FILM REVIEW OF ''SCREAM 4" (2011)

The "Scream" film franchise carved a memorable niche out of the slasher movie genre between the years 1996 to 2000. Not only did the original "Scream" trilogy qualify as a hoot because it ridiculed genre classics such as "Halloween," "Friday the 13th," “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," but it was also a holler since it delivered its sadism with smarts that the grisly classics shunned. "Scream" director Wes Craven and scenarist Kevin Williamson have waited a little over a decade to reboot the franchise with the latest installment. Judging from its dearth of creativity, “Scream 4” (**1/2 out of ****) doesn't deliver enough of anything to whet our appetite for a fifth entry. Mind you, the production values are solid and the gore is more than adequate, it's primarily the story that leaves something to be desired. Craven and Williamson have bled the franchise of its cutting edge spontaneity while other more potent franchises, such as the hilarious "Scary Movie" series and the sadistic "Saw" sagas, have emerged to make the "Scream" movies appear prudish by comparison. Although original survivor Neve Campbell, small-town Barney Fife sheriff David Arquette, and savvy news reporter Courteney Cox reprise their roles, their presence adds only minimal novelty to this thawed-out, run-of-thrill chiller. Nevertheless, the insightful cinematic criticism that permeated the original trilogy remains just as razor-sharp in "Scream 4." The new technology, such as Twitter, web streaming, and smart phone applications that enable callers to garble their voices like Ghostface, is clever, but none substantially strengthen the threadbare plot. Chiefly, the motive that the new killers espouse to resume their homicide for the hell of it is hopelessly lackluster. Indeed, sitting through the thoroughly repetitive "Scream 4" is like attending a high school reunion where your old classmates have invited their offspring to enliven the occasion.

Craven and Williamson jump start the action with five startling murders that follow one another in rapid succession with harrowing twists. Indeed, the filmmakers rely on those creepy phone calls from an anonymous caller (voiced by Roger L. Jackson) to the girls about their favorite scary movies. Actresses Anna Paquin of "X-Men" fame, Kristen Bell of TV's "Veronica Mars," and Heather Graham of "Scream 2" pop up in cameos during these opening gambits. Basically, they have modified a skillful tactic that director John Landis deployed with considerable effect in his legendary 1981 chiller "An American Werewolf in London." After the opening credits subside, we find ourselves back in the bucolic small town of Woodsboro as Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell of "The Craft") returns as a part of her publicity tour for her new self-help tome "Out of the Darkness." Remember, Sidney was the sole survivor girl in the original trilogy. We learn that Deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") has been promoted to sheriff, while investigative journalist Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox of TV's "Cougar Town") has given up her old job to settle down with Dewey as his wife while she writes exploitation novels about the Woodsboro murders. No sooner has Sidney shown up for her book promotion tour than Dewey and his deputy Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton of "Never Been Kissed"), careen up in their cruisers to find the cell phone of a recently slain Woodsboro teenager in the trunk of our heroine's rental car.

Although Sheriff Riley and Deputy Hicks struggle to keep a tight lid on the double homicide of high school teens Jenny Randall (Aimee Teegarden of TV's "Hannah Montana") and Marnie Cooper (Brittany Robertson of "Dan in Real Life"), everybody at Woodsboro High School knows about the murders before lunch. As tragic as the news is, the scene in a classroom where virtually the entire student body responds to their chiming cell phones is rather amusing. Since Sidney is a material witness in the case, Dewey demands that she stick around until he can clear up the mystery. She winds up staying with her aunt Kate Roberts (Mary McDonnell of "Dances With Wolves") and cousin Jill (Emma Roberts of "Nancy Drew") while a psychotic murderer decked out in a black cape with Edvard Munch mask stabs its way through hapless teens. The most likely suspect is Jill's ex-boyfriend Trevor Sheldon (Nico Tortorella of "Twelve") who cheated on her. Jill's two friends, Olivia Morris (Marielle Jaffe of "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief") and Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere of TV's "Heroes"), run interference for her against the ubiquitous Trevor who appears to be stalking her.

Like previous "Scream" epics, "Scream 4" boasts two nerdy characters, Charlie Walker (Rory Culkin of "Signs") and Robbie Mercer (Erik Knudsen of "Beastly"), who serve as trivial pursuit connoisseurs on horror movies. The charm of the original "Scream" trilogy was that everybody suspected who was going to die next based on the conventions of the slasher genre. If you pay careful attention to the characters and the action, you can figure out who is behind the murders, but Craven and Williamson do a good job of seeding the plot with red herrings to throw you off the scent. The running joke here is that gay characters enjoy a greater chance of survival than heterosexual characters. Ultimately, this isn't the case. Everybody who congregates around the new Sidney--Jill--and her ex-boyfriend Trevor stands an excellent chance of dying. The problem with all this shrewdly staged nonsense is that none of the old rules apply. None of the teens is involved in illicit relationships that make them vulnerable to a serial killer. Primarily, they become victims when they are isolated in a house, and the sheriff deputies sent to protect them fare no better as our killer doesn't discriminate against them when it comes time to stab. The biggest problem is that none of the new teens make very interesting characters and the thespians that portray them lack charisma. Finally, the last quarter-hour is worse than a classic slasher as things grow repetitively far-fetched, and "Scream 4" draws this finale out to absurd lengths. Although it isn't a total waste of time, "Scream 4" suffers from over-familiarity and needless self-referentialism.

