Friday the 13th

Entertainment Weekly Clark Collis

However, this film is (be)head and shoulders above the recently reanimated likes of "Prom Night" and "My Bloody Valentine."

The New York Times Nathan Lee

There's an itch for this kind of material, and here it is scratched -- to the bone.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Travis Nichols

The new new new Jason Vorhees, played by Derek Mears in this Michael Bay-produced homage/update of the '80s slasher franchise, is a bit of a fox.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

A surprisingly straightforward romp in slasher-flick cliches, Friday the 13th is replete with gee-whiz gore, gratuitous sex and nudity and party-loving teens with a penchant for ending up on the wrong end of a pick ax.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

It's business as usual at Camp Crystal Lake, with very little in the way of fresh jolts or an innovative visual style that would have really revitalized the hokey franchise.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

About the best Friday the 13th movie you could hope for. Its technical credits are excellent. It has a lot of scary and gruesome killings. Not a whole lot of acting is required.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

Despite an evident appetite for mayhem, however, Bay is not the right guy to produce slasher movies. Horror requires intimacy.

Variety Rob Nelson

As in his "Chainsaw" remake, Nispel's scare tactics amount to little more than carefully timed cattle-prod shocks, aided by high-volume speaker blasts that were beyond the budgetary reach of the early '80s films.

Philadelphia Inquirer Tirdad Derakhshani

Nispel is no Rob Zombie - who achieved something akin to brilliance with his 2007 Halloween remake. What's more, as influential as it's been, Friday the 13th was never that great.

Premiere Staff (Not credited)

Just because it’s less campy doesn't mean the acting isn't awful.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

This Friday the 13th is glossy, good-looking garbage, acted out by a cast of big-chested androids (male and female alike) and with the original series' rough edges smooved over. It's reasonably entertaining.

TV Guide Cammila Albertson

It's not an openly meta take on the genre like "Scream," but it's a slasher movie for people who love slasher movies, and if your heart will flutter when a woodchipper casually appears in the first act, it's probably worth watching.

Chicago Reader Cliff Doerksen

It accomplishes what it sets out to do, and if slasher fare is your thing, you've seen far worse.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

What damage could Michael Bay inflict on Jason Voorhees that earlier producers hadn't already inflicted on everyone's favorite hockey-masked serial killer? Well, Bay could make Jason Voorhees ... boring.

Empire Kim Newman

Unlucky for almost everyone. It's a sad day when a Friday the 13th remake is shown up by a My Bloody Valentine remake – couldn't they at least have sprung for 3-D?

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

The question isn't whether Nispel's remake is better than the 1980 original (it isn't) but whether anything original is brought into the mix. And minus a mild plot twist you"ll probably see coming from the first five minutes, there isn't.

USA Today Claudia Puig

While it's billed as a "re-imagining" of the horror franchise, this Friday is more like a rehash, delivering just what you expect and nothing more.

Chicago Tribune Christopher Borrelli

This new Friday the 13th, unquestionably savvier and snappier than the original "Friday the 13th," though just as useless, is a needed return to simplicity.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

If all you're looking for is breasts, blood, and gore, this film hits pay dirt. None of the killings are terribly inventive, but they are plentiful, and why bother being devious when axes, machetes, knives, and pointed sticks will do the job just as well?

New York Post Kyle Smith

Is the Crystal Lake PD really doing such a good job? You'd have to go back to Phnom Penh in 1975 to find a place with a higher per-capita rate of unprosecuted homicides.

Washington Post Dan Zak

Michael Bay is destroying horror films by exhuming the genre's standard-bearers, stripping them of genuine terror, refusing to either re-create faithfully or reimagine boldly, and upping the irony until the original concept stands rigid like a taxidermied grizzly, its teeth bared but its presence, most of all, sad.

Village Voice Jim Ridley

This means that for one ticket price, you get three shoddy Friday the 13th movies packed into one, which might constitute entertainment value if any one of them constituted entertainment.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

The reboot of the "Friday the 13th" series is a pretty big mess - not particularly scary or interesting or even gory by 21st century movie standards.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

It's almost charming in its sheer lack of ambition, but the lack of creativity in its by-the-numbers shocks is harder to excuse.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The movie might have worked if it winked more - or if it played things completely straight.

New York Daily News Staff (Not credited)

Purists will be – happy? Relieved? – to know that the "ch-ch-chhh" music survived, and the body count still totals 13.

Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen

Not fun, louder than it is scary, not even all that gory, this new Friday the 13th has Jason, all right, but otherwise it's missing nearly everything that made the original films work.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

You really have to screw it up to dishonor the memory of a movie as shitty as the original "Friday the 13th." Heads should roll.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

But bad, this film's so bad! To flub the fans' most beloved butcher boy.