Okay, having now been subjected to successive “reimaginings” of horror icons Leatherface, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, I’m reminded of the famous comparison that Alfred Hitchcock once made between experiencing what is simply a sudden and violent shock and going through a nail-biting and well-timed bit of suspense. He surmised that if you were watching two people talking while seated at a table and a bomb went off killing them both, that would be an example of a sudden and horrible shock. But if you were watching the same two people idly chatting while their discussion was intercut with shots of the ticking time bomb located just under the table, that would be an example of suspense. You’d be constantly on edge, wondering when and if the bomb would explode, when and if they realize the potential danger, and if they can get away and survive the ordeal. In short, it’s not about the bomb but the threat of what it can do. Sadly, it would seem the latest onslaught of horror reboots is all about the big bang, with little or no interest in recreating the style, mood or suspense that made such films as the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween and Friday the 13th so successful. Directors like Rob Zombie and Marcus Nispel have reduced beloved horror archetypes to robotic killing machines that merely bowl over teen victims like bulls in a proverbial China shop, robbing them of their mystique and mythical aura. These new horror remakes sure can shock, but they never awe.

I suppose the 2009 incarnation of Friday the 13th was a matter of caveat emptor and I should have known what to expect from both producer Michael Bay and director Marcus Nispel, who once again reteamed after their 2003 massacre of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Having drained all the wit, satire and humor from Tobe Hooper’s classic, they apparently felt the need to do the same to the movie that first introduced audiences to the horror of Camp Crystal Lake and, ultimately, the masked killer who would become Jason Voorhees. Of course, the original 1980 Friday the 13th film did pose a bit of a problem in that Jason really isn’t in it, save for the notorious “dream sequence” ending. Fans of the original Scream should know that it was Jason’s mother, Pamela Voorhees, who went around dispatching camp counselors to avenge her son’s death in director Sean S. Cunningham’s original. It wasn’t until the first sequel, Friday the 13th, Part 2, that Jason took the leading role. Not to worry — Bay, Nispel and the writing duo of Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Jason vs. Freddy) conveniently condense the entire 1980 film into a barely five-minute prologue shot on grainy, colorless stock to suggest it all happened years ago. What is past is prologue, indeed. In a flash we’re introduced to a group of horny teen party animals trekking through the woods in search of a hidden crop of marijuana. Of course, they’ve stumbled into the forbidden confines of Camp Crystal Lake, where Jason once watched his mom lose her mind and her head years earlier.

After the requisite smartass in the group relays the spooky legend of Jason Voorhees by the campfire, each of the teen stereotypes is then introduced to the business end of the legend’s machete. One by one, they wander off to smoke pot, fornicate, or talk about family issues so that Jason can conveniently pick them off like flies. Lumbering around like a brutish thug and wearing a variation of the burlap sack from Friday the 13th, Part 2, Jason here is serious as a heart attack and lacks the childlike innocence and playfulness of earlier incarnations. When he does finally discover and don his trademark hockey mask in a later ludicrous sequence, he looks more like the muscle-bound Humongous character from The Road Warrior than a guy forced to fend for himself out in the woods. (Apparently Camp Crystal Lake boasts a pretty sweet gym.) As Jason is about to dispense with his final victim, a girl named Whitney (Amanda Righetti), the film’s title card flashes onscreen … and that’s just the first 24 minutes! Lo and behold, here comes yet another group of drunken teens headed to a private cabin on Camp Crystal Lake for a party weekend. This clan, led by a dolt named Trent (Travis Van Winkle) who would have been played by James Spader in his heyday, is intent on enjoying plenty of sex, drugs and heads that roll during their excursion — and Jason is only too happy to provide the third once the sex and drugs are out of the way.