FILM REVIEW OF "SORORITY ROW" (2009)

A prank gone wrong in “Whisper” director Stewart Hendler’s “Sorority Row,” an unsavory, sometimes savage, but smirking R-rated remake of the vintage 1983 slasher “The House on Sorority Row,” sets off a succession of sadistic slayings. “Good Luck Chuck” scenarist Josh Stolberg and TV writer Peter Goldfinger have adapted and updated Mark Rosman’s screenplay about blood, gore, and babes and supplemented the savagery with sardonic “Heathers” humor. Not only has Hendler orchestrated the butchery and bitchery with style but he has also conjured up an atmospheric slash-a-thon that delivers several shocks and surprises. These gals and guys aren’t as idiotic as the usual slasher movie victims. Indeed, more than one girl survives.

“Quarantine” lenser Ken Sing enhances the grisly quality of this mass murderer melodrama with his grainy, raw-edged widescreen cinematography and he wobbles his camera to heighten the suspense. At the same time, editor Elliot Greenberg carves up the action with such rhythm that each jolt delivers stop-in-your-tracks impact. You’ll jump at most of these bolts from the black, especially the sound effects of sharp objects either penetrating or caroming off bodies. Little of this would register were it not for superb sound engineering. The ensemble cast that includes Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis, and Jamie Chung constitute all the pretty maids in this “Row” that the mysterious slayer sets out to slay. This mass murderer doesn’t discriminate when it comes to killing, even innocent bystanders succumb to the villain’s pimped out four-way tire iron weapon. The worst thing that you can say about “Sorority Row” is that the fire department takes their own sweet time responding to the fiery finale. Of course, if they had arrived earlier, they’d have interfered with the showdown between the killer and victims. Nevertheless, the last quarter hour serves up thrills and chills that pay off with a clever ending that likely may yield a sequel.

The action unfolds at a bacchanal off campus at a sorority house. Five mischievous wenches of the sorority Theta Pi decide to humiliate a guy, Garrett (Matt O’Leary of “Brick”), who has cheated on his girlfriend with the prank to end all pranks. They have supplied Garrett with what he believes are roofies, and he has dosed Megan (Audrina Patridge of “Into the Blue 2”) with them so that she appears to have passed out. She awakens as Garrett is about to take advantage of her and then apparently dies while her devoted sisters gaze on in horror. The queen bee of the bunch, Jessica (Leah Pipes of “Fingerprints”), knows that Megan is playing possum. Jessica, Cassidy (Briana Evigan of “Step Up 2: The Streets”), Claire (Jamie Chung of “Dragonball: Evolution”) and Ellie (Rumer Willis of “Wild Cherry”) pile into a van with Megan’s limp body and a distraught Garrett. They head off to a mine in the middle of nowhere. Once they arrive, Jessica suggests that they hack the body up into pieces so it will be harder for anybody to find. Meanwhile, Megan records the scene with her cell phone. The girls spread out to collect rocks while Garrett empties his stomach on the ground. He musters his nerve and seizes a four-way tire iron from the van. When nobody is watching him, he sinks one end of it into Megan’s chest before anybody can stop him. The horrified girls close ranks in the name of ‘sisterhood and solidarity’ and cover up the crime. Unceremoniously, they dump Megan’s bloody body into an abandoned well.

Eight months later, at a graduation reception at the Theta Pi house, one of the girls in on the conspiracy, Ellie, shrieks when she thinks that she has seen the dead girl Megan walking among them. In fact, Ellie saw Megan’s younger sister Maggie (Caroline D’Amore of “Daydreamer”) who is visiting the sorority. The girls plan to celebrate another bacchanalian revelry that evening once their crusty house mother, Mrs. Crenshaw (Carrie Fisher of the first “Star Wars” trilogy) vacates the premises. Meantime, the mysterious killer dons a “Scream” monk’s robe with hood and wields a four-way tire iron modified with other forms of cutlery. This weapon compares favorably to the weapons that other serial killers in slasher movies have armed themselves with over the years. This cunning individual follows Chugs (Margo Harshman of “Fired Up”) to her shrink’s office where she plans to score prescription drugs after she performs oral sex on the crooked physician. When Chugs isn’t looking, the killer sends his exotic weapon spinning through the air tomahawk style so it lodges in the good doctor’s forehead. The killer sneaks up on Chugs while she is lying on her back with an expensive bottle of liquor in her lips and shoves a bottle down her throat and then shatters it. Another girl has a spear run through her mouth pinning her head to a wall. Yet another dies from a flare gun cartridge that melts in her mouth and turns her face into bubble wrap.

Leah Pipes takes the cake as the nastiest sister of the bunch, while Briana Evigan qualifies as the nicest. She is the one who wanted to call the authorities while the others bundled Megan up in Cassidy’s coat and tossed her in the well. Meanwhile, elderly Carrie Fisher has a couple of scenes as the cantankerous Theta Pi house mother, but she cannot hit the side of barn with a pump action shotgun. The writers throw in a couple of red herrings to keep us guessing about the identity of the killer. The cast is persuasive even when the action is not. There is a whole lot of stabbing going on along with irresponsible drinking and bare breasted babes in a shower scene. In the original “House on Sorority Row,” seven girls covered up the crime while only five try to here. “Sorority Row” is a good slasher movie that is worth watching more than once.

FILM REVIEW OF ''HALLOWEEN 2'' (2009)

No, you don’t have to be a degenerate to enjoy director Rob Zombie’s violent remake/sequel of “Halloween 2.” Director Rick Rosenthal’s original “Halloween 2” (1981) qualified as a one-dimensional, no-brainer sequel bloodbath with stabalicious Michael Myers prowling a hospital and killing everybody in sight, not always with a knife. Michael assumed a supernatural omnipotence in “Halloween 2” and he survived virtually everything, even being blinded by Laurie. Nevertheless, “Halloween 2” told us nothing new about Michael other than he derived satisfaction from killing more people in different ways. Writer & director Zombie doesn’t make this mistake with “Halloween 2” (**** out of ****) and it is virtually as brilliant and psychologically insightful as its predecessor. The cinematography and the songs, especially “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues, enhance the atmosphere of this chiller. Zombie’s “Halloween 2” is a surreal saga and a commentary about family values. This remake of “Halloween 2” is far more ambitious, gruesome, and psychological than the original.

Briefly, in the prologue, Zombie flashbacks to 10-year old Michael in the mental asylum conversing with his mother (Sheri Moon Zombie of “House of 1000 Corpses”) about a white horse that she has given him. The first thing we see is a definition of a white horse and that it symbolizes the rage of the protagonist. Meanwhile, the Michael that talks with his mom is the Michael before he retreated behind behind mask. Sure, it is unfortunate Zombie couldn't bring back Daeg Faerch to reprise his role as young Michael. According to Zombie, young Faerch had grown too old to play a 10-year old. Nevertheless, Chase Wright Vanek brings his chilly presence to the role, resembling a murderous munchkin.

Thereafter, Zombie’s “Halloween 2” replicates Rosenthal’s “Halloween 2” as ambulances deliver both Laurie and Annie (Danielle Harris) to Haddonfield Hospital where the emergency room physicians perform miracles on them, especially the hacked up Annie. Meanwhile, Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif of “Dune”) orders the coroner to lock up Michael's body until he can examine it. No sooner have the two sleazy attendants loaded Michael and driven off than they slam into a cow on the highway, killing the driver instantly, smashing up his partner, and allowing Michael to escape. At the hospital, Laurie isn’t doing so well. Laurie is frantic about Annie, and she still suffers from the trauma of having emptied a revolver into Michael. Just as she is regaining her grip on reality, Michael comes a-slashing and nobody can keep him out. He chases a hysterical Laurie during a storm around the hospital and corners her in the security guard shack with a fire axe. He chops his way into the shack, but Laurie manages to escape.

Indeed, Laurie escapes by waking up. Dreams, hallucinations, and nightmares pervade “Halloween 2” and you can never be sure when each or all aren’t masquerading as reality. Michael is driven by the image of a giant white horse held on a rope by his dutiful mom Deborah, with himself standing alongside of her as an angelic 10-year adolescent. Family solidarity is important to Michael, and Michael has sworn to reunite the family, even if it means butchering Laurie like a steer. However, Zombie shows us a deeper, psychic linkage between Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) and Michael. When Michael (Tyler Mane of “ Troy ”) slaughters a dog and gnaws on its remains, Zombie cross-cuts images of Michael devouring the dog with Laurie eating a pizza. Psychically, Michael and Laurie are on the same wavelength and Laurie winds up at the toilet tossing her stomach because she can taste the dog meat. Without coming out and embroidering it in dialogue, Zombie tells us that it is this deep, psychic connection between Michael and Laurie as blood kin that enables him to track her down.

