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In worlds both real and fictional, the return of the Friday the 13th series in its classic (and I use that term loosely) incarnation is both welcomed and long overdue. It may not seem like it, but between fighting Freddy Krueger and visiting space, Hell AND Manhattan, Jason Vorhees hasn’t actually stomped through Camp Crystal Lake picking off horny teenagers for two decades. And in these troubled economic times (aside: sweet fucking Jesus am I already tired of hearing some variation of that phrase during every other commercial that airs on television), the real world America could probably use all the good old fashioned escapist fun that it can get. And unabashed slasher films are nothing if not good old fashioned escapist fun.

Thus, this latest remake from Platinum Dunes (Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) seems to have an easy job ahead of it. Give us what you know we love, and everybody wins. And whenever they do just that, Friday the 13th succeeds in spades. Most of the film is fun, funny and will make audiences squirm in just the right ways, adhering to the formula that box office receipts have proved we enjoy. There’s the gratuitous nudity, drinking and drug use to compliment all the inevitable violence, no shortage of victims – including a character who is possibly the most douche baggiest of douche baggy frat boys in the history of cinema, and oh so wonderfully so – and impalements in all sorts of creative ways. Abandoning the torture porn feel that was all the rage for a few years there and thankfully not even bothering with the watered down Asian horror remake craze that is still lumbering on to diminishing box office returns, everyone involved in Friday the 13th smartly realized that the best bet was not to try and reinvent the wheel, but just to bring it back to the big screen with better lighting, special effects and pairs of breasts.

But although they left the core of it intact, Platinum Dunes couldn’t resist trying to alter the formula in a few small ways. I understand the need to do something, anything different from past movies because otherwise you’ve just got that shot for shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho from about ten years back, and boy was that a big steaming pile. But unfortunately - albeit predictably - most anything that doesn’t directly have to do with a hockey masked machete wielder hacking up people who annoy us inevitably becomes the worst parts of the film. Whether they’re sloppy (creepy, old lady townsfolk giving ominous warnings that the storyline directly disregards when convenient), too far out of left field (Jason’s reaction to a girl who bears some sort of passing resemblance to his dear departed mother seems preposterous even for a slasher film) or simply unnecessary (Jason has apparently spent the time since his mother’s death back in 1980 setting up an elaborate series of tunnels and traps throughout the greater Crystal Lake region) these little tweaks just leave us waiting impatiently for some more reckless bloodletting.  I understand and even in a certain way enjoy the slightly more realistic logic of a hunter Jason who has spent years meticulously preparing to creatively dispatch anyone who sets foot near Crystal Lake compared to a shambling zombie Jason who seems to be utterly brain dead except for remembering the act of thrusting a sharp object toward a jugular, but when the rest of the movie hews so closely to the originals any change becomes distracting.

But thankfully these changes are few and far between, and mostly made up for by getting so much right. Though the film makes Jason a bit more realistic in some ways, it also smartly retains the spooky, ninja like abilities he has to seemingly be everywhere at once and move between places without a sound. I could have done with a few more imaginative, “slam a co-ed filled sleeping bag into a tree” style murders, but the various deaths (13 in all) are superbly shot if not necessarily all that diversely executed. The dour tone of the other Platinum Dunes remakes is rejected in favor of something still horrific but not without a macabre sense of humor; I legitimately burst out laughing more than once. And, most impressively, the film maintains a near perfect balance of murdering with build-up to murdering; the greatest flaw in most slasher films and definitely any Friday the 13th film that I’ve seen (which, to be honest, isn’t nearly all of them) is the boring lulls in carnage where exposition is doled out or we are supposed to be building up empathy for the eventual victims in an otherwise superfluous “calm before the storm” moment. But this latest Friday the 13th successfully gives us just enough breaks in tension to make the mayhem all the more thrilling but not something we twiddle our thumbs waiting for; it’s not constant chaos but it’s definitely more than enough action for all but the most jaded gorehounds. Friday the 13th isn’t perfect, and with its sporadic and unnecessary changes it isn’t even a perfect slasher movie, but it certainly succeeds in all the ways it’s supposed to.

- Jeff Latta