The rights to the franchise might still be stuck in limbo, which is the only reason why we haven’t seen the property rebooted for over a decade now, but with Halloween just around the corner, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear that October is shaping up to be a big month for Friday the 13th regardless of a lack of new content.
Not only is a massive sixteen-disc Blu-ray collection arriving to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the classic original, but the first installment is also returning to theaters across the country to mark the occasion in freshly remastered form. Furthermore, the director of sixth installment Jason Lives recently shared concept art from his abandoned sequel Jason Never Dies, and there’s also a new fan film on the way.
Voorhees will be dropping online in its entirety on Halloween, and the first trailer (up above) looks to offer a different spin on the standard formula that resulted in twelve movies of wildly inconsistent quality. The synopsis reads more like a thriller than a standard slasher, too, and you can check it out below.
“After pulling off the perfect heist, a dangerous crew of thieves flee town to the seclusion of the nearby woods. All they have to do is make it through the night so they can get away clean but their sadistic leader has taken them to the long deserted Camp Crystal Lake, a place that is no longer on any maps and for good reason. Unaware of the location’s notorious past, the fugitives begin to explore their temporary hideout and soon realize that this place has a very dark and violent history that they are soon about to become part of. It is a race to morning where the lines between bad and pure evil are blurred and the fight to survive the awakened legend of Camp Crystal Lake is much more than they bargained for.”
Voorhees has very evidently been made on a shoestring budget and is hardly poised to receive widespread acclaim, but based on the footage, you can clearly tell that director Cody Faulk has poured his heart and soul into adapting the Friday the 13th mythology to suit the restrictions faced by every fan film, and the end result looks pretty good all things considered.
There’ve been rumors that a new big screen effort could be in development very soon, but until that gets confirmed or denied, Voorhees looks to provide a perfectly adequate substitute for diehard fans of the franchise.
