Did anyone realize Camp Crystal Lake is right down the highway from Elm Street? This workmanlike plot, cobbled together by three writers (including Sean S. Cunningham, the venerated producer of Friday the 13th), is full of narrative serendipity. Keena (of TV’s fine but forgotten Undeclared) acquits herself admirably as the feisty lass who uncovers the conspiracy of silence surrounding a certain razor-fingered child murderer, who returns to lacerate his teenaged quarry by resurrecting Jason and fueling their fear … or something like that. Director Yu (Bride of Chucky) saturates each frame with dramatic sprays of blood and gore; the squibs are as majestic as the fountains of Bellagio. That’s well and good, but Yu’s kinetic shooting style, honed in the Hong Kong action factory, is ill-suited to the slasher sequences.
D: Ronny Yu; with Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter, Kelly Rowland.
Opened 08/15/03