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‘Friday The 13th’ Reboot Gets Pushed Back Again: Is Platinum Dunes Missing The Point?

By Aric Mitchell
Published on: 16:27 PST, Sep 23, 2016

The Friday the 13th continuation has been delayed, IGN reports.

Take a moment for that to sink in. A film about a guy in a hockey mask who kills teenagers needs more time to develop.

Platinum Dunes announced that it wouldn’t be until October, 2017, before audiences once again laid eyes on the man behind the mask. There wasn’t any clear direction given with the announcement, but it is unusual to say the least, and it highlights the problems that new filmmakers have had continuing the Friday the 13th series.

They’ve forgotten Friday the 13th is supposed to be fun.

The last time Jason Voorhees made any of us jump was probably Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (only the fourth movie in the series, by the way). That effort had enough jump-scares and one of the best portrayals of Jason in the series thanks to Ted White. It also benefitted from some of the best makeup and FX work in Tom Savini’s career, as Corey Feldman wasted Voorhees at the end with a well-swung machete straight to the soft and bulbous part of Jason’s unmasked head.

Through the first seven-or-so Friday the 13th films, kills were for the most part inventive and the suspense buildups were just enough to have fun with the audience’s expectations. The movies understood they weren’t high art, so they weren’t overwritten.

Simple setup, simple execution.

With everything moving to television these days, it’s understandable why they might want to go bigger. In the horror genre alone — a category that traditionally lends itself to short-form storytelling — you’ve got American Horror Story, Scream Queens, Slasher, and Scream, to name a few.

It’s fine that horror audiences can now get a more prolific form of entertainment, but some things are designed for it and some things aren’t. Characters in Friday the 13th films were always supposed to suffer two fates — death or unshakable insanity from the horrible things they witnessed thanks to Jason.

The best way of getting them to those destinations is to keep the characterization as simple as possible.

Unfortunately, there is a feeling that the reason behind this latest delay is that the minds behind the upcoming Friday the 13th reboot are trying to tweak and enhance to the point of overkill.

They want you to really care about the characters when you never did before.

All Friday the 13th really needs to function is one three-dimensional protagonist and a whole lot of warm bodies, who are just asking for it.

For starters, an audience can start to feel somewhat guilty for getting excited about watching and even eagerly anticipating the way someone is about to die. If you’re constantly trying to make the characters lovable, then you risk leaving them with the feeling they were just assaulted, a sensation fans of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones know all too well.

That’s not to say there is anything wrong with a film or television show packing an emotional wallop. TWD and GoT do it quite well. But how many of you have ever classified Friday the 13th as comparable entertainment.

They are designed for different purposes. The latest delay in releasing the next Friday the 13th film threatens to betray the franchise’s original purpose — fun, gory, sexy horror that doesn’t require you to think too much.

Unless Platinum Dunes goes back to those basics, they run the risk of yet another disappointing continuation.

But what do you think, readers?

Is it ridiculous to take this long for a Friday the 13th film, or do you appreciate what the filmmakers are trying to do? Sound off in the comments section below.

[Featured Image from Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Paramount]

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