That Jason’s “invisibility” is presented too in the underrated Part 5 (A New Beggining)….

… but then, from Part 6 (Jason Lives) to the last F13 reboot, Jason is more like a “rock star” (I mean, someone we see almost every minute of the film)… and that makes him NO scary at all.

One of the worst things that has happened to Jason is the machete-thing. That (stupid and not so iconic to me) machete enhances his lately “GIJOE’s-toy’s-action figure’s” look and feel. With that machete he almost look like some kind of pirate with a hock mask…. uuuhhh, what a pity for the once scary as hell Jason we knew in those classic films…

Want to make him scary again?, GO BACK TO THE BASICS, GO BACK TO THE JASON WE SAW IN PARTS 3 AND 4, HIS AMAZING AND CREEPY LOOK WITH HIS BUTTONED DARK SHIRT (and forget that stupid jacket he is wearing a few films ago!). Ask the film makers to really study the classic films (1 to 4), their scripts, their making… and never show what must be hidden….

Why not asking Mr. Steve Miner to direct the next Friday movie??, things would go better for Jason…

The villains in recent films that I’ve found to be creepy or scary are the ones that we know little about and have little or no understanding of their motives, such as the killers in The Strangers.

1) Jason is shown way too much in the later films. If you see him walking around and know where he’s at most of the time, he’s not going to be nearly as scary, as if he comes out of nowhere when you least expect it and only see him for split second here and there. Also, the more the audience sees Jason, the more accustomed and familiar they are going to be with him, which takes away the “fear of the unknown aspect.” The original Friday the 13th was “scary” for audiences when it first hit the big screen, because nothing was known about the killer, until the big reveal scene with Alice and Mrs. Voorhees.

2) They need to ditch the overblown stereotypes. A vast majority of the characters throughout the ENTIRE history of the franchise have been based on exaggerated stereotypes to the point that the audience essentially ends up cheering on Jason to kill them. This is how Jason became an anti-hero, and he has been an anti-hero every since the very early sequels, despite the fact that films like TFC had a couple of characters that the audience was actually sympathetic toward. I was watching The Descent about a week ago and noticed that at no point in that movie was a I rooting for the cave monsters, because most of the characters in the film were just “normal” people who weren’t so overblown that they annoyed me after 2 minutes. The Friday franchise has been horrible for the most part in establishing characters that are anything but Jason-fodder.

3) Other factors such as cinematography, FX, and musical score also come into play when it comes to making the film and its antagonist scary. However, I think if the first two points aren’t met, then these aren’t going to make a difference.

That said, I also agree the remake’s sackhead was the creepiest-looking Jason in a long time.

Not only am I a fan of Jason, but I’m also a fan of the Tommy Jarvis character. I always wished that they would find a way to make Tommy a part of Jason’s origin somehow, and now that the series has been rebooted, it’s the perfect opportunity, if that’s what they wish to do and what the fans want. My idea was that maybe Tommy’s dad could have been one of the kids that bullied Jason at camp and possibly lead to his drowning. I had this great idea a while back for a nice addition (at least I think so) that the bullies could have set up a prank to scare Jason. So, as they are making fun of him for not knowing how to swim, and for bein’ so dern ugly, and pushing him around on the dock, Tommy’s dad (as a kid of course) secretly straps on a hockey mask. Then he turns around quickly and jumps in Jason’s face, scaring him so badly that he stumbles backwards and falls into the water and drowns. Therefore, years later when Jason finds that hockey mask, he remembers how badly it scared him as a kid, and so he puts it on not just to cover his ugly mug, but also to strike fear into his victims before he kills them. So sort of a Batman thing. Then, back in the present, when Tommy shows up, Jason recognizes the resemblance and that’s what really starts fueling Jason’s hatred for Tommy. I think this idea would give more meaning to the hockey mask, other than it just being something convenient ol’ Voorhees found in some hick’s attic, and would also add some depth to the feud between Jason and Tommy Jarvis. And if they go with the Jason in the snow idea that everyone seems to want, the movie could start off with the backstory, and the moment Jason drowns, the lake could slowly freeze over to show the passing of time and move to the present day.

That’s one of the reasons the early Fridays were so much better. You never got a good solid look at the killer until the last half hour.

i completely disagree with the few posts following praising zombie’s halloween 2 though. zombie took away the mystique of the myers character, and without that, i don’t feel you’re left with an interesting movie. and all the additional stuff he added to try to compensate for it (the dreams, the psychic bond between bro & sis, etc.) didn’t seem to flow for me. it felt rushed and incomplete. f13th gave you a better look into jason’s world without making it feel detached from the series.

i consider f13th the best horror reboot/reimagining of the past 10 years. i can find things to complain about, but all in all, it delivered & it’s a movie i don’t get sick of after 1 or 2 viewings.

We have become extremely desensitized to all horror. I personally can not watch ninety percent of modern horror films. They are cheap, lazy, repetitive, and unoriginal. I appreciate paying homage to classic films, but they is so much eighties-horror-envy happening that it makes watching such an ordeal. I wrote an entire essay about why the new Friday the 13th was decent, but at the same time, overwhelmingly terrible. In fact, it was only decent because the past seven films were so terrible (yes, 1-4 are far-and-away the strongest).

Perhaps my biggest problem is that they had a chance to build up the history and failed miserably. Which means, they can’t just go back and redo the hockey mask acquisition, for example. The first fifteen minutes were the most complete, and frightening. The reason? The believability of Jason, his killing methods, and the sack.

As for making it scarier. Yea, the mask is too much of an icon. I would say use the sack as much as possible, but damn, thanks to the remake, there is no going back. And jesus, I agree with earlier posts, why the hell are these horror antagonists indestructible? They shouldn’t be 6′8, 300lbs. That is why parts 2 & 3 were good. He ran after victims like a desperate, average-sized killer. There are limitless reasons why those films were respectable. And that is the channel in which the series should have gone. Unfortunately, they lost complete control of what makes a good horror film. Next thing you know, he is teleporting everywhere and folding people in half. God. What a waste.