Friday the 13th (2009)

Like many other horror franchises, Friday the 13th got rebooted in the 2000s. This film carries no subtitle or numerical marker as a result, but is the eleventh film in the series (twelfth if one counts Freddy vs. Jason as a part of the franchise).

Rather than a straight retelling of the original, this film takes place in the present and is more of an Adaptation Distillation of elements from the first four films while retaining the basic premise of a group of teens who've decided to spend their summer vacation at a lavish house situated near Crystal Lake. It also features a Jason Voorhees who is restored to a more human level, whose improved intelligence and savvy allow him to set traps and stalk his victims instead of reaching for the nearest sharp object (though his trademark machete is ever-present).

The film did well upon release, with a global box office of $65,002,019 against a $19,000,000 budget. Fans especially praised new Jason Derek Mears for his more sinister take on the character. However, as of 2024, a planned sequel to this film currently sits in Development Hell.

Friday the 13th (2009) contains examples of the following tropes:

• 13 Is Unlucky: Jason claims 13 deaths in this film (barring the Ambiguous Ending).
• Adaptation Distillation: As mentioned, it's less a remake than a combination of elements from the first four films and the series at large, including using the first film's ending as its prologue and showing Jason with both his original burlap sack and his more famous hockey mask.
• Adaptational Intelligence: While Jason was by no means stupid in any of the original films, the reboot shows that he's much more careful and plans ahead. He has set up various traps and searchlights across the camp, stalks his victims rather than approach them head-on, and even built tunnels underneath the lake.
• Adaptational Villainy: While not without his sympathetic motives like his classic counterpart, Jason in the reboot is comparatively more malicious than in the original films, in that he kills his victims in much slower and more painful ways^note such as hanging a girl trapped inside a sleeping bag over an open fire, for one. The original Jason, though definitely not above slow and painful deaths, generally seemed to prefer quicker methods of killing.
• Adaptational Wimp: Played With; Jason is still just as every bit as dangerous here as in the original, but as the film specifically returns to the roots of the earlier installments of the franchise rather than the later ones, Jason never becomes a superhuman zombie. Thus, Jason is instead simply a regular human man.
• Agony of the Feet: Jason stabs Mike's foot through the floor when they're checking his cabin. His palm soon follows.
• All for Nothing: According to the final scene, Clay is the Sole Survivor. This ultimately renders his entire journey to find his sister and all of his friends pointless ^note it's a bit ambiguous if Whitney really dies, however.
• Ambiguous Ending: After Clay and Whitney drop the seemingly dead Jason into Crystal Lake, the film ends with Jason seemingly reviving and bursting out of the dock to grab Whitney. The movie then cuts to credits without revealing if Whitney survived or not, or if the scene was even real, rather than a dream or hallucination, as Jason's final attacks in the first three films were.
• Anyone Can Die: By the end of the film, only Clay and Whitney survive, and even that part is ambiguous.
• Asshole Victim: Trent, who acts extremely abrasive towards Clay, is rude and demeaning towards his friends, and cheats on his girlfriend.
• Battle in the Rain: The final fight with Jason in the barn takes place in a downpour.
• Bear Trap: Richie gets caught in a bear trap set by Jason, preventing him from saving Amanda from getting roasted to death. Later on, Whitney uses a bear trap against Jason during the final confrontation.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Quite bloodier than the original film it's a remake of, owing to the MPAA being less strict on the content in the late 2000s than it was in the 1980s.
• Blood Is Squicker in Water: In the "Killer Cut", Jason dumps Lawrence's body into a hot tub, which turns the water red with his blood.
• Broad Strokes:
  • The events of the original film happened, but Pamela Voorhees' killing spree happened shortly after Jason's "death", rather than twenty years later.
  • The reboot gives a loose paintbrush over the first 4 films or so. The events of the first movie are condensed to a single-minute-long opening credit sequence, and the rest of the film being a blend of somewhat similar dynamics to some characters in the other movies.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Trent can't stop talking about how perfect Bree's breasts are during their sex scene.
  Trent: Your tits are stupendous.
  Bree: Wow, you really know how to make a girl feel special.
• Cargo Envy: Chewey wishes he could "die and come back as one of the little buttons on the ass pocket" of Bree's jean shorts.
• Caught with Your Pants Down: Lawrence is about to masturbate when he is interrupted by Jenna and Clay.
• Character Overlap: Apparently, Trent from this movie is the same Trent DeMarco from Transformers (2007) — both movies were produced by Michael Bay and both roles are played by Travis Van Winkle. This means that Jason is a part of the massive Transformers multiverse.
• Clothes Make the Legend: Jason wraps cloth around his face until he kills his first on-screen victim (after the prologue) where he picks up the iconic hockey mask and looks at himself in the mirror.