Life after Halloween has not been a picnic for Laurie. She spends time with her therapist (Margo Kidder of “Superman”), works at an old hippie-style coffee house run by none other than Howard Hesseman of “WKRP in Cincinnati ,” and hangs out with two trippy girlfriends who live life as if it were an endless party. Repeatedly, Laurie has lurid nightmares about Michael’s attacks, but Michael is in fact nowhere nearby. Indeed, he has gone into hiding in the woods, a kind of hibernation until a truckload of pugnacious rednecks test his resiliency and realize their error shortly before he dispatches them in the least merciful way. As in the first “Halloween 2,” Laurie has no clue that she is Michael Myers’ sister and this revelation warps her mind to no end.

The third party in this threesome is Michael’s life-long psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell of “A Clockwork Orange”) and he is wrestling with his own demons. Remember, Dr. Loomis barely escaped Michael in Zombie’s “Halloween.” Now, he has mutated into a egotist and is touting his book about Michael as he tours the country, signing copies of his tome for his fans. The media latches onto him like the leeches that they are and attributes the blame for Michael's massacres to Loomis. Loomis learns quickly that escape is not possible from either the cynical media or parents of Michael’s victims. Ultimately, Loomis seeks redemption by going back to Haddonfield when Michael comes back for Halloween.

Laurie Strode is the chief protagonist in “Halloween 2” and the film justly belongs to Scout Taylor-Compton as she struggles to survive in the wake of her debacle. She lives now with Annie and her father at their rural house. Not only does “Halloween 2” look different from its predecessor, but also Zombie emphasizes the rural quality of the area. In his remake of “Halloween,” we were trapped along with the principals in what appeared to be a rural suburb. “Halloween 2” takes us back to the woods. Michael spends his time communing with nature and the visions of his mother, the white horse, and himself as an innocent adolescent before he resumes his murderous ways.

Not surprisingly, the violence in “Halloween 2” is gruesome without being sickening. In other words, we only see Michael hack away at his victims with a knife, stomp their faces in, or cut their heads off and usually in ways that make it ugly instead of glorious. We don't see the knife contact flesh when he goes into stabbing mode. Zombie’s favorite tactic is to let Michael strike just as things are calming down and part of this involves sudden movements and things like glass or wood shattered by his fists. There are moments when the violence takes on a traumatic weight that will scare the daylights out of the squeamish while gore hounds may yawn at some of Zombie’s discretions.

“Halloween 2” is both a triumph in style and substance with an ending that suggests Zombie may pull the biggest surprise in the franchise should the saga continue.

FILM REVIEW OF ''HALLOWEEN" (2007)

You’ll have to look long and hard to find a remake more reverential to its source material than director Rob Zombie’s version of the 1978 John Carpenter classic “Halloween.” Before Zombie took on the daunting task of making “Halloween,” he had two fairly decent but horribly depraved epic under his belt with “House of 1000 Corpses” and “The Devil’s Rejects.” I preferred “Corpses” over “Rejects,” and I didn’t have high hopes to the blasphemy that he would visit on the first Michael Myers outing. Surprising, Zombie’s take on Carpenter’s “Halloween” is just about the best remake that anybody could have dreamed. “Halloween” (**** out of ****)doesn’t even look like it was helmed by the same guy who made either “Corpses” or “Rejects.” Sure, Zombie made some heavyweight changes to the story, but everything comes together without a hitch. Despite all of the freaky problems that Zombi recounts on the commentary track to the unrated & uncut “Halloween,” this remake should make John Carpenter feel great and anybody who like the original “Halloween” should have a soft spot for Zombi’s remake that he not only directed but also wrote. The casting choices for the new “Halloween” are right on the money, too.

The original “Halloween” contained a brief prologue about murderous Michael Myers, but Zombie devotes almost 40 minutes to setting up the action that takes place some 15-years after Michael breaks out of person. Actually, apart from the extended prologue that scrutinizes Michael’s early years, Zombie doesn’t make any radical departures from the John Carpenter & Debra Hill screenplay. As the story unfolds, we find ourselves in a battlefield of a household with Deborah Myers (Sheri Moon Zombi of “The Devil’s Rejects”) preparing breakfast for young 10-year old Michael (Daeg Faerch of Dark Mirror”), her second husband Ronnie White (William Forsythe of “Once Upon A Time in America”), her teenage daughter Judith (Hanna Hall of “Forrest Gump”), and her infant daughter Laurie. Ronnie is a foul-mouthed reprobate who cannot give his stripper wife a hard enough time and he has nothing but contempt for young Michael who he constantly refers to as a faggot. Although Zombi doesn’t go into details, Michael slices up his pet rat in the first scene before Deborah dispatches Judith to bring him downstairs for breakfast. If the merciless barrages of profanity that Ronnie launches at him are not enough, Michael has to endure ridicule from school bully Wesley Rhoades (Daryl Sabara of “Spy Kids”) who shows him a newspaper strip joint clipping about his mother and makes several sickening comments about her to his face. This fracas in the boys’ restroom attracts the attention of school principal Chambers (Richard Lynch of Cyborg 3”) and Chambers later discovers a dead cat in a plastic bag in young Michael’s locker.

