Friday the 13th (1980)
Directed by Sean S. Cunningham
Happy Halloween! What a long journey it has been this year in the marathon. This month flew by and honestly it was a nice distraction for me personally. Had some bad news at the end of September and the October movie marathon helped me cope with it all by keeping me busy. That’s what movies can do for you, they help you escape in moments of personal tragedy. Ok all of that behind us now, I wanted to watch a classic this year. So I dug up my Friday the 13th DVD that I bought at a garage sale over 15 years ago now, wow I feel old. Now that I think about it, I wish I could hit that garage sale now, the person obviously loved horror movies, they even had a stitch faced Chucky doll for sale. I grabbed a few gems from their movie collection and moved on.
After Halloween, there was a slew of ripoffs and followers. Shortly after seeing the movie, Sean S. Cunningham decided he could make his own Halloween style movie. He had the title Friday the 13th before the script was even written. He found funding, got a deal with Paramount and with Victor Miller started getting the script made. Little did he know, he was creating one of the most iconic horror movie franchises ever made. Cunningham recruited Tom Savini to do the special effects. Savini was fresh off from Dawn of the Dead and has become THE special effects master. From there they started planning out the kills and gore. Friday the 13th would go on to be known for its elaborate and gruesome death scenes, which actually became a staple in the genre as a whole. Bettsy Palmer was casted as Mrs. Voorhees, continuing/establishing the tradition of having a strong veteran actor/actress in with a mix of young actors in slasher movies. The trend started with Donald Pleasance in Halloween as Doctor Loomis. Palmer helped anchor the movie. Adrienne King was casted as the final girl Alice, and little-known actor Kevin Bacon has an early career role as Jack. With the rest of the cast set, they were ready to go.
The plot of the first film centers around a group of young people setting up a summer camp for children. The camp was home to a string of deaths in the past. In 1957 a young boy drowned and the following year a few counselors were murdered. The locals nicknamed Camp Crystal Lake, “Camp Blood” and warn anyone looking to return there. Once all the counselors arrive, they start noticing odd things and they start getting picked off, one by one by an unseen killer. Alice is the final girl alive and she has to fight off the mysterious killer.
By now everyone and their cousin has seen this movie, so I really can’t say spoiler alert. The killer ends up being Mrs. Voorhees, the mother of the young boy (Jason) that drowned in 1957. She killed the counselors the following year as retaliation for her son’s accidental death. She blames the counselors for having sex and not watching her son in the lake, whom wasn’t a strong swimmer. Mrs. Voorhees is obviously a nutcase and even talks to herself in Jason’s voice. She is driven to murder the new counselors by the spirit of her dead son. She isn’t as stealthy or unstoppable as later slasher villains but it really makes sense, the woman is in her 60s. She gets knocked over, staggers around, she’s clumsy and it is very realistic.
The acting is average really, for the genre that is. I have seen better, Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street for example but I have seen much worse like 80% of slasher movies for example haha. Betsy Palmer is great as the deranged Mrs. Voorhees, you feel her pain and anger over Jason’s death, even if it was almost 30 years prior. Adrienne King is not great, nor is she really even attractive, but she has kind of a charm to her that I can’t quite put my finger on. She ends up being strong enough to take down Mrs. Voorhees and survive. The other castmates are kind of just there for bodies. Kevin Bacon doesn’t show much promise in this movie and you’d be surprised watching this then watching some of his later work, hell even Footloose he’s way way better.
As mentioned before Tom Savini did the special effects, which for the time are incredible. Some of the kills became legendary in the genre. The axe to the face, the arrow up through the throat of Kevin Bacon, and Mrs. Voorhees’ decapitation at the end are all amazing. His creativity and ability to make something out of nothing is unmatched. The lengths he goes to, to get the shot he wants is inspiring. A behind the scenes look is shown in the documentary Crystal Lake Memories, an amazing documentary if you have about 5 hours to waste haha. There is lots of gore and blood, enough to satisfy most people and it helps to keep the movie interesting during the slow parts.
The ending? Yeah that is an interesting one! Alice and Mrs. Voorhees battle on the beach and Alice grabs a machete. She chops Mrs. Voorhees’ head clean off! Alice then, for whatever reason, gets in a canoe and lays down. Day comes and a cop is walking towards the beach looking out at Alice. Alice sits up in the canoe and looks at the cop, then all of a sudden Jason pops up and grabs her, pulling her into the water. The next scene, Alice wakes up in the hospital and asks the cop what happened to the little boy. No one seems to know what she’s talking about and she says “then he’s still there”. It sets up for a sequel, but you have to sit and think about what happened. Did she imagine the whole canoe part? Did she pass out after killing Mrs. Voorhees? Or did she actually get pulled into the lake by Jason and she was rescued by the police? It is really odd and is only there for a last second jump but it is all in fun and really caught me off guard the first time I saw it.
There are a bunch of people that think this movie is horrible. I really don’t think that, it was the first in the series, a series that went on way too long. It is slow, the characters really aren’t developed that well and some of the dialogue is kind of lame. Friday the 13th has to be respected because of what it did for the slasher genre. It was extremely profitable with a $550K budget, and making $59.8M. It ushered in numerous rip offs and sequels. The slasher genre exploded in the early 80s and there are a bunch of good entries with similar stories such as The Burning. Jason came in the sequels and became probably THE most recognizable horror killer ever created. While the movie isn’t perfect, it isn’t nearly as bad as many say, nor is it as good as some say. I love this movie, I watched it at a young age and really enjoyed it. I would say Friday the 13th is an A- in my book. If the characters were developed more it would probably get a full on A from me. Also if it was a standalone film, it wouldn’t be rated so highly to me, but I have to appreciate what it did, what it influenced and how it was made.
