests it's completely unwatchable, and I doubt it has no redeeming values.

I mean, even the Rotten Tomatoes rating, which is built on reactionary opinions, is at 29%, some people must have liked it.

Please, for the sake of your readers and your own credibility, try to set up some sort of standardized system.

I kinda dug it! Nispel did his best at making a more complex baddie while igniting the fires of sex and violence homage. The set pieces were totally creepified, too...

Hi Loyal Reader,

I usually let people have it out in the comments, because reviews should speak for themselves. That said, as with many reviewers, it bums me out that the scores on my reviews get more attention than the ideas, but I take them seriously for exactly that reason. The last three movies I reviewed scored 40, 65 and 70. (In fact, I think all of Paste's movie reviewers do: by my count, in February alone we've had 10, 37, 39, 40, 42, 50, 68, 70, 74, 83 and 90.) I lowered the rating on this movie because as I wrote, I think the complicity of some new horror revivals is extremely backward, regardless of technical improvements.

I can't speak to who liked it or didn't on Rotten Tomatoes, but I describe my opinion accurately. If Sean had reviewed it, it seems he would have rated it higher than average, so there you are.

Jeff

Just to follow up on Jeff's wise words, you can't fit an opinion into a mathematical equation - John Keating would definitely tear out the pages of a journalism text book that put a review on a line graph scale.

I love it when a "critic" tackles genre films like this one. ...still waiting to read a review saying something like, "Look...this is a genre flick and if you usually go in for this fair, you're definitley going to see it no matter what I write and you might like it or not,...but I'll let you hash out the *cough* nuances in the world of geekdom. I sincerely hope you get what you want out of it, that you are entertained. However, since films like this are basically unreviewable, I'll focus my energies elsewhere." Instead, we get this ridiculous column. A 10? You're way out of your league, buddy.

Jeff, you're right on the money here. Although I generally disagree with most movie critics, I really dislike the current trend in horror films-that said, all the naysayers will immediately shout down my opinions, but I try to be as open-minded as possible...anyways, the term "torture-porn" is very fitting here. I grew up watching all the original "Halloween", "FT13", "TCM", & their ilk, some of them multiple times, much to my elders' discontent. I even went so far as to see some of the original "Faces of Death" films, as well as most of the Herschell Gordon Lewis "Godfather Of Gore" classics, & the regrettables, including "I Spit On Your Grave", "Last House On The Left", etc. I had to go to a different state, in a seedy video store in a run-down section of a major metropolis to find the latter, as they were still "banned" in most areas (no Blockbuster, satellite TV, or internet back in those days!).
Lest I be accused of name-dropping these films, I'm just trying to give you my horror background. Many of these films, for their time, were very terrifying, as well as disturbing. Low production values made most of them, at times, laughable, which offset the squeamishness. While I laud the much-higher creative visions, budgets, production values, acting, etc.(not sure I want to go so far as to say "talent")of these remakes, I can't abide their abject brutality. These earlier versions also featured rape, nudity, torture, & all kinds of creative dismemberment 'n death (remember the guy walking on his hands in "Friday" Part 3 3-D? The guy in the bathtub in "I Spit On Your Grave"?)...those still make me cringe. I am left with a sick, empty feeling after watching the newer 'classics' "Saw", "Hostel", "The Hills Have Eyes", "Halloween", etc., by the way people, especially women, are destroyed. Take, for example, one of the highly-touted 'extras' on the DVD of "House Of 1000 Corpses", the "Cheerleaders' Video Diary". This 'feature' is nothing more than a tedious vignette of one of the 'Family' brutally raping & beating a teenage girl & then killing her with no more remorse than a person stepping on a bug. This may be 'art' to those raised on satellite TV, internet porn,video games, et. al., but I find it disturbing to be standing behind teenagers at my local Redbox listening to them glory over how "awesome!" it was to watch others screaming in agony, begging for mercy, while being slowly, hideously, murdered, & seeing these 'fans' admiring & identifying with the killers; that is what their 'heroes' are doing, is committing MURDER. I know, "It's just a movie-get a life." What fans of this genre have been de-sensitized to is the fact that these film characters(a.k.a. victims)are meant by the filmmakers to realistically portray their fellow humans-their neighbors, co-workers, friends, family...people who have hopes, dreams, children, lives, only to have them snuffed out callously & in a relentlessly brutal fashion, all due to a wrong turn on a country road, a bad choice of overnight accommodations, or just generally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They may not admit it, but for viewers to enjoy & accept the realism & entertainment value of all this carnage also requires the acceptance & willingness to disregard any compassion or sympathy for the victims. Yeah, it's just a movie, but it's also just your intellect & humanity & morals that are being degraded. Yes, I am a HUGE fan of horror films, of Rob Zombie's music & his creative music videos; I just am sorry to see that his talent & passion are for being seen as a glorified "snuff" filmmaker. Again, this is all just MY opinion; having had my rant, I will still continue to hope that some creativity out there can be realized without pandering to an increasingly lower and lower denominator.

I was in love with this movie when I was a teenager, and I loved this version too. I went to see it this weekend after reading a review on EverHype (www.everhype.com/?utm_source=bc) that called Friday the 13th “Perfect” and gave it 4.75 stars. I’m very glad that the horror movies from my teenage hood are coming back to scare a whole new generation.