By Jennifer Larson

Dust off your old hockey masks, because Jason is coming back to a theater near you. That’s right, zap2it.com says “the studio that previously rebooted the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE franchise has found two writers, Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, to bring FRIDAY THE 13TH back to life,” so to speak. Just what we all needed, another horror movie; ok, so FRIDAY THE 13TH is the grandfather of all other movies in its genre, but I’ll take a bone-chilling, bloodless fright fest over violence and gore any day. Take for example, the 25th anniversary re-release of POLTERGIEST. Now there is a scary movie. The only thing scary about watching Jason lumber around is wondering when I’ll see the next blood bath.

Don’t get me wrong, I love scary movies, but movies like this are about as scary as waiting for your older brother to jump out of the closet and surprise you. That’s really the element of fear utilized in these films … surprise. You know like surprise I just cut your head off with an ax, or surprise I just jumped out of the bushes and plunged a knife into you. When I think of scary, I think of voices from the great beyond talking to you through your TV set, or seeing filmy apparitions flying around the room. There’s nothing scarier than believing your dead aunt Ida is communicating with you through your toy telephone. Actually that was the premise of a TWILIGHT ZONE episode. Now today’s moviemakers could learn a thing or two from Rod Serling and Alfred Hitchcock; those men new how to do scary.

All that being said, FRIDAY THE 13TH has always proven to be hugely popular, so I guess the studio is just going by the motto of give them what they want. I have no doubt there are millions of people salivating over the news of Jason’s return, I’m just not one of them. But, if somebody were to tell me they were doing a remake of GHOST STORY, I’d be the first person at the box office on opening day.