An angry Deborah comes to the school at Chamber’s request and refuses to believe that her angelic son could be a sadistic little brat who tortures helpless animals. Later, Michael stalks the slimy Rhoades and attacks him the woods with a big stick and beats him to death. Back at home, Michael wants to go trick or treating, but nobody wants to take him. Mom has to strip at the joint and Judith wants to make out with her boyfriend. Again, Michael must suffer through another profane barrage from the evil Ronnie. Eventually, Ronnie runs out of steam and falls asleep in his recliner. Zombi does a splendid job of showing young Michael’s dejection as he sits outside the house and watches other trick or treat while his mother has to strip to support her family. Zombi uses the pop tune “Love Hurts.” Michael snaps, goes back inside, duct-tapes Ronnie to his recliner and slashes his throat. Meantime, Judith’s boyfriend shows her his Halloween mask, which is a replica of the one from the original “Halloween.” Later, Michael stabs the boyfriend to death and finishes off his sister. Naturally, Deborah is devastated when she comes home. Earlier, at Michael’s school, a psychologist Dr. Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell of “If”) had been called in by Chambers.

Michael is sent to a mental asylum where he endures hours of interviews with a sympathetic Loomis, but Michael gradually retreats behind the masks that he makes rather than discuss his life. Deborah gives up all hope and commits suicide while watching home movies of Michael. At this point, about 40 minutes has elapsed and Zombi has done a simply brilliant job of providing Michael’s back story. Fifteen years elapses and Loomis has to throw in the towel where Michael is concerned but not before he authors a book about the evil that is Michael. The next time we see Michael, he has grown into a powerful, seven-foot man. Mind you, in the hands of anybody else, this sudden transformation into a walking redwood tree would be hilarious, but it actually works for Zombi. Michael (Taylor Mane of “Troy”) escapes after a couple of crazy redneck attendants invade his room with a catatonic female inmate and brutally rape her while calling virginal Michael a faggot. Michael snaps again. He kills both of them and then massacres everybody else, though we never see him kill the female patient. Any sympathy that we might have conjured up for Michael vanishes when he kills the one orderly, Ismael Cruz (Danny Trejo of “Con-Air”), by drowning him. Michael sets out to track down Baby Boo who has grown up to become Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton of “Sleepover”) who lives with her foster parents, Cynthia Strode (Dee Wallace of “10”) and Mason Strode (Pat Skipper), back in Haddonfield.

The asylum alerts Dr. Loomis about Michael’s escape and he heads to Haddonfield to alert Sheriff Lee Brackett (Brad Dourif of “Dune”) who doesn’t believe a word. At this point, Zombi makes some minor changes, but basically replicates Carpenter’s “Halloween,” even with the scene involving the boyfriend wearing the white sheet like a ghost as he has sex with Brackett’s daughter. Meanwhile, Laurie has no idea that she is being stalked until all hell breaks loose and Michael comes after her. Before he embarks on his second killing spree, Michael recovers the mask from his old home and takes his mom’s cemetery tombstone. He catches Laurie’s friend but he doesn’t kill her in a refreshing change of pace. The last 20 minutes are simply tour-de-force with Michael stalking Laurie and Loomis hot on their trail. The cast is superb, even in the minor roles with “Monkees” star Micky Dolenz playing a gun salesman and Sybil Danning as the asylum nurse that young Michael slaughters with a fork. A number of other good thespians flesh out the cast in minor roles with effective performances. Look for Sid Haig and Bill Moseley in cameo along with Udo Kier and Clint Howard. The music is pretty much the same and you can see excerpts from Howard Hawks “The Thing” and Bela Lugosi from “White Zombie.” One of the ironic scenes occurs after Michael returns to Haddonfield and he gets to watch the ending of “The Thing,” the same movie that he started watching on the night he snapped and went on a murder spree. Here he invades another house and watches the scene without a word while a little girl sits in front of him watching the movie without a clue that hulking Michael stands within an arm’s reach of her. Rob Zombie’s remake of “Halloween” is nothing short of brilliant and he deserves to have praised heaped on him. He shows incredible restraint in duplicating Carpenter’s legendary chiller and looks as if he were deliberately soft pedaling what could easily have been a savage yarn.

