‘High Tension’ Director Alexandre Aja Talks ‘Friday the 13th’

Once upon a time Alexandre Aja, who directed The Hills Have Eyes remake in addition to gems like Haute Tension and Horns, had designs on filming the Friday the 13^th remake/reboot/sequel. On one hand that sounds awesome, and Aja’s proven capable of approaching sacred ground without faltering. On the other hand, it’s nice to see Aja won’t be jumping right back into a preexisting universe. Let the man work on more original material, it’s good for him.

That said, Aja recently spoke with Bloody-Disgusting and shared a few thoughts on the new project. There’s some interesting insight to be gleaned by this statement:

“It’s very different, I mean the Friday the 13th script was a very very smart and a great opportunity to do something that was in the same time eerie, in the same time reinventing, and renouncing the wall. I think Friday the 13th was such a cool world because Jason became an icon and became such a cultural legend that it took like almost four movies to create the character the way people see him, and it would be really interesting to go back and say, you know, what would be a movie that people can bring back all together. Friday the 13th has an amazing character and I think there is room and they have a script now that’s really really amazing, to do something that’s absolutely scary and the same time a way to re-establish the character for a new generation. I’m not the one doing it, but I will definitely go see it.”

So, it sounds like Aja has read the script, and it sounds like he’s not only impressed, but maybe a little bummed that it’s not him behind the camera! No matter how you look at it, when a man like Aja co-signs a project, we horror nerds listen!

We’ll keep you updated on the new Friday the 13^th film, which is being directed by Breck Eisner (The Crazies), who works from a script written by Aaron Guzikowski (Prisoners).