• Coitus Interruptus:
  • During the Prolonged Prologue, Richie and Amanda have sex inside a tent but are interrupted when Amanda insists someone is watching them. When Richie goes to investigate, Amanda is dragged from the tent and hung over the fire in her sleeping bag to roast, while Richie is helpless to save her due to being caught in a Bear Trap.
  • Averted with Bree and Trent. While having sex, Jason does indeed glare at them through the bedroom window, yet he doesn't interrupt them. It's only after they climax that he cuts the power and the hunt begins. Also averted in the Killer Cut; Whitney attempts to knock on the window, but Trent and Bree's moans and the loud music drown out her cries.
• Compressed Adaptation: Elements of the first three films are utilized, in that the ending of the first film is adapted in the opening and Jason starts wearing a bag on his head before adopting the hockey mask, mirroring the progression from Part 2 to 3.
• Crazy Survivalist: This Jason being mortal (maybe) and thus more firmly rooted in reality, he's been living alone out in the woods near Camp Crystal Lake for well over two decades. It shows, as he is an expert with traps, a crack shot with a bow and arrow and in general acts more like a stalking predator than the classic Implacable Man he is in other films. He has also managed to create a well-stocked underground lair with a tunnel network that runs all throughout the area.
• Dangerous Windows: Jason grabs Clay through a window.
• Darker and Edgier: While definitely a violent Slasher Movie like its predecessors, this film is much more brutal and violent, with the victims' deaths being far more drawn out, Jason himself being much more menacing and sadistic than in the original films, and even the lighting being much more gritty and muted. The remake also lacks the self-aware, tongue-in-cheek tone that characterised the later Friday the 13th sequels.
• Decoy Protagonist:
  • The film even tosses out a Decoy Cast — almost everyone in the first group of teens shown in the film ends up killed, and the real story picks up six weeks after Jason's attack.
  • Jenna herself is set up to be a Final Girl, but is abruptly killed by Jason in the climax.
• Developing Doomed Characters: The prologue introduces a group of teens at the start who all die with the exception of Whitney.
• Downer Ending: Everyone else (including Jenna and probably but most likely Whitney) dies except Clay and his own fate is left unknown.
• Ear Ache: Richie finds Wade's corpse after finding his severed ear.
• Everyone Can See It: The chemistry between Clay and Jenna. When Bree sees Clay arrive at the cabin and talking to Jenna, she mutters "This should be interesting."
• Everything Is Racist: Lawrence — the lone black person of the film — invokes this twice. The first time was in order to get out of pumping gas, and the second time was for joking around. He talks about making a music label to Chelsea, who automatically think it'll be for rap. Lawrence takes offense to this and says “Oh, because I’m black, I can’t listen to Green Day?” Chelsea then apologizes and asks what kind of genre Lawrence is going to do, to which he smiles and says that he actually is going to do rap.
• Final Girl: The girl in the opening, later Whitney, but at the end the only one left standing is apparently Clay.
• Forced to Watch: Bear-trapping Richie and forcing him to watch as Amanda is roasted alive ranks as one of the most sadistic things that Jason has done to date.
• Ghost Story: Wade relates the tale of Camp Crystal Lake around the campfire.
• Give My Regards in the Next World: Whitney says "Jason! Say hi to mommy - in hell!" before stabbing him and leaving him on a corn thresher.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Jason is defeated with the fact he loves his mother and by his own machete. Whitney knows this and uses it to defeat him.
• Home Porn Movie: Bree lures Trent into the bedroom of the cabin they're staying at, strips both of them down, rides on top of him in a perfect cowgirl position, and videotapes him for much of their intercourse. He admonishes her not to put it on the Internet.
• Hypocrite: Trent accuses Jenna of being sympathetic to Clay because she wants to sleep with him, even though she does genuinely just want to help him look for his sister. Yet as soon as Jenna goes to help Clay search, Trent cheats on her with Bree.
• Immodest Orgasm: Trent and Bree let the audience knows that they are ready to finish and then they orgasm quite loudly.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: Chewie gets a screwdriver into his throat.
• Improvised Armour: When Lawrence goes out looking for Chewie, he picks up a pan to be his shield.
• Jerkass: Trent. He aggressively acts abrasive towards Clay when he conducts his search for his sister and ends up cheating on his girlfriend.
• Mood Whiplash: Bree's body being thrown through a windshield is a Jump Scare moment...followed up by Trent screaming like a little girl.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Trent ends up being impaled on harvester equipment much like Jason in that film was killed.
  • Whitney gets the better of Jason by posing as his mother, just like Ginny Field did in Friday the 13th Part 2. Unlike that film, Jason doesn't see through it in time to avoid being attacked and seemingly defeated.
  • The film ends with Jason emerging from Crystal Lake much like in his debut appearance.
