A group of camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp which was the site of a child’s drowning and a grisly double murder years before.
When writer-director Sean S. Cunningham released “Friday the 13th” on May 9th, 1980, little did he know that his creation would go on to spawn one of the most iconic and beloved horror franchises in cinematic history. Granted, while the fans know that Jason did not appear until Part 2 and it wasn’t until Part 3 before he wore his now-famous hockey mask, the original “Friday the 13th” was a straightforward slasher flick, obviously inspired by John Carpenter’s seminal hit “Halloween,” just two years prior. Watching “Friday the 13th” for the first time in many years brought back a lot of memories of when I first saw it at 12 years of age back in 1984 in Dublin, Ireland, when my mother bought our very first VCR, thereby allowing my friends and I to terrorize my younger sister and her friends by renting out every horror film we could get our hands on and forcing them to watch them with us. “Friday the 13th” was one of the first movies I rented and even back then at such a young age, I remember not being overly impressed with it. That might have been because the first two horror films I ever rented was John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and Tobe Hooper’s “Poltergeist,” and after watching those two classics first, “Friday the 13th” just didn’t contain the same visceral energy and shock factor. Overall, it is still a good movie, albeit somewhat dated.
It is 1980 and a group of teenage camp counselors decide to re-open Camp Crystal Lake after sitting abandoned for over 22 years. Stories circulating about the camp state that a young boy drowned in the summer of 1957 while two of the counselors were having sex and their inattention is what caused the young inexperienced swimmer to drown. One year later, two young counselors are having sex in a cabin when they are attacked by a faceless assailant and brutally murdered. As a result of the killings, the camp is closed down and stays shut until present-day 1980. While the new counselors laugh off the old horror stories, one night after a severe thunderstorm envelopes the camp, history begins to repeat itself as one-by-one, they each succumb to a grisly fate, each more gruesome than the last. With only one counselor left, she must take on the attacker in a fight for her life!
With the film now celebrating its 40th anniversary, it is no secret that the killer was not, in fact, Jason but his mother, Mrs. Voorhees, played by Betsy Palmer. At the end of the film, she engages in a fight with Alice (Adrienne King), the lone surviving camp counselor but before Mrs. Voorhees can kill her, Alice grabs a machete and decapitates her instead. The film is left wide open for a sequel and a year later, that is exactly what we got with “Friday the 13th Part 2,” which in my opinion, was the best of the series. Some of the marketing genius by producer-director Sean S. Cunningham included him taking out a full-page ad in Variety with just the now-iconic FRIDAY THE 13TH logo, stating it was in production but at this point, the screenplay was being re-written by Victor Miller with no start date announced. The movie went on to be a big hit earning $5,816,321 in its opening weekend and finishing up at the US box office with almost $40 million. There have been numerous sequels, a TV serious, a crossover with “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” and a series reboot in 2009 and there is still talk about a sequel to the 2009 reboot but in the 11 years since its release, there appears to be no movement on that front.
Kevin Bacon was an unknown actor when he starred in “Friday the 13th” and he later went on to become a big name in Hollywood and while he was fine in the film, the acting, for the most part, was amateurish at best. Some of the line deliveries are cringeworthy and you wonder just how some of the actors got cast but acting aside, there is no denying the masterstroke of composer Harry Manfredini and special effects guru Tom Savini. One of the most memorable deaths in the movie is that of Kevin Bacon, while lying in bed smoking a joint after having sex with his girlfriend, a drop of blood lands on his face from the mattress above, causing him to look up and at that moment, a hand grabs him from under the bed and an arrow protrudes from his neck, causing blood to squirt everywhere. The other most memorable death was the beheading of Mrs. Voorhees which even by today’s standards, still holds up pretty well. Composer Harry Manfredini created the memorable “ki ki ki, ma ma ma” sound that is synonymous with Jason and “Friday the 13th” and is usually only heard when Jason is nearby, or in this case, his mother. Manfredini equated the film to that of “Jaws,” stating that the killer is not seen until the very end of the film and like that movie’s composer, John Williams, utilizes his score sparingly.
If you’ve never seen any of the Friday the 13th films, it would be worth checking out the original, that way, you will be able to watch the sequels in succession and see where Jason and his origins began. This “Friday the 13th” Limited Edition Blu-ray Steelbook features artwork from the original movie poster and includes the uncut, unrated version of the film, as well as access to a digital copy of the original theatrical version. Plus, plunge deeper into the film with previously released bonus content including commentary, interviews with cast and crew, and behind-the-scenes featurettes.
Available on a killer 40th Anniversary Blu-ray Steelbook June 16th
