I’m waiting to do one on ones with the producers and stars (including the new Jason!) of the Friday the 13th reboot, but that means I have a couple of minutes to update you guys on the teaser trailer we just saw in the panel for the film. And let me tell you, I liked what I saw.
The teaser opens with two kids – a boy and a girl – wandering in the woods and coming across Camp Crystal Lake. There’s a cabin that’s better kept up than others, and it has a child’s bedroom, including a bed with JASON carved into the headboard. The kids find another room, this one with a shrine of candles in front of a hole in the wall. And inside the hole… Pamela Voorhees’ dessicated head.
At that moment a door slams. Someone is walking outside. We hear the ki-ki-ki ma-ma-ma on the soundtrack. The dumb kids go to investigate and then BANG, a machete comes up through the floor of the cabin. It goes back down and then slices back up again, through the boy’s foot. And again, through his hand. Then Jason starts pulling the boy through the floor boards. It’s almost Jaws-like.
Then we get the ‘From producer Michael Bay’ and ‘From the director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘ and then we get a series of scenes – Jason lumbering towards the camera, a girl drowning in the lake, Jason impaling some kids on some spikes. The stuff looks good but it builds up to one amazing moment – a girl cowering on the ground as Jason fucking sprints at her and winds up with his machete arm like he’s at bat. Slam to black before the machete makes impact.
Yes, this Jason is faster. As new Jason Derek Mears revealed on the panel, this Jason is smarter – he sets the kids up, herding them into traps. This is a new Jason and I like the way he looks and the way he’s been reconceived. The truth is that the slow-moving zombie Jason has ceased to be anything but a mild parody of himself, and if this movie can bring him back to some kind of relevance in the horror world, I’m excited. The bad news for you guys may be this: I was just chatting with the producers and they said they’re thinking of keeping this teaser as a Comic Con exclusive… you may never see it.
More from Mears and producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller soon!