Friday the 13th (1980)

[7]

Producer/director Sean S. Cunningham admits Friday the 13th was a post-Halloween cash grab, but slasher fans decided there was plenty of room in the world for more than one killer franchise. All Cunningham needed was a great title that lent itself to recurring significance, and a compelling core piece of mythology — that a little boy drowned at Camp Crystal Lake when the teenaged counselors weren’t paying attention, and mysterious murders have happened there ever since. Is little Jason Voorhees still alive and on the prowl?

Of course, Jason is only a small part of this first movie in the series. For the longest time, we don’t know who is killing the camp counselors one by one. Cunningham offers us a lot of giallo-esque ‘killer’s point-of-view’ shots to keep their identity secret. Legendary makeup artist Tom Savini provides the gory kill effects, although there are a lot fewer of them than you might remember. Most of the deaths occur off camera (or off-frame) entirely — with one notable exception being the death of young co-star Kevin Bacon, who gets an arrow through his neck.

The series would become much gorier in an attempt to top itself and please the fans. But the first film makes up for it with atmosphere, courtesy of Harry Manfredini’s iconic music, long voyeuristic camera angles, and the titillating backdrop of a remote lakeside camp where nubile youths want nothing more than to strip naked and have sex. Like many slasher films, Friday the 13th dares audiences to break a cultural taboo — to spy on the carnal behavior of others, only to be punished for the infraction with a taste of death. The calculation may be simple and relatively easy to execute (slasher films get no respect), but the alternating significance of sex and death in horror films is indeed a thing of fascinating study.

The young protagonists look good in their swimwear, but no one gives a memorable performance among them. Adrienne King suffices as the franchise’s first ‘final girl’. Walt Gorney is laughably over-the-top as a local doomsayer, while Betsy Palmer seems to have discovered the right tone of the piece in her performance as Jason Voorhees’ troubled mother.

If this original Friday the 13th feels a bit paint-by-numbers today, try to remember how it would have felt before the slasher boom exploded in its wake. It’s more of a fun ride than great filmmaking, and that has an artistry of its own. The film offers at least one big twist/reveal that works all these years later, and the shocking coda sequence is still a dazzler — haunting enough to justify more Friday the 13th movies for decades to come.