Hopefully, there's something in President Obama's stimulus package that will help the ailing slasher-movie industry. Not only are horror filmmakers running out of ideas for this genre, but they can't even remake the old ones with any skill.

The reboot of the "Friday the 13th" series is a pretty big mess - not particularly scary or interesting or even gory by 21st century movie standards. The makers of this film have removed the handful of redeeming qualities from the original and added rejected subplots from "7th Heaven" and "The O.C.," where most of the cast members seem to have been recruited. If it wasn't for a topless waterskiing sequence, there would be nothing memorable to recommend to your friends.

It's not as if director Marcus Nispel had an especially difficult task, making a movie that equaled the original. "Friday the 13th," released in 1980, was an inferior knock-off of John Carpenter's "Halloween." The makers of the first "Friday" didn't have a better story or technical skills than Carpenter, so they ramped up the sex, gore and depravity. Their one genius idea was accessorizing Jason with a hockey mask, and they didn't get around to that until the third movie in the series. The best part about the original "Friday" was the chance for teen moviegoers to defy their parents and the critics, who had declared a national crisis because of the horror picture. If Siskel and Ebert spent an entire show trashing the movie, then we have to see it!

Ten sequels later, including the "Freddy vs. Jason" movie, it's hard to generate much outrage for this series re-launch, which despite several decapitations and impaled heads seems tame in the "Saw" and "Hostel" era. "Friday the 13th" has enough credited writers to field a hockey team, and each of them was able to contribute one-third of a good idea. (In addition to the topless waterskiing scene, there's some inventive use of a wood chipper.)

"Friday the 13th" begins with a short and grainy scene involving the history of Jason, his mother and Camp Crystal Lake. After Jason takes out several campers in a second pre-credit sequence, we move ahead to present day, where a strapping young Josh Brolin look-alike (Jared Padalecki) searches for his sister. Of course he runs into Jason, who also terrorizes a group of college students staying in the vacation house of a rich kid.

Notice that you didn't see the words "camp counselors" once? Creating a "Friday the 13th" movie without counselors is like making a "Godfather" movie without any mobsters. But these filmmakers try anyway, filling the story instead with modern product placement - including GPS devices, a Cadillac Escalade and an underground dungeon that looks like it was made by the same subcontractors responsible for Jame Gumb's lair in "Silence of the Lambs."

Both groups of machete fodder are made up of five or six stereotyped young people, who couldn't possibly be friends in real life: the spoiled wealthy kid, the pot-smoking tech nerd, the black guy who wants to start a rap label, the sensible girl who keeps complaining that everyone should turn around and drive home ...

No chance of that happening. Twenty-nine years may have passed, but the self-preservation skills of American teenagers hasn't gotten any better. Neither has the ability to make a great horror film.

-- Advisory: This film contains violence, profanity, sex scenes, drug use and that creepy "ki-ki-ki ma-ma-ma" sound effect (which would make a really badass ring tone).

E-mail Peter Hartlaub at phartlaub@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle