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Friday The 13th
[Paramount]
1980; color
Directed by Sean S. Cunningham
Starring: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Jeannine Taylor, Kevin Bacon, Mark Nelson, Robbi Morgan & Peter Brouwer
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While it's not the best entry in the series, the original Friday The 13th is still an undisputed classic and lays down the basic framework for what's become over two decades worth of sequels. When I saw this in the theater in 1980 I was blown away by it's then over-the-top level of gore. I had seen Halloween a couple years earlier but the splatter genre still hadn't fully emerged (at least in the US); I think a fair argument can be made that this was the picture that burst open the floodgates of bloody FX that would become a trademark for slasher flicks. The story follows the saga of seven would-be summer camp employees, and the camp owner, as they prepare the long-shuttered Camp Crystal Lake for it's first open season in 20 years. (As the story goes, the camp was closed after a series of incidents in the late '50s; after a boy - Jason Voorhees - drowned at the camp, there was a series of mysterious fires and two counselors were murdered. All of which earned the site the nickname "Camp Blood.") As they eagerly begin working on getting everything together for the kids, the group receives an ominous warning from the prophetic and crazy local town drunk: 'You're doomed. You're all doomed!' Of course, he's right and as soon as a conveniently timed storm rolls in at nightfall, the kids promptly begin to disappear one by one. Except it's spaced out enough and happens in such an innocuous way that no one seems to notice until almost everyone is dead. Once that happens and we're down to one terrified girl trying to save her own ass, it's almost as if she can't go ten feet without running into or stumbling over a bloodied corpse. (I've gotta admit I do love the way the killer hides the bodies until they can be used later for maximum terror.) But to get down to the grizzly basics… while the original doesn't have quite the inventiveness of the sequels when it comes down to how the victims are dispatched, there are still some notable methods of execution that I don't remember seeing, or at least seeing done so well, in a film before. (I guess it's proper to note here that this is one of the movies that really put Tom Savini on the map, and that some the effects he created for it set the standard for splatter for years to come.) The most notable victim is Kevin Bacon (in one of his early roles), who gets an arrow driven through his back and out his chest like a drill bit. But my favorite moment, far and away, is when the killer is beheaded and you see the apparently still living hands grasping at the air for what's gotta be five full seconds—it's one of the first glimmers of black humor that became a hallmark of '80s US splatter flicks. There's even a '70 grindhouse horror style fake ending that not only sets the table for the first of the sequels, it's a great surprise that I still get a kick out of even though I know it's coming. On the whole this movie holds up quite well after 26 years and is a true must-see for any horror / gore or '80s film fan.
—the Kommandant
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Cause Of
Jason's Re-Birth:
n/a
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Setting:
Camp Crystal Lake
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Body Count:
10
(not including Jason)
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Methods Of Death:
stabbing (2);
throat slitting (3);
arrow impalement (2);
axe in the head (1);
beheading (1);
unknown (1)
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Cause Of
Jason's Death:
Drowning
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