FRIDAY THE 13th (1980)

Studio:       Paramount Pictures
Director:    Sean S. Cunningham
Writer:       Victor Miller
Producer:  Sean S. Cunningham
Stars:     Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan, Kevin Bacon, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Walt Gorney, Ari Lehman

Review Score: 

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Summary:

A murderer stalks the counselors preparing to reopen a summer camp that was once the site of several gruesome deaths.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Camp Crystal Lake, 1958 – An unknown assailant murders two counselors when they sneak off to have sex.

Friday, June 13 – The Present – New camp counselor Annie backpacks through town on a hike to Camp Crystal Lake in New Jersey. At a local store, Annie learns that the townspeople refer to the camp as “Camp Blood.” Truck driver Enos gives Annie a ride part of the way. Before they leave, local lunatic Crazy Ralph gives Annie a cryptic warning. On the drive, Enos tells Annie that two counselors were murdered at the camp in 1958 and a young boy drowned there in 1957. There was also a series of fires and a planned reopening in 1962 was scuttled after the water turned bad. Enos drops off Annie at the Moravian Cemetery in Hope, New Jersey.

Jack Burrel, Marcie Cunningham, and Ned Rubinstein arrive at Camp Crystal Lake to work on preparing the camp for its opening. Camp owner and operator Steve Christy speaks with counselor Alice Hardy about their relationship. Alice mentions to another counselor named Bill that Annie is the only person who has not yet arrived. Ned goofs around and flirts with camp counselor Brenda as she sets up the archery range.

While hitchhiking, Annie accepts a ride from a shadowy figure driving a Jeep. When the driver speeds past the road to Camp Crystal Lake, Annie realizes that she is in danger and she jumps from the vehicle. She is pursued through the forest until the driver slashes Annie’s throat against a tree.

Brenda thinks that she sees someone watching them while she and the others swim in the lake. Ned plays a prank on the group by pretending to drown. Bill uses a machete on a snake that slithers into Alice’s cabin.

Officer Dorf comes to the camp looking for Crazy Ralph. Alice finds Ralph in the kitchen closet. He gives the counselors a warning before biking away from the property.

Ned sees a strange figure entering one of the cabins and investigates. Marcie tells Jack about a strange dream that she had. When a rainstorm starts, Marcie and Jack retreat to one of the cabins and have sex. Alice, Bill, and Brenda play strip Monopoly in another cabin.

After sex, Marcie leaves to use the restroom. While Jack lies in the bottom bunk, blood begins dripping onto him. A hand from underneath the bed grabs his head and shoves an arrow up through his throat. Marcie is stalked in the bathroom before she is murdered with an axe. Brenda ends the Monopoly game and returns to her cabin when she remembers that she left her windows open.

Steve has a meal at the Blairstown Diner. When his Jeep breaks down on the way back to camp, Steve accepts a lift from Police Sergeant Tierney. Meanwhile, Brenda hears a voice crying, “help me!” She goes into the rain to investigate and is attacked when someone blinds her by turning on the archery range lights.

Bill returns to Alice’s cabin. Alice tells him that she heard Brenda scream and that someone turned on the archery range lights. She and Bill go looking for Brenda and find a bloody axe in her bed. They also discover that the phone line is cut and their truck will not start.

Sgt. Tierney drops off Steve on the road when he is called to an accident scene. While hiking the rest of the way in the woods, Steve encounters a familiar face that then stabs him in his stomach.

Bill works on the generator while Alice makes coffee. Alice eventually goes in search of Bill and finds him pinned to a cabin door with arrows. Alice barricades herself inside another cabin. Brenda’s body is thrown through the window from outside.

Alice goes outside when she sees the lights of a Jeep approaching. The driver introduces herself as Mrs. Pamela Voorhees, an old friend of the Christy family. Alice screams about the murders and Mrs. Voorhees insists that she be shown the bodies.

When she sees Brenda’s body, Mrs. Voorhees tells Alice that a young boy drowned in the lake the year before the other two teenagers were murdered. The counselors were off making love when they should have been watching the boy. Mrs. Voorhees identifies the boy as Jason and mentions that today is his birthday. Alice realizes that Mrs. Voorhees is the murderer when she reveals that Jason was her son and speaks in his voice.

