(2 out of 5 stars)

If this weren’t a remake, it would be Friday the 13^th: Jason Goes to Pot since the plot basically centers on a field of marijuana near good old Camp Crystal Lake and a group of kids that go in search of it.  Then they all die and then another group of kids stumbles on it.

Look, if you’re going to Friday the 13^th, you’re expecting bad acting, gore, boobs and drug use.  It’s pretty much the M.O. of the series and this movie doesn’t disappoint.  I mean we get to see Willa Ford topless for goodness sake.  But the big difference between the original three (which this movie remakes) is that there is no sense of fun.  The intentional humor is relatively nonexistent, except for an extremely underused Aaron Yoo (who is far better than this material).  The unintentional humor is gone altogether except for the random insertion of Nightranger’s Sister Christian during the scene where Jason’s marijuana field is first discovered.  Most troubling, though, is that the movie generally doesn’t seem to care if we like the characters or not, so there is no connection between cast and audience.

Unlike recent horror movie remakes, no new ground is broken.  Nothing new about Jason is revealed, and his mother is relegated dead in the first fifteen minutes, which was the greatest thing about the first movie.  I mean honestly, who saw Betsy Palmer coming?

Hopefully this spells the end of the series, but if Freddy, going to Hell, and going to space didn’t kill Jason… I doubt the 5 years in prison for growing marijuana will.