Comic Con: Friday The 13th Trailer, Poster And Info Revealed

Before today, the only thing that had really been seen from the Friday the 13th reboot was a single grainy image, but for a select group of horror buffs at Comic Con, this is no longer the case. Producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form joined the cast onstage and unveiled the first ever trailer for the film, as well as the teaser poster (seen right thanks to Latino Review, click over to see high resolution).

The teaser trailer (Update: which is now available online on YouTube) begins with a shot of Camp Crystal Lake. Two teens, a boyfriend and girlfriend, enter Jason Vorhees' house and see some strange looking hair sticking out of a hole in the wall. The male reaches in and grabs ahold of it, revealing a decapitated human head. They scream, and the door to the room they're in begins to shake. Cue the classic theme music. The boyfriend slowly kneels down to look under the door, and just as his face starts to get close, a machete shoots up under the floor near his head. Terrified, he tries to stand up but the machete gets shoved through again and slices through his hand. The girlfriend grabs ahold of her boyfriend and tries to save him, but the floor collapses and he gets pulled through.

The trailer then goes into montage mode, showing various quick clips of action, such as a person being impaled against poles on a car, a girl swimming in a lake, Jason holding a hockey mask in front of him, Jason's arms bursting through a window and pulling in a guy from outside, and finally, a shot of Jason charging at the camera and swinging his machete at it with incredible brute force.

After showing the trailer, the panel opened up to a Q&A session, which in addition to my one-on-one interview with the producers, yielded some very interesting pieces of information.

When asked about why this reboot introduces Jason in full with the hockey mask instead of sticking strictly to the first film, the producers explained that they did it for believability purposes, and that when it comes right down to it, "You want to see Jason Vorhees killing people." They also assured audiences, "You do see Pamela [Vorhees] in the movie."

The film is planned on being heavily rooted in reality, keeping away from the supernatural elements of the previous movies. Part of this applies to the Jason character, altering the way he operates. "He doesn't teleport. He doesn't walk slow. Did you see the teaser? At the end he's coming hard. It's a different type of Jason. You don't see a character running full speed, look back, and [Jason's] just walking. And then they turn a corner, and [Jason's] right there. We did away with all that. And that makes sense in the movie. This is a guy who lives in the wilderness, and has to kill with ease, so he has to be good with weapons. You know, killing people, killing food, it's all the same trip."

The movie will also cover a lot of ground on the series, taking care of the basic story outline of films one through four in the franchise. It will show the transition of the sack to the hockey mask, and yes, how he gets that mask will be a part of it. Jason's childhood is explored briefly, but it's not an origin film.

In terms of the likelihood of having sequels, the producers said they would certainly be interested based on the success of this one, but they didn't make this with the intention of starting a new franchise. "The ending feels very finite. The movie stands on its own."

As much as I prepared myself for the worst, I have to admit, this appears to be a pretty competent remake based on the trailer. If you actually go back and look at even the early Friday the 13th movies, none of them are really that amazing, so it's not like they have a whole lot to live up to. As long as they're able to rack up the scares and horrifically violent deaths (plus a little nudity for the kids), then I can see this amounting to a fun time at the movies. Really, that's as much as you could and should be hoping for.