Another horror movie post! The recent weekend I decided to watch both Friday the 13th (2009) and My Bloody Valentine (2009) - not in the theatres, of course. They are not even released yet, if I'm not mistaken. Heh.

So - similarities between the two movies? Besides being released in the winter in America, they both star heartthrobs from the Supernatural series - Jared Padalecki takes centre stage in the former, while Jensen Ackles is the main male lead in the latter. Oh, they're both "reboots" of the eponymous 80s horror movies. And that's where the similarities end.

The biggest difference that sets the two films apart is that, Friday the 13th was just a bad, dumb, mindless remake marketed as an excuse of a "horror movie", whereas My Bloody Valentine was surprisingly and genuinely entertaining. Not really veering into the great movie experience territory, but then, close enough.

The problem with the Friday the 13th remake was that the people behind the movie tried to cramp too many things, hence weighing it down significantly. The first twenty minutes set up the movie nicely - unforunately, it set the bar too high for the main ensemble cast to live up to. With been-there-done-that scare tactics, cliched dialogues/scenarios and the stereotypical one note characters that have been haunting horror movies, there's just too many cons that are ripe for the picking. The scriptwriters tried to make everything work in their favour, when in the end it backfired. Props to Marcus Nispel though, who tried to keep the momentum throughout, even though some of the pacing became muddled as the movie gets more intense.

Not that the movie's entirely bad; there were some unforgettable (and unwarranted) laughs. But as a whole, superyan would only give it a rating of two and a half stars, even with the presence of Amanda Righetti (who looked so different from her OC days. What happened yo?) and Aaron Yoo. Try harder, guys.

My Bloody Valentine, meanwhile, even though has the lesser body count of the two films (I'm not factoring in whatever that happened in the beginning - if you're not targeted by the killer, you're not part of the body count. Toobadsosadbullyforyou.), it excelled because it didn't try to work a lot into the plot, everything was nicely and evenly established as we delve further into the film (even though within the first twenty - or was it twenty five? - minutes everything kinda got leaked out in a subtle-yet-drawing-conclusions-to-teh-obvious manner), and the three leads were able to extend their characters further than just being "part of the possible killer's target." Plus, I guess it also helped that the viewing it in 3D ups the experience (I did not have a chance to do so - perhaps when it finally opens in Singapore I'll enjoy it again?)

I don't - and can't - recall having any problems with the movie. I mean, even Jaime King was good in it! I daresay, it's perhaps her best film role to date even. (I just can't help but notice that her jugs have gotten bigger. Were they always that big?) Three stars.

In the end, the two movies converge again to share a couple of similarities- SPOILERSthe fact that their endings are left equivocal/SPOILERS, and pending their respective box office takings, we can all look forward to sequels. Oh yay.

Regardless, it's only February, so we'll see the other horror movies that are awaiting release for the rest of the year. Though I think I should not get my hopes too high up. But then again, who knows? One or two might even surprise and turn out excellently entertaining. We'll see.