FILM REVIEW OF ''FRIDAY THE 13TH" (2009)

Jason is back with a murderous vengeance in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remake director Marcus Nispel’s “Friday the 13th” (** out of ****), and he doesn’t aim to please. This invincible villain with his attitude toward pre-marital sex has changed. Essentially, the new “Friday the 13th” synthesizes Sean S. Cunningham’s above-average original along with Steve Minor’s first and second gratuitous sequels to deliver the maximum amount of mayhem. Nevertheless, despite its slick, ultra-polished production values, nudity, and carnage, this “Friday” lacks a shred of creativity. Clearly, nobody expected anything fresh from the new “Friday the 13th,” but Nispel’s remake shows more interest in Jason than Jason’s truly demented mother. Gorehounds weaned on the “Saw” sagas will gripe about the lack of brutality. Everybody else will feel like they’ve suffered through a nightmare in a hospital emergency room. Prudes will carp about the soft-core porno scenes and the voyeurism that panders to its lusty teenage audience. Bluntly, “Friday the 13th” generates no suspense, but does a number on your eardrums.

The original “Friday the 13th” dealt with a mom gone amok over the drowning death of her son while teenage counselors who were supposed to be watching him indulged in sex. Mrs. Voorhees vented her rage and cut a swathe with a machete through those amorously distracted teenagers. Indeed, Jason appeared only at the last moment in Cunningham’s 1980 original and he was only a boy. Incidentally, the first “Friday the 13th” helped launch the slasher genre a couple of years of John Carpenter’s mildly bloody “Halloween.” Mind you, Jason didn’t don the hockey mask that provided him with more personality than any other slasher stalker until the second sequel, “Friday the 13th in 3-D (1982) and by that time his immortality was taken for granted. After all, Jason is basically supernatural. He has more lives than a cat. He’s been frozen, blasted into outer space, and consigned to Hell with few ill effects. A mute, inexorable, slaughter machine with the mentality of a battery powered hare, Jason is Death personified. The new Jason, however, takes on some of the characteristics—not surprisingly—of Leatherface from the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” franchise. Jason operates in and around Camp Crystal Lake, where he drowned as a youth, like a cunning Viet Cong guerrilla, living in a maze of tunnels with booby-traps galore. Boasting his usual god-like omnipotence, he is tall, dark, and deadly. You never know where he is going to strike and where his weapon of choice will penetrate you.

The problem with the new “Friday” is Nispel disposes of Mrs. Voorhees in the first few moments without giving the dame her due. The Damian Shannon & Mark Swift screenplay doesn’t take place in Camp Crystal Lake, and nobody is trying to refurnish the old campgrounds. Instead, the latest lambs for Jason’s machete are a half-dozen, college-aged hikers searching for marihuana growing wild on Jason’s stomping grounds. This subplot recalls the Leonardo DiCaprio movie “The Beach” where college kids swarmed into a pot field and died at the hands of machine-gun armed natives! Of course, these kids don’t have a clue that they’re trespassing on Jason’s bailiwick. Our deformed killer dispatches them with extreme prejudice in the first 30 minutes. In a throwback to an earlier Jason sequel, he bundles a babe into a sleeping bag and smokes her to death over a fire. Unmistakably, Nispel is paying homage to Jason bashing a girl trapped in a sleeping bag against a tree in “Friday the 13th Part VII—The New Blood” (1988).

In a departure from the norm, Jason takes one of these girls, Whitney Miller (Amanda Righetti of “Role Models”), hostage because she reminds him of mom. He keeps her chained up in his subterranean lair. Later, to her credit, Whitney parlays her resemblance to Mrs. Voorhees to her advantage. Whitney’s motorcycle riding brother, Clay (Jared Padelecki of TV’s “Supernatural”), is scouring Camp Crystal Lake for her and handing out missing posters. Clay is reminiscent of Rob in “Friday the 13th Part IV: Jason Lives” (1986) who wanted to kill Jason for slaughtering his sister. Anyway, Clay encounters a group of obnoxious twentysomethings hanging out at a cabin on Crystal Lake. These kids look like they stepped out of a WB soap opera. They are pretty, but bland, except for Asian-American Aaron Yoo of “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist” who provides some comic relief. Eventually, Clay finds Whitney, but by then Jason has appropriated his hockey mask, whittled down virtually nondescript nitwits, and bears down on the hero and heroine. Nispel generates his scares with sudden bursts of deafening music timed with occur with Jason’s sudden appearances. Everything is rather dull when Jason isn’t slashing and gashing his victims. “Pathfinder” lenser Daniel Pearl’s atmospheric photography creates a modicum of mood. Incredibly, Nispel doesn’t take full advantage of Harry Manfredini’s memorable “ch-ch-ch/pa-pa” music. Comparatively, Nispel’s unsubtle remake makes Sean S. Cunningham’s original slasher look Shakespearean.

