Friday the 13th - The Blu-ray Look

[Edit: I'm just reading this entry again, and realizing how god-awful it really is. I was tired when I wrote it, I admit, and may come back later to edit. (And by "may," I mean "won't.") To synopsize: While the Blu-ray transfer looks and sounds great, the new clarity in many scenes is so good (so bright, sometimes, as I mentioned) that some of the old magic is lost: the shadows, the gloom, the sense of claustrophobia. Many of you may disagree with me, and please let me know if you do; not that I'll listen, but let me know. Til then...]


Brenda starts to brush her teeth—and hears a noise off in the corner. She stops, looks: the camera reveals the shower stalls—curtains pulled back—and a battered metal lamp hanging above them. (Of course Marcie, only minutes before, in front of these very stalls, received an axe-blow to the head that will keep her singing her bloody raindrop song with the angels for quite some time.) We see into the stall, can make out the wall to the communal bathroom. A hand surreptitiously pulls back the curtain and lets it go just as Brenda sneaks another suspicious look. It’s all so clear to us, the viewers.

Brenda leaves, turning the lights out behind her. We’re left with the camera on the shower stalls, metal lamp now swinging to and fro, as if by magic. We can still see the stall and bathroom so clearly, as if…as if…

…well, as if we were witnessing the moment the way it was originally shot and printed.

And that, my friends, is not necessarily a good thing.

Welcome to the magic of Friday the 13th on Blu-ray, where, finally, the magician reveals the secrets of his tricks, and the audience is left to muse at the chicanery of it all—and maybe walk away a little disappointed that the illusion has been shattered. What was once steeped in shadows and gloom is now bright and alight by stage-trick artifice. Note the scene where Alice and Bill enter Jack and Marcie’s cabin—Jack’s arrow-throated body gone; Ned’s corpse done cleaned away and replaced by a rolled-up bunk mattress: the scene is bright; in fact, it’s too bright. You can almost hear Sean Cunningham, out of frame, whispering to the lighting guy: “More, goddamn it! More light!” So, too, Steve Christie, who once ran through the dark, wet woods, and entered the frame as a tiny yellow figure, only to grow larger with every step before being assaulted by a blinding flashlight. This time, we see him coming from behind a tree, far in the background, and the woods around him look, yet again, as if Cunningham were off-frame giving his lighting guy another threatening look. Even the gloom of dusk that sets in around the time Ralph plays hide-and-seek in the pantry looks too unnatural, too—how should I say?—pleasant, when it should be menacing.

But, I must be absolutely fair and clear: This is, by far, the very best transfer of Friday the 13th, ever. The color corrections are superior, bringing out everything from the kaleidoscope colors of Annie’s (so very ‘80’s) plaid shirt, to the vivid hooker-red of Brenda’s short-shorts. Take a look at the buildings when Annie comes down the stairs at the beginning of the film: you can see the trim colors, the textures of their materials. Hell, you can even see the detail in Enos’ stubble and Steve’s unholy orange chest-hair. The grit and grain of the film are all but gone, giving the movie a modern, high-value look, which may be a touch disappointing to some, like me, who find the classic low-budget feel of the film to be one of its greatest attributes. There are also a few static night shots of the lake and famous mountain ridge that are downright eerie when compared to earlier, standard-definition transfers.

The new 5.1 transfer is worth the price of this disc alone. Take a listen when Marcie’s in the bathroom: did you ever know that the sound that causes her to look towards the showers is a curtain being pulled back on its rings? I didn’t. When I heard the sound, I whooped with joy. Everything is crystal clear: the loons, the wind, the rain, and, most famously, the ki-ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma-ma. It’s a stellar presentation that should make fans ecstatic to discover sounds they’ve never heard before.

Still, the entire disc is a mixed bag for me: As a Friday purist, I reveled in the new soundtrack, and the improved resolution showing me things in the movie I’d never seen before. But (and it’s a big one) I was acutely aware as I popped out the disc that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t so ready for all the tricks of the trade to be revealed. Honestly, if I had my druthers, I’d stick with the standard DVD transfer upscaled to 1080p; at least, there, some of the mystery is sustained. As it is, a day after watching the Blu-ray transfer, I feel as though I’ve seen just a little too much.