Alice knocks over Mrs. Voorhees when she comes at her with a knife. Alice runs away and finds Annie’s body in the Jeep and Steve’s body swinging upside down from a tree. After a series of chases and fights, the two women confront each other on the beach. Alice is eventually able to take Mrs. Voorhees’ machete and Alice then beheads her.

Alice takes a canoe out onto the lake. She wakes in the morning and sees policemen on the shore. Suddenly, a disfigured boy rises from the water and pulls Alice under.

Alice awakens in a hospital bed. She asks Sgt. Tierney and the doctor about the boy from the lake. Confused, Sgt. Tierney says that they never found any boy.

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Review:

Anyone born in a time when a half dozen or more sequels already existed in the “Friday the 13th” film series may find visiting the original to be either unintentionally condescending or unintentionally laughable.  The film is by no means bad or unwatchable, it is just that in a contemporary horror landscape that is post-“Scream” and post-“Cabin in the Woods,” going into “Friday the 13th” without an appreciation for the era in which it was made will find the movie showing every year of its age.  Not to mention that those truly unfamiliar with the series’ origins will be doubly disappointed to learn that Jason Voorhees only appears in a brief epilogue cameo.

Of the major fright film franchises from the 1980’s and 1990’s, which include “Halloween,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” etc., “Friday the 13th” is the one that holds up the most unfavorably.  Ignore the hairstyles and the wardrobe, and Michael Myers’ earliest outing exists as timeless with suspense-based scares and classic themes.  An anamorphic aspect ratio and early employ of steadicam also lend “Halloween” a remarkably current look.  A large part of the appeal for “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in the first place is its dated seventies vibe and grainy 16mm film with screeching soundtrack.  It is effective because of its gritty quality.  “Nightmare” holds up similarly well by modern standards, and its iconic slasher has the advantage of being present from the outset.  Meanwhile, as dolphin shorts and feathered hair occupy the real estate onscreen, a straightforward approach to cinematic storytelling keeps “Friday the 13th” frozen in 1980 like Han Solo in carbonite.

Similar to “Halloween,” “Friday the 13th” opens with the first-person perspective of an unidentified killer stalking and slaughtering two counselors at Camp Crystal Lake in 1958.  Flash forward to “The Present” and Steve Christy has recruited a handful of enthusiastic teenagers to help him reopen the site that locals now refer to as “Camp Blood.”  Even though it has been over twenty years since the last death, someone picks up where the murders left off and the new counselors begin disappearing one by one in suitably bloody fashion.

As a murder mystery, the movie does not work because it has no true suspects.  Anyone that qualifies as a potential red herring is exonerated almost immediately in a subsequent scene.  And the person who is the killer is only first introduced in the final minutes of the film, cheating the audience out of any chance to figure things out before the climax.

“Friday the 13th” truly is the definition of a “slasher.”  It has no actual plot.  A group of teenagers is in the woods preparing a campsite and someone butchers them all.  There are a few brief teases of romantic subplots between various characters, but there is no definable story of which to speak.

If it were released nowadays, “Friday the 13th” would be mercilessly panned by critics and universally loathed by audiences.  But it was not.  It belongs to a time when its tropes had not yet become clichés.  And viewing it under that light of being a trendsetter in horror casts “Friday the 13th” as something that was genuinely effective for its time.

Everything that horror movies presently take for granted is included: a cryptic warning from a crazy old man, wandering alone in the woods, the phone line being cut, the power going out, a Final Girl left to alone to battle the baddie, and a lot of phrases like, “stay here while I go take a look.”  “Friday the 13th” was not the first slasher film, but whatever it did not borrow from what came before, it set the pace for every clone that followed.

Various elements of the film stand the test of time better than others.  Innovative for their time, Tom Savini’s makeup FX still have good ideas, like the arrow through Kevin Bacon’s throat, but outdated techniques reveal a lot of the seams, such as the prosthetic on Robbi Morgan’s slashed throat.  Meanwhile, Harry Manfredini’s familiar intonations of “ki ki ki, ma ma ma” continue to be just as effectively creepy now as they were back then.

The original “Friday the 13th” is a “get the job done” horror movie.  But it is a job that it does well, even if it is done simply.  Few fans would argue for it as the greatest installment in the series, although its impact on the genre is undeniable.  And for that one reason alone, “Friday the 13th” will always remain a classic.

Review Score:  75

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 Friday the 13th Part 2 Review

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