He’s been re-incarnated (more than once), landed up in Manhattan and Hell, he's even been to space and faced up against Freddy Kruger, and now, Jason Voorhees has been 're-imagined'…

Thankfully, this time, new life has been breathed into the 'Friday The 13th' franchise and after more than two decades of increasingly ridiculous storylines, fans of the series have something to smile about.

Since the original film opened in 1980, Jason has been rehashed 11 times and with each passing film the character moved further away from the original concept. An icon of slasher movies, the masked monster descended into little more than a joke — a sluggish killing machine incapable of inspiring terror.

The series was in dire need of a reboot.

The latest instalment, while borrowing from the first three in the series, picks up where the first film left off — the be-heading of the demented Mrs Voorhees — and then fast-forwards 20-odd years. Jason is back, and unlike the later versions in the long-running series, he has a back story and, more importantly, a reason behind the killings.

Beginning with a spate of imaginative kills, the reimagining of the franchise delivers everything fans loved about the series, while managing to add some new elements for good measure. Sex, booze and drugs are in abundance and director Marcus Nispel introduces us to, not just one, but two ill-fated groups of oversexed college teens.

The first do not last long, but even in their short time on screen, you may just find yourselves rooting for their survival — something that has fallen by the wayside with today's penchant for unlikeable horror victims —.

Quick with the one-liners, and sharing a genuine rapport, the group are like any other group of college kids you know. Pity then, that they are all destined to end up dead…

The next group to arrive at Crystal Lake are much the same — rowdy, drug-fueled and amiable — and, of course, about to meet their doom. Led by the film's one real bastard, Trent (Travis van Winkle), the coeds are kicking back at his lakeside home, unaware of the fact that there is a machete-wielding maniac in the woods.

Meanwhile, Clay (Jared Padalecki, of 'Supernatural' fame) is searching for his missing sister Whitney (Amanda Righetti) — a search that leads him to the group of partying friends. With the help of Jenna (Danielle Panabaker), Clay takes his search to the woods, and from here the killing kicks off again as the film rolls into action.

Nispel thankfully avoids the torture-porn so abundant in modern horror; the kills are imaginative, but not over the top, while the hulking Derek Mears makes a formidable Jason.

One gripe could be the ending, but a successful remake (or re-imagining), of course, needs to leave room for a sequel. I can't help but feel that this should have been the final chapter, but considering the history of the 'Friday The 13th' franchise, that was never going to happen.