FILM REVIEW OF ''MY BLOODY VALENTINE" (2009)

“Dracula 2000” director Patrick Lussier has taken a few liberties with the low-budgeted 1981 Canadian slasher saga “My Bloody Valentine.” Nevertheless, he has retained most of the cliches and conventions of that largely predictable bloodbath and presented them with new vigor in his visually stunning 3-D remake. Eyeballs pop out at you in this state-of-the-art 3-D account, and the villain’s predatory pickaxe plunges through the screen repeatedly to keep you perched on the edge of your seat. Bodies spout blood frequently and various severed body parts fly in your face. A tree branch smashes through the windshield of a vehicle as it careens into it, and it rams through the interior, shattering the rear window, and sticking out straight in your face as the vehicle halts. Clearly, “My Bloody Valentine” will gratify gorehounds, while the squeamish will huddle in abject horror. Mind you, Lussier’s movie is the first R-rated, 3-D slasher in the latest 3-D craze that has hit theatres since 2008. No comparison exists between “My Bloody Valentine in 3-D” and 1982’s “Friday the 13th Part III” in 3-D. This hair-raising hokum looks great even when the axe isn’t altering somebody’s anatomy. “Supernatural” star Jensen Ackles and “Dawson’s Creek” star Kerr Smith vie for Jamie King while veteran character actors like Tom Atkins from “Creepshow” and Kevin Tighe of TV’s “Emergency” flesh out the fringes.

The new “My Bloody Valentine” (***1/2 out of ****) qualifies as a three-star chiller with riveting four-star 3-D special effects. Lussier and scenarists Todd Farmer & Zane Smith have integrated the “Fight Club” sight gag skillfully enough to keep you guessing about the psycho’s identity. Costume plays an integral part in this mayhem. The maniac dons a miner’s outfit, with its anonymous gas mask, goggles, coveralls, gauntlets, boots, and wields a pickaxe with devastating dexterity. You cannot tell who he is and the sound of his breathing strikes terror in the hearts of his victims. Watching this ominous exercise in calculating carnage in its flat, 2-D format is a complete waste of time and money. The only way to watch “My Bloody Valentine” is in 3-D! Lussier spares nothing in his ramped-up remake that features an entire sequence of gratuitous but hilarious nudity as a woman tries to dodge a pickaxe behind the box springs of a bed. A scene in a hospital features more chopped-up corpses than you want to count. You get to feast your eyes on two eviscerated corpses with their torsos cracked open like a slaughtered steers so you can ogle their spines. The original “My Bloody Valentine” combined elements of John Carpenter’s “Halloween” and Sean Cunningham’s “Friday the 13th, but that original independent Canadian horror chiller didn’t coin enough bucks for Paramount Picture to launch a franchise. Lussier’s lurid rehash, however, lets the psycho survive with a “Silence of the Lambs” gag, so a sequel is inevitable. Metaphorically, evil never dies!

The action unfolds in the small mining town of Harmony, Pennsylvania. Lussier relies on a melodramatic montage of banner newspaper headlines to clue us in on the disaster at the Hanniger mine. Young Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles), the local mine owner’s son, made a terrible mistake ten years ago that left five men dead and one in a coma. Sole survivor Harry Warden (Rick Walters) awakens from a year-long coma on Valentine’s Day and embarks on a bloody rampage at the local hospital. Harry suits up in miner’s garb and hacks his way through 22 people, before Sheriff Burke (Tom Atkins) and his deputy fill him with lead. Before Harry dies, the fiend drenches young Hanniger’s face with gore galore. Traumatized by the experience, Hanniger hightails it out of Harmony, abandoning his sexy sweetheart Sarah (Jamie King of “The Spirit”), and heads off to parts unknown. Meanwhile, Hanniger’s best friend, Axel Palmer (Kerr Smith), becomes Harmony’s sheriff and marries Sarah. The death of his father prompts Hanniger to return to Harmony ten years later to sell the mine. Since the mine represents the life blood of the town, nobody is happy to see him. Predictably, horrible things begin to happen. Naturally, Axel suspects Hanniger is the guilty party, but most of the citizens insist that Harry Warden has risen from the grave.

Lussier, who not only helmed “My Bloody Valentine” but also co-edited it, is a protégé of horror master Wes Craven, best known for his “Scream” trilogy. Clearly, Lussier has his head and heart in the right place for this slice of savagery. Lussier doesn’t squander a moment in his concise 101 minute massacre and the climactic showdown in the mine between Axel and Tom with Sarah debating who to shoot generates some suspenseful humor. Unfortunately, despite all his sleight of hand, anybody with a brain will know the identity of the villain. The big difference between this “Bloody Valentine” and its predecessor is that the villain doesn’t just stalk lusty teenagers. Anybody of any age—including a poor midget--is fair game. The big difference between the remake and the original is that in the original, the killer threatened to return to Harmony if the town celebrated Valentine’s Day with a dance. The new “Bloody Valentine” doesn’t have a dance. Lussier’s ending surpasses the original and the film has a couple of exciting scenes, particularly when our heroine and another girl find themselves trapped in a grocery store.

