Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Want to see a slasher movie at the metroplex? Good luck. The only ones that make it there are misguided, boring films that hate themselves and their audience. (Or remake after remake after remake after... yawn.) Instead, go rent Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, a funny, wonderful high-concept film. Imagine that Jason, Michael and the like are not supernatural bogeymen, but just extremely ambitious serial killers. How would they go about finding a perfect set of victims? Choosing a survivor girl? Adopting a local legend? Selecting gear? Working out? And rigging a murder house? Behind the Mask is at once a slasher movie and an education in modern mythology that tries to do for killers what Watchmen did for heroes.

Michael Bay to "remake" Friday the 13th

I have a thing for movies where ax swinging maniacs work out their aggressions. I like them as cultural myth. And as entertainment. So I was excited to read in Underwire that they're remaking the original Friday the 13th:

In the original Friday the 13th, the serial killer made only a brief appearance in the final frames and never killed anyone. Jason didn't even don the famous mask until the third movie. The remake, however, will focus on Jason - who will wear the mask and kill - and keep the famous setting of Crystal Lake.

WTF? The fact that Jason was not the killer in Friday the 13th is a cultural touchstone. Ghostface killed Casey for not knowing it. It's almost as important as Michael's missing motivation in the original Halloween.

The new film's IMDB page lists it as an "untitled Friday the 13th project." Which is good. Because if Jason's the killer, it's not a remake. It's a sequel.

UPDATE: Someday five years from now, someone will point out that Ghostface killed Casey's boyfriend because she didn't correctly identify the killer in Friday the 13th. He killed her because, well, that's what the bad guys in horror movies do. Sigh, I need to proofread more carefully.