After the crowd was pleasantly warmed up by the Watchmen presentation, up came Andrew Form and Brad Fuller in support of their new film, Friday The 13th, coming out this Friday the 13th. First a trailer was shown, one that’s been circulating for a while now. Then one of them (sorry, but neither were clearly identified, so I’ll be combining their names from this point forward) introduced stars Derek Mears (Jason) and Jared Padalecki (Clay Miller).
Jared’s entrance got a HUGE reaction from the female fans in the theatre, as expected by those of us Supernatural fans that were really psyched to see him there. Considering that the fans that I talked to in line had Jensen Ackles pictures on their phones and were proclaimed Dean fans, I was pleased to see the love for Jared. Jared looked fantastic by the way, and had a great smile on his face.
The first five minutes from the film was shown, and it was pretty graphic. Nah, I’m holding back. It wasn’t pretty. It showed four teens meeting their grizzly deaths, three of them very disturbing. One especially involving a sleeping bag and a camp fire. This clip instantly reminded me why I never saw the first eleven Friday The 13th movies. I don’t like slasher films. From a cinematic standpoint though, the scene was well done and far less cheesy than the 80’s counterparts of the genre.
Time for the too short Q&A part of the panel. The moderator asked why they would want to tackle the Friday the 13
th franchise, and Form and Fuller asked how could they not? They loved these movies growing up. That answer was backed up by both Jared and Derek as well.
A fan asked Jared about if he and his Supernatural co-star Jensen Ackles, who recently starred in his own horror film My Bloody Valentine, talked about their movies at all with each other. Jared answered it involved a lot of underhanded comments, like “what are you doing on Friday the 13th?” He went on to explain they were both very supportive of each other’s films and he attended the screening of Jensen’s film with him. He also boasted his film is going to do better.
The next fan mentioned as a fan of the original films, this is the first clip he saw where he didn’t laugh at the footage and appreciated the lack of cheese. Someone asked an off the wall question about Jared’s character resembling one in the 4
th movie, and a round about answer in which they didn’t address anything from the previous movies came out of that.
Next question was for Jared, asking him if he wanted to do a romantic comedy. Derek Mears in a mock diva fit slammed down the microphone and walked away. Jared of course played it up, pretending to go after him, and they both had a good laugh on the way back to the table. Jared joked that after Jason comes out of the trees they have a laugh and a hug. After getting the crowd going by mentioning that he’s obviously familiar with the genre after doing 80 episodes of Supernatural, he talked about how this opportunity came up and he got excited about it since he’s a fan. He promised he’ll keep his eye out for romantic comedy someday, maybe calling it Saturday the 14th. He’s been using that joke a bit too much lately, but the crowd still liked it.
Next a hard core Jason fans came out, why do they need a 12th film where Jason goes back to Crystal Lake? Fuller or Form took on that question with a great answer, “We decided we wanted to do it…we had a great time doing it.”
Someone asked Jared in a very roundabout way (somehow the word damsel came out) if he wanted to play the villain in a film. Heck, forget film, I want to see him become a villain in Supernatural. He said he wanted to play the damsel, and then said he would love to play the villain, but he admitted how difficult that is. He had nothing but praise for Derek Mears and what he brings to the table as Jason.
The fan last question was for Derek Mears, asking if he got any pointers from the predecessors that played Jason. He said he took a few things from the previous films, but used the script as a blueprint and made his own character.
The moderator got in the last question, asking everyone to recall what they thought when they saw Derek in the full Jason makeup for the first time. Form and Fuller were impressed with the transformation. Jared talked about how he arrived a few weeks late for shooting because of Supernatural, so the very first scene with Jason he had to remind himself he was on a movie set, because the way he came out of the woods seemed so real.
After the next panel was done (which was a riot!), we worked our way like cattle through the masses to the exhibit area to the
Friday the 13th autograph session with supposedly plenty of time to spare. The autograph area was strategically placed in the far back of the hall and there were ridiculously long lines by the time we got there. Everything was disorganized and after tons of confusion about which line to get into, we found out they closed the line since the session was only an hour. Getting out of there wasn’t much easier.
At least we had good seats at the panel, so that was something. I wish the film nothing but success, especially for Jared since this is his first starring role in a feature film. Me, I’ll wait for the DVD.