Bloody Murder

I think I might have finally hit the bottom of the barrel. Bloody Murder is, in every conceivable way, a ripoff of Friday the 13th. Not an homage. An homage has style, is well crafted to pay tribute to its inspiration, and respects the genre. Bloody Murder has no style, is badly written, and fails in its attempts at cleverness.

The film begins with a pregnant couple running out of gas in the middle of nowhere. The husband is chased and killed by a chainsaw wielding maniac in a hockey mask. Next, a group of teens arrive at Camp Placid Pines to assist Patrick in preparing the camp for summer. Soon people start disappearing and Julie suspects it has something to do with a kid who drowned at the camp decades ago. Some of the other counselors insist instead that legendary psycho killer Trevor Moorehouse is murdering everyone.

It's not a bad premise, but this film is so badly written that nothing that happens actually makes any sense. For example, camp begins in three days but the movie takes place over five days and no campers ever show up. I guess maybe I could pass that off as inattention to detail, but how do you explain the following: the phones stop working and Julie imagines the phone line running into her cabin is cut. This would not affect the phone in the camp office, but that one's out, too. To make matters worse, the phone line into her cabin is working again the following day. Julie never told anyone the phones were out. That's not lack of attention, that's just plain bad writing.

And then there are the characters themselves. Jason and Doug (I think it's Doug, though it might be Brad--I've forgotten already) hate each other. Why? Because they used to race against each other in high school until Jason blew out his knee. What? Unless it was Doug's fault Jason was injured, which by the way it was not, Jason really has no reason to hate Doug. High school sports rivalries only go so far. I have never in my life come across a worse reason for conflict.

And the guy's name is Jason. Frigging Jason. No shit, one person even says "Jason will show up when you least expect him." This, thankfully, doesn't happen. Proving the writer can't even follow through on his lame attempt at setting up a scare.

Scares. There are none. Perhaps owing to a meager budget and a lack of skilled effects people, all the deaths are half off-screen. I mean, you see people die, but you don't see the stabbing happen. Furthermore, no one ever jumps out at you, and no one ever really gets stalked.

I could go into more detail, outlining each flaw in the script, but I just don't have the energy. The point is Bloody Murder is a perfect example of how badly you can fuck up a good thing. Where Friday the 13th had a tight timeline, likable characters, and a surprising and believable ending, Bloody Murder takes too long, is populated with stupid and/or completely uncessary cast members, and makes no sense in the end. Where later Friday the 13th movies capitalized on the magical and legendary aspects of Jason Voorhees, Bloody Murder attempts to set up a similar masked villain but fails entirely at creating a plausible and meaningful character.

This movie is total crap.