Who would have thought that Hollywood would make another sequel to the Friday 13th series? And who would have thought that Jason’s umpteenth return would be a huge success? The newest instalment of the Friday 13th series topped the US box office at its opening weekend, setting a new record for the slasher genre, which had previously been held by the re-make of the famous Japanese horror, The Grudge.
Actually, the 12th episode of Friday 13th is the re-make of the very first which made its debut in 1980. Some say that it is not just the re-make of the first film, but the first four because only in the upcoming sequels did Jason decide to hide his face behind a hockey-mask that became the trademark of the series. The story of the Friday 13th films is pretty simple: a handful of teenagers set out to have a wonderful summer time near Crystal Lake Camp, unaware of the presence of a murderer.
Note that 7 sequels were made in the 1980s; however, in the ‘90s only one Jason movie was made. At the beginning of the 21st century Hollywood went crazy by putting the psychopath on a spaceship to let him carry out yet another massacre, but this time in a sci-fi environment. A couple of years ago Jason was set loose to fight another cult figure of the horror genre: Freddy Kruger, the man who wears a red and dark green striped sweater as well as a metal-clawed leather glove to haunt his victims in their dreams. The battle of the two icons can be seen in Freddy Vs Jason, which was the least successful film of all.
Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers sees another reason behind the success of the new film other that the resurrection of a classic franchise: "Hollywood seems to be unstoppable right now. With this notion of the recession helping the box office, I guess this is just another example of that. People want to go to the movies and just have fun and escape."
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