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Friday the 13th (1980)
The Dead Teenager Movie
Directed By: Sean S. Cunningham
Starring: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, & Laurie Bartram
MPAA Rating: “R”
Starring: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, & Laurie Bartram
MPAA Rating: “R”
If Halloween (1978) was a slasher film about suspense and mystery, Friday the 13th (1980) is one about dead teenagers. That really is all there is to it; a low-budget shocker with a shoestring plot and not much to say created a wave of films that attempted to do the same thing with much poorer results. People often compare Friday the 13th with Halloween, but the two films are really quite different. Halloween was never about the killings; it was all about the terror behind them. This is why so many of the death scenes are so brief, whereas the stalk scenes are so long. Friday the 13th is all about hacking up a bunch of oversexed teenagers in a multitude of ways. However, it does this in a brutally effective and very creepy way.
A slew of teenagers you have probably seen before, including the smart and good-hearted Alice (King), all accept positions at a secluded summer camp for children. Local townspeople warn them all about the place; “It has a death curse!” and so on and so forth. Supposedly, years earlier, a young boy supposedly drowned at the camp and then, the year after that, two counselors were brutally murdered. The killer was never found. A few days before the campers are set to arrive, all of the counselors are busy preparing. However, someone does not want the camp to reopen and he or she is willing to do anything to make sure that it doesn’t. Very quickly, counselors begin to die one-by-one in a variety of ghoulish ways. Could it possibly be that the young dead boy from so long ago has come back for his revenge...or is someone else responsible?
Everyone with half a brain cell and even the slightest knowledge of the horror genre knows the answer to that question...well, Drew Barrymore didn’t. The conclusion to this film is a rather surprising one and one that is often forgotten by fans who came into the series in later installments. I won’t spoil it, though, for the two of you that do not know. The series that most people know really started with the second or third film (depending on your definition of Jason Voorhees) and this is unfortunate because Friday the 13th is a well-made dead teenager movie, one that is shot with style and filmed with enthusiasm. Its death scenes never skimp on the brutality and the final showdown between the killer and the token girl is an exercise in tension and suspense (loved the pantry bit, by the way).
Throw likable characters, slick direction, a cool musical score, and a final scare that still gives me chills on top of all of that and you have one of the best dead teenager movies ever made. Made in 1980 and birthed primarily off the success of Carpenter’s Halloween, it was followed by countless sequels and rip-offs that attempted to do the exact same thing as this except without creativity and without much fun. The best thing that can be said about all of these inferior films, however, is that they certainly make me appreciate the original even more. This is one of those horror classics that should be a staple in every horror fan’s collection. With a remake (that supposedly may also fit in the original series as well) coming in 2009 and probably even more sequels after that, it seems obvious that Friday the 13th is one of those horror gems that will continue to live on for years to come.
A slew of teenagers you have probably seen before, including the smart and good-hearted Alice (King), all accept positions at a secluded summer camp for children. Local townspeople warn them all about the place; “It has a death curse!” and so on and so forth. Supposedly, years earlier, a young boy supposedly drowned at the camp and then, the year after that, two counselors were brutally murdered. The killer was never found. A few days before the campers are set to arrive, all of the counselors are busy preparing. However, someone does not want the camp to reopen and he or she is willing to do anything to make sure that it doesn’t. Very quickly, counselors begin to die one-by-one in a variety of ghoulish ways. Could it possibly be that the young dead boy from so long ago has come back for his revenge...or is someone else responsible?
Everyone with half a brain cell and even the slightest knowledge of the horror genre knows the answer to that question...well, Drew Barrymore didn’t. The conclusion to this film is a rather surprising one and one that is often forgotten by fans who came into the series in later installments. I won’t spoil it, though, for the two of you that do not know. The series that most people know really started with the second or third film (depending on your definition of Jason Voorhees) and this is unfortunate because Friday the 13th is a well-made dead teenager movie, one that is shot with style and filmed with enthusiasm. Its death scenes never skimp on the brutality and the final showdown between the killer and the token girl is an exercise in tension and suspense (loved the pantry bit, by the way).
Throw likable characters, slick direction, a cool musical score, and a final scare that still gives me chills on top of all of that and you have one of the best dead teenager movies ever made. Made in 1980 and birthed primarily off the success of Carpenter’s Halloween, it was followed by countless sequels and rip-offs that attempted to do the exact same thing as this except without creativity and without much fun. The best thing that can be said about all of these inferior films, however, is that they certainly make me appreciate the original even more. This is one of those horror classics that should be a staple in every horror fan’s collection. With a remake (that supposedly may also fit in the original series as well) coming in 2009 and probably even more sequels after that, it seems obvious that Friday the 13th is one of those horror gems that will continue to live on for years to come.
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