"Friday The 13th" writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon include a number of nods to the original franchise in their reboot film, which opens Feb. 13. Compressing the original movies' first three chapters, "Friday The 13th" is set in the present, focusing on a new cast of characters. Naturally, Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears) returns as the masked killer who prowls Camp Crystal Lake for those foolish enough to trespass in his woods. "You don't want to reinvent him (Jason) too much," Shannon explained during a recent press event in Beverly Hills, Calif. "You want to keep him true to his original roots and his mythology, but come up with some sort of new, fresh twists that a modern audience hasn't seen." "You want to keep a little bit of mystery to it," Swift said. "For instance, did he really drown or not, you know? How did he come back? Where's his father? All that kind of stuff. We weren't going to bring in that. Because I think that takes a little bit away from it, truthfully. " Expect winks to the original's mythology and knack for creatively gruesome murders, jokes, nudity and sex. "We're actually just trying to make sure that the hardcore fans have little things that they can kind of look at each other and wink," Swift said. "Like, we as fans wanted to see him in the sack again. We wanted to see that. I wanted to see him with the hockey mask." "We wanted to see Jason run again, because he kind of turned into this lumbering zombie that would just kind of stalk after you," Shannon explained. "And if you watch the original films, in parts two and three, he runs. And he comes after you like a crazy hillbilly." New to the reboot is Jason's lair. It's underground, which offers cover for his hunts. "It was important for us to make him human again," Swift said. "And so we kind of had to think a little bit logically on 'Well, how could he really survive in the woods? Nobody sees him. Well, what if he was underground? What if he did have these sort of areas that he could hide out in?'" Like many past films in the series, humor plays its part. However, finding an effective balance was a critical concern. "We definitely tried to inject a lot of humor between the characters," Shannon said. "Always keeping in mind that, if there's a scary moment, don't make it funny." "Yeah, we never wanted to make Jason the expense of any jokes," Swift said. "We didn't want to combine comedy with him." Each "Friday The 13th" film screams for a sequel. Is one already lurking on the horizon? "Oh, we have a lot of ideas," Swift said. "Yeah. I mean, I would love to see another one. I would love to see the series continue. I would love this to be the restart for it." "Friday The 13th" is directed by Marcus Nispel ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"), and stars Jared Padalecki, Amanda Righetti and Danielle Panabaker. Mark Wheaton ("The Messengers") helped craft the story with Shannon and Swift. Sean S. Cunningham, creator of the original franchise, received an executive producer credit. Express yourself and be part of the news! Leave a comment below or join our rabid discussions on the SyBoards.