On a recent visit to the Chicago-based set of the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake, producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form gave us online types a good hour with which to poke and prod about that film and countless other projects in the works. The Elm St. stuff will have to wait until the time is right, but at the moment, you're just a hop, skip and jump away from finding out where Platinum Dunes currently stands with a Friday the 13th sequel, their present involvement in reported remakes of The Birds and Rosemary's Baby, and how exactly the little-seen Horsemen ended up slipping through the cracks last spring...

Read the full interview at Horror Squad!

OK, I know what you're going to say before you even say it: "Dude, it's a big guy in a hockey mask. Don't exactly need a snapshot to envision a big guy in a hockey mask." And that's a fair comment, but I work for this blog and weekends are really slow so here we go:

Our first look at the new Jason Voorhees! A big bulky guy in torn clothes and a hockey mask: Yep! Snark aside, the big guy looks pretty solid. No silly changes or anything, although his NECK sure does look sort of extra-thick. It's the close-up shot of horror-dom's supreme stalker that the fans want to see, but I'm quite a bit more impressed by the "far off" shot. The lake is a grungy shade of green and the shadows are trickling through the forest quite creatively. Anyway, the new Jason will be played by Derek Mears, who's played more crazies, creeps and killers than just about anyone.

The pics come from a recent EW article that Erik covered right here, but it took the hardcore horror fans to get a bigger shot of the serial stalker. Expect a lot more Friday freakiness once Comic-Con starts next week. And if director Marcus Nispel can do as good as job as he did with the Texas Chainsaw remake, that'll be good enough for me. (Yes, I quite like the Chainsaw remake. A hell of a lot more than any of the TCM sequels, anyway.) The next Friday the 13th arrives in February of next year.

[ Thanks: BD.com ]

Earlier this week, we learned that Jason Voorhees will be wearing both the burlap sack and the iconic hockey mask in the new Friday the 13th remake (or is it technically a remake of the first three movies?). Now, in honor of today being 2008's only Friday the 13th, MTV (one of the new film's co-producers) also shares a report from the set of the movie. They don't have anything as interesting to tell us as IESB.net did with the headgear news, but they do have video coverage, which you can watch above.

Any fan of the franchise should be excited after watching this footage. We get to see a hot young actress (Amanda Righetti) running through the woods, a dilapidated cabin, a sign telling us its Camp Crystal Lake and an overlong view of the hockey mask prop. That's almost all the ingredients needed for a Friday the 13th movie (it sounds so easy to do, right?). Oh, and finally we get to see the actor portraying Jason (Derek Mears) wearing ... a t-shirt and no make-up.

A few years back I was lucky enough to spend a few days on the set of The Hills Have Eyes 2. I hate to say that I thought the final product was pretty ... meh, but the 2.5 days I spent on the set in Morocco were something pretty special. Among the many actors, stuntpeople, FX technicians and general crew members I met, one of the very coolest was a giant guy called Derek Mears. Everyone on the set was very nice, but Mears was the one who made sure to invite the "horror geek press" back to his hotel lounge so we could have a few beers and give the guy the scoop on American sports, recent horror movies, new video games, comic books, etc. (The man had been cooped up in Ouarzazate for a few months by this point.)

Anyway, Derek was a sincerely gracious dude (and he DID make for a pretty creepy freakin' mutant in Hills 2), so I'm happy to share the news (via BD.com) that he's landed the role of mad slasher Jason Voorhees in Platinum Dunes' upcoming remake of Friday the 13th. So while you might not recognize the face, you've probably seen some of Derek's work in flcks like Cursed, Zathura, Men in Black 2, and The Haunted Mansion. (Plus a whole lotta TV work.) Odds are you won't see a whole lot more of Mears once he dons the legendary hockey mask -- but the Jason character has always been played by a huge, likeable lug, and I think Mears fits the bill quite nicely. Plus he's really freakin' huge, and that's a big plus. The new Friday is due early next year.

