Friday the 13th (1980)
Friday the 13th
-1980
Reviewer: Indy McDaniel
Rating: 9
Director: Sean S. Cunningham
Writer: Victor Miller, Ron Kurz
Cast: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Jeanine Taylor, Robbi Morgan, Kevin Bacon
Run Time: 95 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Date Reviewed: March 30th, 2010
Plot: Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to re-open a summer camp that was the site of a child’s drowning.
Comments: Friday the 13th is two things. Simple and effective. There’s not a huge degree of plot involved. There’s no real compelling story and there’s not even much mystery. What there is, is a lot of young adults in a secluded location being picked off one by one by a psycho killer. It doesn’t have the atmosphere of Halloween. It doesn’t have the surrealism of A Nightmare on Elm Street. But it does have a surplus of (mostly) innocent camp counselors getting brutally murdered. And that really sums up not only the original Friday, but nearly the entire series.
What Friday lacks in substance it more than makes up for with style. And while there’s not a whole lot of surprises, it does manage to keep things interesting. More than once, characters you assume will be heroes/heroines wind up dead. That’s really what Friday does best. It takes a group of characters, all with their own issues and plot lines, and essentially renders whatever hopes/dreams/goals they have pointless since there’s the unforeseeable x-factor that gets in the way. X-factor personified by psycho killer who doesn’t give a shit about what you want to do after your summer vacation.
While the first Friday is much less graphic than most of its sequels, it still manages to bump off its cast of victims in a variety of creative ways. Kevin Bacon, in one of his first roles, has one of the most memorable deaths in horror movie history. Although the majority of the killings happen off-screen, the blood and guts that are shown are fairly well done, courtesy of Tom Savini. The hideously deformed Young Jason Voorhees is also plenty creepy.
Of the Big Three of 80’s slasher franchises (this, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street), Friday is probably the most imitated. The ‘killer in the woods stalking teenagers’ concept has been done to death (pun intended) since Friday the 13th came out. And while a few have managed to craft decent movies out of the concept, they’re all measured against this flick. As simple as it is, there’s a reason why it’s a horror classic.
Overall: The quintessential 80’s slasher flick. Required viewing for any aspiring horror nerd.
