Every year, I try to give one of these movies a try. I’ve never found one that was any good. These movies are terrible. However, this one achieved a level of terrible so profound that I actually had a lot of fun while watching it.
If you don’t know the series, Camp Crystal Lake is a lovely summer camp that is stalked by a brutal murderer wearing a hockey mask named Jason Voorhees. His likes are murder and walking around the woods at night. His dislikes include teenagers having sex, teenagers partying, and teenagers in general. For some reason, every year the camp reopens and a new herd of nubile teens show up to get slaughtered.
This movie follows the formula to the letter while adding one new element… 3-D! You know it was a 3-D movie because people are constantly pointing to the camera, throwing things at the camera, or jumping at the camera. Every couple of minutes something will get thrown at the camera just to remind you it’s in 3-D. It’s like a weird punchline at the end of every scene. A very normal scene of two people talking ends with one character randomly pointing at the camera. There’s a whole scene where two guys are having a yoyo contest and the yo-yos are headed straight for the camera. It’s a really cheap ploy that adds nothing and distracts constantly. They are trying so hard and failing so miserably that it’s actually entertaining.
Every element of this movie is poorly done. The acting is stiff and lifeless. But it is so stiff and lifeless that it becomes hilarious after a while. Hearing people say lines like, “but I DO like you” with the emphasis placed on every wrong syllable is fascinating to watch. It sounds like the speech mode on my laptop. The emphasis is all wrong. The tone is monotonous. It becomes truly hilarious after listening to these robot people talk for an hour.
The terrible acting isn’t helped by the horrendous writing. Give a fifth grader a crayon and a piece of paper and tell them to write a script and you’d get something better than what is written here. The script has no understanding of human behavior or the ways in which real humans interact. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that an alien wrote this script after watching humans for a couple of hours. My favorite moment is an exchange that goes something like this… “I like you.” “I don’t know.” “You don’t like me I can tell.” “I’m going to go outside for a few minutes. Then we can talk.” She walks five feet away and stands awkwardly in front of the door. It’s so bizarre that it becomes hilarious. I laughed out loud constantly.
This movie has two jump scares that worked on me. One comes late when Jason is hanging from the barn. He lurches toward the final girl, and it got me. The other is at the very end, and it’s a fake out involving a duck. Loud ducks are just naturally startling. Other than that the scares are boring. There’s one hilarious moment where Jason walks out onto a dock in full light with a harpoon gun. He just casually lumbers along. He’s not trying to hide or sneak up on the girl. In fact, she talks to him as he approaches. He then casually raises the harpoon gun. She watches him do it as if it’s no big deal. He shoots her. She dies. He slowly walks back to the cabin. It’s so nonchalant that I laughed. I can’t imagine a less scary scene. It was amazingly bad.
Every element of this movie is so bad and so poorly done, that I ended up having a lot of fun during it. It pushes the envelope of quality so far that it falls off the desk and shatters on the floor. It’s hilariously bad, and I enjoyed myself immensely.
It’s my cup of tea. The movie’s quality – F. My experience with it? A
Cup of Tea Reviews 