• Nice Girl: Jenna. She's sympathetic to the disappearance of Clay's sister, stands up to Trent when he acts like a Jerkass, and genuinely worries about the others when Jason starts his killing spree.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Trent pulls one on himself. After running from the house and into the forest, (losing his handgun in the process) he makes it to the road and successfully flags down a passing truck. The driver signals him to get in, but Trent's caution gets the better of him. Suspicious of the (innocent) driver, Jason is able to catch up to Trent and stabs him through the chest with his machete, before impaling him on the back of the trucks harvester equipment as the driver takes off scared.
• Not Quite Dead: As per usual, Jason pulls this off in the ending, emerging from the lake to attack the survivors right after they had dumped his body.
• Off with His Head!: Mrs. Voorhees gets decapitated in the opening, natch. And Donnie gets his head decapitated too in alternative scene of his death scene.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Jason ends up doing this to Trent, who gets mercilessly hunted and impaled on harvester equipment after spending his entire screen time as a bully who cheated on his girlfriend.
• Police Are Useless: The only cop that shows up gets killed in under a minute flat.
• Poor Man's Porn: The winter catalogue for Lawrence. He can't find a porn magazine in the cabin, so he decides to make do with a picture of a fully-dressed woman in the winter catalogue. He even complains that there's not even a swimsuit image in it.
• Prolonged Prologue: The prologue features a flashback to Jason's origins and follows a group of teens that are hunted down by Jason in a sequence that runs about twenty minutes before the title and main plot of the film begins.
• The Reveal: Whitney isn't dead, she's Jason's captive.
• Serial Killer: The most infamous one of them all, Ladies and Gentlemen, Jason Voorhees! (Albeit reimagined as a Crazy Survivalist rather than an Implacable Man)
• Sex Signals Death: Exaggerated. Every character who has sex, or wants to have sex, or fantasizes about having sex, or is a creepy redneck who has sex with mannequins gets killed.
• Ship Tease: Between Clay and Jenna. The two of them have strong chemistry (which Bree even lampshades), and Clay is nothing but nice to Jenna, who returns the favor in kind. Every scene with them together before they encounter Jason has moments of cuteness that drip with Ship Tease. Afterwards, there are plenty of moments of Clay holding onto Jenna protectively, the first notable time being when they're hiding from Jason underneath the canoes. He looks devastated when Jason kills her, and his sister Whitney has to pull him away from her as she apparently dies.
• Shout-Out:
  • There's an argument about Heineken and Pabst Blue Ribbon.
  • Bree's death (being impaled by a pair of antlers) is very reminiscent of Silent Night, Deadly Night.
• Slashed Throat: Donnie gets his throat slashed by Jason's machete after he unmasks him.
• The Stoner: Lawrence and Chewie smoke marijuana multiple times. Bree even calls Chewie the "stoned American male" in one scene while filming him as a joke.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: It's a minor thing, but the film indicates that running through the woods at night in sandals and a skirt isn't very comfortable or efficient even when you're a major protagonist. Jenna takes the time to change into boots and pants as soon as she and Clay arrive back at the cabin.
• Taxidermy Terror: Lawrence tries to masturbate in the living room but finds himself too creeped out by a big stuffed deer head with glass eyes staring right at him to go through with it.
• The Three Faces of Eve: The three women who survive the movie the longest, Whitney, Bree, and Jenna, have this.
  • Wife: Whitney. She's the one closest to being an Action Girl among the ladies, getting chances to use her similar appearance to Pamela Voorhees to get Jason to lower his guard, and even nearly making a premature escape attempt in the extended version.
  • Seductress: Bree. Among the women in the film, she's the most overt case of Ms. Fanservice, with lots of nudity, revealing outfits, and a wild sex scene with Trent.
  • Child: Jenna. She's by far the sweetest and kindest of the cast, highly unappreciative of her boyfriend Trent's jerkass behavior, and jumping to help Clay find his sister. She barely even swears in the movie.
• Token Minority: Two. A black dude, Lawrence, and an Asian dude, Chewie.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Jenna, one of the most moral characters in the film, is the final victim.
• Troubled Fetal Position: As she listens to an injured Lawrence begging for help, a sobbing Bree curls up into a ball and puts her hands against her ears to try and block out the sound.
• Tunnel Network: One is under Camp Crystal Lake, acting as Jason's hideout.
• Wood Chipper of Doom: In the final showdown, Clay wraps a chain around Jason's neck and throws it into a woodchipper's blades, strangling him; however, Jason's freakish strength keeps him from being pulled into the chipper too. Whitney then kills him with his own machete. She thinks.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: While running away from Jason, Trent comes across a truck, whose driver is willing to pick him up. Trent then starts doubting the driver's friendliness, which gives enough time for Jason to catch up to him.