You couldn’t axe for a better 3-D slasher than “My Bloody Valentine.”

FILM REVIEW OF ''HIGH TENSION" (2003)

Scary films—like nightmares—shun logic. After all, what else would you expect from movies about vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, mutated creatures, and sadistic maniacs?

Searching for logic in a scary movie is like skinny dipping in quicksand.

If the vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, creatures, and madmen defy logic, their victims fare no better. Folks in horror movies behave foolishly. When they confront horror, they freeze in their footsteps and belt out a blood-curdling screams. Or they flee in the wrong direction, fall down, and sprain an ankle. Even if the girl doesn't sprain her ankle, she will run in a circle and collide with the villain. If the victims reach their car, they must crank up their jalopy repeatedly before the engine finally turns over, just as the monster or killer looms large in their rearview mirror. Indeed, the only reason that the engine doesn't fire-up the first time out is that it would make it too easy for the victims to escape.

Alas, horror movie villains are as unreal as they are undead, and their victims qualify as the least resourceful humans on earth. Now, keeping this in mind, do you watch scary movies to see the victims apply cold, hard logic to an illogical crisis while keeping a cool head under pressure? Anybody that goes to horror movies hoping that the villain will be realistic or that the victims won't do idiotic things clearly doesn't know much about horror movies and life-in-general. Some moviegoers love to berate the victims for their crazy behavior. If you saw a vampire, werewolf, zombie, mutated creature, or homicidal maniac, you'd probably freeze-up and howl, too. If logic has no place in horror movies, neither does realism. People ridicule creature-features routinely because Godzilla doesn't look like the genuine article. Has anybody seen a radioactive prehistoric monster? Werewolves aren't real, so how can they look genuine? Basically, criticizing horror movies for lapses in logic or lack of realism makes no sense. Criticizing horror movies as a type of movie makes better sense, and people who hate horror movies have no right to single out horror movies that abuse logic and defy realism.

The French horror movie "High Tension" (***1/2 out of ****) definitely gives both logic and realism the axe. As the best and bloodiest horror chiller since "Saw," "High Tension" qualifies as a ghastly valentine for gorehounds. First, "High Tension" narrowly avoided an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, but the MPAA must have been in a generous mood when they gave this nerve-jangler an R-rating. You'll see more blood and gore on display here than those recent remakes of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "House of Wax," or nail-biters like "Bogyman." Second, director Alexandre Aja doesn't waste time with a lot of cheap false alarms to make the hair rise on the back of our necks. He is too busy showing a homicidal maniac killing people to indulge in those moments designed to make you jump when he can plunge you up to your neck into a blood-soaked situation.

Just for the record, don't see this movie if you are the squeamish. "High Tension" will scare the puke out of you. Aja doesn't pull any punches when it comes to depicting violence. The scene where the maniac breaks out a huge buzz saw that resembles something firefighters wield to free people trapped in cars illustrates this idea. The villain approaches a stalled-out car that his victim has flagged down on a deserted road. As the driver frantically cranks the vehicle, the maniac smashes the windshield then mangles the driver with this hideous weapon, turning the interior of the car into a bloodbath. In some horror circles, gorehounds call these movies splatter movies instead of slasher movies.

Actually, "High Tension" combines slasher with splatter for a bloodbath of a life-time. Plot wise, "High Tension" concerns two female college students in contemporary France who spend a weekend in the country to catch up on their school work. Marie (Cecile De France of "Around the World in 80 Days") and Alex (Maiween Le Besco of "The Fifth Element") cruise into remote Southern France where Alex's family live on an isolated farm house. No sooner has everybody turned in for the evening than a homicidal madman (Philippe Nahon of "Irreversible") barges into their house. This one-man home invasion army slashes the father, jams his head in the rails of the staircase, and decapitates the breadwinner with a piece of furniture. This madman opens the wife's throat from ear to ear like a watermelon and pursues the little boy into a cornfield with a shotgun. He shackles poor Alex in chains, gags her, and prowls the rest of the house in vain to find anybody else. Miraculously, Marie avoids detection in scenes of heart-stopping suspense. The maniac tools around in a rusty old truck like the monster drove in the "Jeepers Creepers" movies and sticks Alex in the back. At the last second, unbeknownst to the killer, Marie scrambles aboard with Alex. Marie resolves to save her best friend.

Before it's all over with, "High Tension" evokes chilling memories of the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Compared with "Friday the Thirteen's" Jason or "Halloween's" Michael Myers, the maniac her make them look like pansies. Although the first hour or so of "High Tension" is a brutally straight-forward exercise in stomach-churning terror, the last half-hour takes a bizarre 180 degree spin reminiscent of the Brad Pitt movie "Fight Club." Already, Aja has been tapped to helm the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes." If you're looking for a movie that will make you scream and wet your pants at the same time, look no farther than "High Tension."