Depending on your point of view, this is either very good or very bad news. Shock Til You Drop is reporting that the much-discussed Friday the 13th update will not be a remake of the classic 1980 flick. According to sources, writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Freddy vs. Jason) will not be re-writing the original story. Going one step further, Shock reports that the flick would not be an origin story of any kind. Instead, Shock reports that the film will take place, "somewhere between parts two and four". As any horror fan knows, the story of Jason Voorhees and his reign of terror at Camp Crystal Lake is one of the cornerstones of 80's horror, and the thought of a remake had plenty of fans all up in arms. Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Marcus Nispel hopped onboard a few weeks ago to direct.

Just last week Scott had reported that there were still some details to iron out with the script; mainly how they were going to work around the fact that Jason did not really appear in the films until Part 2. As we all know, it was good old Mommy dearest doing the dispatching in the first film. If Shock's sources can be trusted then this means Nispel won't have to worry about how to work in the big daddy of slashers and his trusty goalie mask and they can just start fresh. Stay tuned for any official word on whether or not we will be seeing a "stronger, faster, better" Jason headed our way. Friday the 13th is set for release February 13, 2009.

Come on and listen to a story 'bout a man called Jay
He killed a thousand people way back in the day
He's been in 11 movies and he always comes back
Cuz the gorehounds love the guy like a junkie digs crack.

Now if you wanna see all his murders in a row
And you don't have time for a multi-movie show
I'll give you all a tip on a place that's hip
Head on down to JoBlo's for a YouTube clip!

(Yes kids that's right, we have ALL of Jason Voorhees' murders in one handy little 7-minute movie clip! He slices, he dices, he cooks 'em up with spices, ladies and gentlemen. No Friday the 13th is complete without JV's horrific arsenal of garden-variety flesh-piercers! We're talking hacksaws, hatchets and harpoons! Axes, arrows, machetes, spears, pitchforks, corkscrews, shears and knives! Um ... road flares, weed-whackers and electric guitars, too! Yes, there's nothing that Jason won't wield while trying to rid his peaceful forest home of those devious teenaged fornicators! And sometimes they smoke pot! Get 'em, Jason! So join us now in celebrating the fine work that Mr. Voorhees has done over the past quarter-century. Enjoy his full exploits -- without all that painful dialogue!)

It's been a while since we bothered to care if that alleged Friday the 13th prequel/remake/reload was actually happening, but according to a very reliable tip from some dude who went to a New Jersey Horrorcon -- the project IS moving forward.

Yes, that's right: The Friday the 13th re-do thingy is due to hit theaters "by July," so everyone warm up those hockey masks and grab that machete off the wall! Producer Andrew Form is the guy behind the project, and apparently he's just itchin' to make a few pennies off a series in which grown men get their heads punched off, people get shot in the eyeballs with arrows (in 3-D), and space-teens battle the undead with the help of a sexalicious robo-hottie. (And I haven't even gotten to that whole Voorhees vs. Krueger debacle.)

Mr. Form also assures us (and by "us," I mean the fans who don't really want a remake in the first place) that he will fight tooth and nail to keep his Friday an R-rated venture. As if one could actually make a movie called Friday the 13th and somehow deliver a PG-13 rating. Frankly, the fact that he even has to assure us makes me pretty damn skeptical.

For the record, Andrew Form's producerography includes titles like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), The Amityville Horror (2005), The Hitcher (2007), and a romantic comedy starring David Schwimmer.

On this day, 26 years ago, a hockey-masked teenage zombie named Jason began his reign of terror. Here are some links through which you might celebrate this joyous occasion:

• Friday the 13th - The Website - Pictures, multimedia, and, best of all, a chat room. Virtually high-five other hockey mask fetishists from the comfort of your own home.
• Two articles today on the demise of the Jason-esque villian icon of the 80s: Matt Zakosek in the Chicago Maroon, and Joy Neumaier in the NY Daily News.
• An essay on Paraskevidekatriaphobics – or, "people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th"
• The homepage for Avatar's Friday the 13th graphic novels.