Meanwhile, Whitney’s brother Clay (Jared Padalecki) is on a mission to find his sister who went missing with her group of friends some six weeks earlier. He’s determined to literally go door-to-door, if necessary, handing out flyers with his sister’s picture, hoping that someone can provide a clue to finding her. When he meets the callous Trent and his drunken entourage at a local convenience store, the only person in the group who seems to have any sympathy for his plight is Trent’s would-be girlfriend Jenna (Danielle Panabaker), who later invites him over for a drink and even agrees to help canvass the local homes in his sister’s search — much to Trent’s chagrin. As Jenna and Clay venture off to find Whitney, the group resumes their drunken antics back at the lakeside cabin owned by Trent’s parents. When one of the couples drifts off to go waterskiing on the lake — with the girl inexplicably going topless — Jason arrives to put a damper on the proceedings … and a couple of well-aimed arrows into their bodies. As night falls, Clay and Jenna discover the remnants of the infamous Camp Crystal Lake and a dilapidated shack that Jason presumably calls home. They watch in horror as the hulking killer returns with a body wrapped in a sack and realize that Jason Voorhees isn’t just a campfire story. Making a swift getaway after hiding from him, they trip on a hidden wire which sets off a bell alarm somewhere underground … where Whitney is indeed alive and well, albeit held hostage by Jason. Apparently her subtle resemblance to Pamela Voorhees stopped him from killing her. The mine-like underground tunnel system also explains why Jason apparently can appear and disappear at various locations throughout Camp Crystal Lake (although it begs the question as to why such an elaborate underground passage exists under a campground in the first place).

Clay and Jenna return to Trent’s cabin to warn them with Jason hot on their trail. One by one, the drunken dolts fall prey to Jason’s various tools of destruction. One guy meets the wrong end of a screwdriver in a tool shed; another gets hacked down with a double-sided axe; while the smarmy Trent gets hoisted up and impaled on the antlers of a mounted deer’s head. (None of these “kills” are all that unique, by the way, despite the insistence of the cast and crew in the BD’s bonus material to the contrary. The last one here was obviously swiped from Tobe Hooper’s own stellar TV adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot.) As the rest of Trent’s nameless, talentless and forgettable clan meets their maker, it’s eventually down to just Jenna and Clay — the “good” and “chaste” couple — to fend themselves against Jason and save Whitney. They finally make their way back to Camp Crystal Lake and Jason’s rundown shack and discover the hidden underground cavern merely by chance when they hear Whitney’s well-timed screams. Of course, once they get to Whitney and are about to make another clean getaway, Jason arrives to smash and thrash his way through the tunnel system, intent on killing all three. Suffice to say that just two make it out alive, and they have a final showdown with the relentless killer inside the barn where Jason earlier whacked the stoned farmer and retrieved his trademark mask. Both the barn setting and a failed attempt to hang Jason with a chain obviously recall elements from Friday the 13th, Part III, completing references to the first three films in the original series. (I can only pray the inevitable follow-up film is truly “the final chapter.”) Jason finally gets tangled up in the chains and is pulled, head-first, into a woodchipper, a-la Steve Buscemi’s character in Fargo. Of course, such an ending wouldn’t allow for a sequel, and so we get a dimwitted epilogue wherein Jason — miraculously intact — pops up again for one last scare.

The problem with this Friday the 13th, and with every other recent horror remake for that matter, is that it lacks the scrappy but determined intent of the filmmakers to ultimately make a fun and entertaining movie. The original Friday the 13th, Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween were all essentially conceived as B-movie “popcorn” flicks — movies that would draw crowds at the drive-ins and garner plenty of repeat business through word of mouth. Though not as cheap or gimmicky as exploitation flicks, they shared some of the same traits and allure. They were all made on meager budgets by today’s standards, but they boasted a bevy of talent who knew how to build an atmosphere of dread and suspense by not showing every gruesome detail. As I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t about the sudden shock, but more about the build-up to that moment. And without that slow and intentional ratcheting up of tension, the cathartic release of the kill is reduced to a cheap trick, a temporary jolt that is soon forgotten. While the cardboard characters throughout the original series were admittedly fodder for Jason’s death list, you could at least identify with them and, more importantly, with the iconic masked murderer who seemed invincible from film to film. Watching this 2009 version of Friday the 13th is like having someone pop up from behind your couch every few minutes and yelling “boo.” Sure, you may jump the first few times, but then you’ll oddly become immune to it as it becomes less unexpected and therefore less jarring.